Using Pidgin for IRC

pidgin is quite a good irc client.

Once you have downloaded and installed pidgin:

• Accounts > Manage Accounts
• Add...
• Protocol: IRC
• Username: your preferred nickname (please use your real name)
• Server: your irc server, eg irc.freenode.org
• Password - leave blank
• Add
• Close (the "Accounts" window)

Back in the main pidgin window:

• Buddies > Join A Chat...
• Account: the one you just created
• Channel: #favouriteroom, eg #pidgin
  
• Password - leave blank
• Join

In the new chat window for the chatroom:

• Conversation > Add...
• Tick "Autojoin when account connects."
• Tick "Remain in chat after window is closed."
• Leave everything else as defaults
• Add

Now when pidgin launches you will have "#favouriteroom" in your buddy list, and you can double click to open the chatroom.

You may also want to make pidgin start when windows starts;

From the main window:

• Tools > Plugins
• Tick "Windows Pidgin Options"
• Configure Plugin
• Tick "Start Pidgin on Windows startup"
• Close
• Close (plugin window)

I also recommend enabling the Markerline plugin to help see what is new in the channel.

getting supybot to announce new bugzilla bugs

getting supybot to announce new bugzilla bugs - I've just put here the key non-obvious things that tripped me up when trying to set this up.

All done on Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS

Install supybot and the supybot bugzilla plugin.

Create a system group (supybot) and user (bugbot) to run supybot as.

Set up your supybot configuration file as desired.

Getting supybot to start at startup:
http://www.schwer.us/journal/2005/04/17/supybot-init-script-for-debian/

Here's my modified init script

$ cat /etc/init.d/bugbot
#! /bin/sh
#
# supybot init script
# http://www.schwer.us/journal/2005/04/17/supybot-init-script-for-debian/
#

PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/bin/supybot
NAME=supybot
DESC=supybot

test -f $DAEMON || exit 0

set -e

case "$1" in
start)
echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet \
--chuid bugbot --exec $DAEMON -- --daemon /etc/supybot/bugbot.conf
echo "$NAME."
;;
stop)
echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet \
--oknodo --exec /usr/bin/python
echo "$NAME."
;;
restart)
$0 stop
$0 start
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac

exit 0

Set up bugzilla to send a copy of all bugmail to a local address (eg bugbot@localhost), and configure exim4 to accept local mail (as well as smart host delivery), using the mbox format.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config

Start a conversation with bugbot, get it to identify you, then set the required configuration by sending it messages (you can also set these in the supybot .conf file for your bot):

• config plugins.Bugzilla.mbox /var/mail/bugbot


• config plugins.Bugzilla.bugzillas.your-bugzilla-name.watchedItems.all True
  which will turn on the announcements (i had to read the code to find that one!)

Note that supybot doesn't immediately write config changes to disc.