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Homer - First launch
By now you should have a reasonably good idea of how IRC works in principle, it's now time to find out how it works in practice.
This guide is designed for Homer users since there is little help provided by the program. Quick start guides for other clients will be made later.
Homer is an IRC client, it lets you connect to IRC servers. It's not particularly powerful and doesn't support many of the new features that have appeared, but it's a reasonably good program to start with (since it's not too complicated).
If you have already started up homer and are on #macintosh then you don't need this page and could skip to the next page, but i would read this anyway, you might learn something new. If you have found this via the web and you have Homer but haven't used it yet then read on.
When you first load homer you will get the splash screen and then a message about you having problems email etc. After that you'll get a screen with loads of options like this :
(NB. thoughout this guide the screen shots will be linked to a full sized version of the picture. To get back just click the back arrow on your browser)
Confused? Well, you don't have to change any of the options in this. However it is advisable to change the User ID, Nick and (less important this one) the User Name fields. Your nickname is how you will be known on IRC (9 characters max, has to be alphanumeric characters, keep it reasonably simple), your User ID is often used to identify yourself as well as the nick (ie, change it, it again has to be kept simple - no non-alphanumeric characters). The 'User Name' Field can be anything, it can be your real name but it's inadvisable to put your real name in for security reasons.
(NB. This is just a note for the future : The 3 things I just mentioned above are usually called different things but I used Homer's names for them to make it easier to follow the picture. Just so you know - Nick is correct, it is usually refered as your nick or nickname; the User ID as Homer calls it is usually referred to as your username; and just to make the confusion complete, the thing that Homer calls your User Name is usually referred to as your Real Name. Got it? good...)
Leave the Port and Server fields alone for the moment and then click Connect. You will eventually be greeted with the following windows
I would rearrange the windows into roughly the following positions, it makes it easier to see.
The windows are as follows - the big one, top left, is the console window; the one on the right is the userlist; and the bottom one is called the Input line.
Next it's a good idea to read the Message of the day (MOTD). This often tells you about the server, it's rules and other useful information. The MOTD is automiatcally displayed in the window called Console - if you scroll up you will see it. Have a quick read, you may or may not understand all of it.
You are now connected to the server, but haven't joined any channels yet, so go to the File Menu and then 'New Channel'. You will then get a dialogue box up, leave #macintosh there and click 'Join'. You will now see something similar to this :
Go to the next page to find out what it all means.
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