X-Chat

X-Chat, commonly written XChat or xchat, is one of the most popular Internet relay chat Client_(computing)s for Unix-like systems. It is also available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X (via an offshoot of the project, called X-Chat Aqua, which keeps in sync with the main development branch and is much more popular than the official version maintained by the Fink project). It has a Tabbed Document Interface interface, support for multiple servers, and a high level of configurability. Both command line interface and graphical user interface versions are available, although use of the graphical version far outweighs use of the command line version. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License and uses the GTK toolkit for its interface.

X-Chat appears to have been strongly influenced by the once-popular AmIRC client for the Amiga.

X-Chat can be scripted with a number of programming languages: Perl, Python programming language, Tcl, and Ruby (programming language), which are available as external plugins and contain a binary module interface, usually for the C programming language.

As of August 23, 2004, the [http://www.xchat.org/windows/ official Windows build of X-Chat] has become shareware, and must be purchased for .

=See also=

*List of IRC clients *Comparison of IRC clients

=External links=

==Support==

*[http://www.xchat.org/ X-Chat website] **[http://www.xchat.org/faq/ FAQ] **[http://forum.xchat.org/ Forum] **[http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Xchat linuxquestions.org wiki], very useful information, goes beyond the [http://www.xchat.org/faq/ FAQ] *[http://xchataqua.sourceforge.net/ X-Chat Aqua website] *[irc://irc.freenode.net/#xchat/ X-Chat support channel on Freenode network.] *[irc://irc.efnet.info/#xchat/ X-Chat support channel on EFNET network.]

==Unofficial Versions and Builds==

*[http://xchataqua.sourceforge.net/ X-Chat Aqua] for Mac OS X *[http://xchat-gnome.navi.cx/ X-Chat Gnome]

===Windows Builds (GPL)===

[http://www.silenceisdefeat.org/~b0at/xchat/win32/ X-Chat on Windows Build Lineup]

Builds that are still being updated: *[http://www.xchat-free.pt.vu/ Pu7o build] *[http://kernel.ws/~daemon404.hosting/ Daemon404 build] *[http://www.silverex.org/ SilvereX build] ([http://www.silverex.info/ alternate])

Builds that are no longer being updated: *[http://www.geocities.com/eatdeadmonkeys/ Stryker build] *[http://www.sencesa.com/xchat/index.htm Sencesa Build] *[http://jensge.org/index.phpid=47 Jensge Build] *[http://www.psyon.org/projects/xchat-win32/ Psyon build]

Pu7o s and Daemon404 s build have a similar look to the Shareware version of XChat, adopting the native Windows theme. They use a modified GTK 2.2 called MiniGTK , a work of zed s. Other builds adopt the theme of whatever version of GTK they might be using. Some of these builds use Python 2.3 for the Python Plugin, and others use Python 2.4. If you get errors, check if you have the correct version of Python.

==Third-Party Plugins==

===Programming Languages===

*[http://www.scriptkitties.com/tclplugin/ Tcl Plugin for X-Chat] *[http://xchat-ruby.sourceforge.net/ Ruby Plugin for X-Chat] *[http://www.cliki.net/X-Chat%20Common%20Lisp%20Plugin Common Lisp Plugin for X-Chat] *[http://www.linuxirc.com/download/xchat-guile-0.1.tar.gz Scheme Plugin for X-Chat]

===System Tray===

*[http://forums.sinisterdevelopments.com/index.phpshowforum=7 xTray for X-Chat on Windows] *[http://blight.altervista.org//index.phps=&act=Systray Systray for Windows and Linux] ([http://sourceforge.net/projects/xchat2-plugins/ sourceforge project page])