Day 13: Chat

You might not know IRC, but you should, if for no other reason that the ability to get help from other Opera users in case you need it. It’s easy and already built-in to Opera (and if you don’t want to use it, you don’t have to).

Here’s how to get into Opera Chat:

Start by going to Tools → Mail and chat accounts…

If you have previously created an account (such as a mail account) then you will see a window like this:

If you see this window, press “New”

If you have not set up an account previously, you will see this instead:

If you see this window, click “Yes”

Be sure to select “Chat (IRC)” before selecting “Next”

Enter your real name and email address

IRC uses “Nicks” (similar to Screen Names in AOL Instant Messenger). Choose one here.

IRC “nicks” are different from Screen Names in that you don’t choose it once and get to use it forever. They are more first-come, first-served. As long as no one else is currently using the same nick, you can use whatever you want up to 8 ASCII letters/numbers and some punctuation: - [ \ ] ^ ` { | } _. You can change your nick whenever you want by clicking the “Change Nick” button (see last image, below) or by typing “/nick foo” to change your nick to “foo”

If you want to connect to Opera’s IRC network, leave this as is. Otherwise enter the IRC server here.

After you click “Finish” you will see a list of available rooms. You can also bring up this list by selecting “List Rooms” button (see last image, below). Note the Quick Search box which will help you find the room you are looking for. Just start typing and it will show any matching rooms.

You can join a chatroom by clicking on one from the list (easiest) or clicking on the “New Room” button. However, I recommend using the list, because it ensures that you won’t accidentally mistype the room name and end up all by yourself wondering where everyone is!

IRC rooms are usually indicated with a # before the name, for example “#opera” means “The ‘opera’ chat room and “#lounge” means the Lounge chat room. However you do not need to use a # before the room name when using the Join Chat Room box.

If you are already logged into one room (for example, “opera”) and you want to join another one (such as “lounge”) just type “/join #lounge” in the area where you would normally enter a message. You can join as many rooms as you want.

Once you are logged in, you will see a list of users in the current room over on the right. The names in bold are “Operators” who are there to keep the peace.

Opera Chat Room Rules

In IRC, chat rooms are also sometimes called “channels”.

You can generally find Opera users in the Opera Chat Room 24 hours a day. That’s one of the nice things about having users all over the world. Feel free to pop in whenever you want to ask a question about Opera. However, there are some things you should know.

People in the Opera Chat Room are there to talk about Opera and to offer help. Those you find there are not paid to be there, they are there because they want to help. If you have an Opera related question, they are good people to ask. BUT the Opera chat room is NOT the place to go if you just want to chat idly about whatever crosses your mind. If you want to talk about non-Opera topics, join the #lounge.

If you go into #opera and start talking about non-Opera related subjects, you will be asked to stay on-topic (simply put: talk about Opera, in English). This is done to maintain the usefulness of the room without people having to deal with a constant barrage of “asl?” or “Where are you from?” requests in a room where people come for help with Opera.

If you go into #opera and start chatting about unrelated topics, people will ask you to move to the lounge (simply type /join #lounge where you usually type a message). If you persist, you will most likely get “kicked” from a room. Being “kicked” is a fairly severe action, and is not used lightly, but is used when necessary. You may rejoin the room by typing “/join #opera” but understand that if you come back and continue to talk be a nuisance, you may risk being “banned” at which point you will be unable to connect for 24 hours.

Sound harsh? Maybe, but if you’re going to be a part of a community, it seems fair to ask that you stick to the rules that everyone else is following. You wouldn’t go to a discussion group about baseball and yell A/S/L and expect to be warmly greeted, would you? Call up some software support hotline and try that and see how long it takes before you are disconnected.

If you are unable to read/write English, you can probably find another room with other users who speak your language. Scroll down or type into the Quick Search box. If you still can’t find an appropriate room, you might check in “lounge” to see if there is someone there who can help.

Private Messaging in IRC

You can send someone a “PM” (Private Message) by double clicking on their name in the list on the side of the chat window. However, the room rules also state: “Don’t PM people without a good reason.” Which is to say: don’t use private messages unless a) you already know the person well enough to know they won’t mind, or b) you have been invited to send a PM (generally someone will say: “Let’s discuss this in PM” or words to that effect).

Off-topic, unsolicited Private Messages will also get you kicked or banned from a room, especially if you PM someone in bold or someone with an @ in front of their name.

Automating Opera Chat

So that’s not too complicated, but what if you want to make it even easier? What if you know that whenever you log into the Opera IRC server, you want to join both #opera and #lounge? Can that be made easier? Yup, of course it can (otherwise why would I bring it up?)

Again, start by going to Tools → “Mail and chat accounts…” Then click on the IRC account and click “Edit”. That will bring up a window where you can edit the account information you entered earlier. Click on the “Outgoing” tab, and you will see this:

A few notes: I suggest turning off the setting “Can accept incoming connections” because I don’t particularly like the idea of just anyone being able to send me files. Of course, the voices in my head tell me that I’m paranoid, so decide for yourself if you want to leave that on or off.

The more important part is the white area at the bottom. There you can enter commands for Opera to execute whenever you login to the IRC server. In the above example, I have told Opera to automatically log me into both #lounge and #opera.

“Open private chat windows in the background” is a good idea, because it prevents people from popping up a window in front of whatever you are doing. The downside is that it can sometimes be difficult to see that someone has sent you a private message if you already have a lot of other pages open.

The End, for now..

So that tells you how to setup Opera Chat. Right now Opera only supports IRC, but hopefully support for AIM, Jabber, Yahoo, or even MSN will be included in the future. Ok, so maybe MSN support isn’t likely given Microsoft’s history of blocking Opera, but maybe someday.

See Also

Why does MacOpera ask for Authentication with Opera Chat?