4 ms·

I often have the situation that I asked someone something, then the next day, or next month I have the same problem again and want to search for that one link o

by jeena 11y ago

I often have the situation that I asked someone something, then the next day, or next month I have the same problem again and want to search for that one link or answer without bothering everyone again. That is not possible with IRC (yet?)

WizzleKake 11y ago
IRC clients can log.
- zyxley 11y ago
  And if the person who wants to refer to something was offline at the time...?
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Then you set up a bot that logs on channel (there are even dedicated services for that). Or use a client on a remote server to which you then connect (e.g. weechat).
    - jeena 11y ago
      It works mostly like this: I have a problem, let's say with QML, I log into their IRC server, ask the question and it is fixed. Then I don't work with QML for a month or two, then I remember that during the session two months ago they also linked to some cool tool but I can't find the link anymore (for example), I would like to be able to go back there and just search for my conversation. In the meantime I wasn't in that chanel or logged in into that server. But perhaps I'm wanting too much from a chat system.
zyxley 11y ago
And if the person who wants to refer to something was offline at the time...?
bzbarsky 11y ago
Mozilla solves this by having logs for the developer IRC channels by just having a bot that puts up the logs on a web server. E.g. see http://logs.glob.uno/?c=developers http://logs.glob.uno/?c=developers
- jeena 11y ago
  Yes some of the chanels I use do that, but most of them don't.
dwc 11y ago
Turning on logging in most IRC clients is very easy. But once again this is an extra step and means learning the client a bit. One nice thing is that I can have those logs offline and search them whenever and however I like. I regularly do search my irc logs to find that links I didn't save, or re-read an important discussion. Most things in slack are available in some form with irc, but not preconfigured out of the box. And some things on irc can take some fiddling to get set up right, and you can't count on everyone else to have enabled support.
- jeena 11y ago
  Thing is, I use Xchat at work, on my Phone a native Sailfish OS IRC client, om my Android AndChat, on my iMac Textual and on my laptop a different instance of Xchat. And in between those clients are offline so they can't get continuous logs which they could save for offline search. But I would love to learn how to do that, for example with ZNC which is online all the time.
  - dwc 11y ago
    Almost everyone I work with uses ZNC. I've stuck with my same old method of tmux/screen and a text mode client. Apparently ZNC isn't hard to set up or use but I have no direct experience with it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Well, maybe try Quassel? That logs the logs in an SQL database, you can search with Quassel-Suche (a web-based search engine for quassel backends), and we have clients for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS (kinda) and Android (with a better Android client in beta) and a webclient. You get contiguous logs like in Slack, Push Notifications (with the Android beta, soon), and you can search through your logs. In fact, I don’t bookmark things in my browser anymore – I send them in a query to myself, and just use quassel-suche half a year later to find them, or, if there hasn’t been much activity in the channel, just scroll up (infinite scroll to load more logs).
exelius 11y ago
Just set up an IRC log bot to log all channel traffic to a web site (can't be bothered to look one up; but I know they existed when I last messed with IRC 20 years ago).
- jeena 11y ago
  I am using ZNC but it's not obvious how to make it to log everything and make it searchable.
  - babatong 11y ago
    How on earth could it get more obvious to tick the tickbox labelled 'log'? How you search the created logfiles is up to you, znc is not a log management system, it merely creates.
    - jeena 11y ago
      Uhm, ZNC runs on the console, there can not be a "tickbox labeled 'log'" because there is no GUI?
      - PuercoPop 11y ago
        znc comes with an web GUI to admin/configure it.
wstrange 11y ago
Practically speaking, Slack does not do this either. Most open source projects can not pay for the archiving feature - so messages are deleted and gone forever.
- s_kilk 11y ago
  Yup, we're facing this problem right now in the Clojurians group, where there's usually less than 24 hours worth of history before it disappears.
- solipsism 11y ago
  so messages are deleted and gone forever They aren't deleted and gone forever. They're simply not searchable. If at some future point you decide to pay, your entire history is made available to you. I realize that doesn't help projects who will never want or be able to pay, but it's an important point for those who might.
darkr 11y ago
Many channels have a logging bot which pushes logs to a publicly accessible archive. There's also services like https://botbot.me https://botbot.me that offer easy setup of this

by jeena 11y ago

WizzleKake 11y ago

IRC clients can log.

zyxley 11y ago
And if the person who wants to refer to something was offline at the time...?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Then you set up a bot that logs on channel (there are even dedicated services for that). Or use a client on a remote server to which you then connect (e.g. weechat).
  - jeena 11y ago
    It works mostly like this: I have a problem, let's say with QML, I log into their IRC server, ask the question and it is fixed. Then I don't work with QML for a month or two, then I remember that during the session two months ago they also linked to some cool tool but I can't find the link anymore (for example), I would like to be able to go back there and just search for my conversation. In the meantime I wasn't in that chanel or logged in into that server. But perhaps I'm wanting too much from a chat system.

zyxley 11y ago

And if the person who wants to refer to something was offline at the time...?

bzbarsky 11y ago

Mozilla solves this by having logs for the developer IRC channels by just having a bot that puts up the logs on a web server. E.g. see http://logs.glob.uno/?c=developers http://logs.glob.uno/?c=developers

jeena 11y ago
Yes some of the chanels I use do that, but most of them don't.

dwc 11y ago

Turning on logging in most IRC clients is very easy. But once again this is an extra step and means learning the client a bit. One nice thing is that I can have those logs offline and search them whenever and however I like. I regularly do search my irc logs to find that links I didn't save, or re-read an important discussion. Most things in slack are available in some form with irc, but not preconfigured out of the box. And some things on irc can take some fiddling to get set up right, and you can't count on everyone else to have enabled support.

jeena 11y ago
Thing is, I use Xchat at work, on my Phone a native Sailfish OS IRC client, om my Android AndChat, on my iMac Textual and on my laptop a different instance of Xchat. And in between those clients are offline so they can't get continuous logs which they could save for offline search. But I would love to learn how to do that, for example with ZNC which is online all the time.
- dwc 11y ago
  Almost everyone I work with uses ZNC. I've stuck with my same old method of tmux/screen and a text mode client. Apparently ZNC isn't hard to set up or use but I have no direct experience with it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kuschku 11y ago
  Well, maybe try Quassel? That logs the logs in an SQL database, you can search with Quassel-Suche (a web-based search engine for quassel backends), and we have clients for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS (kinda) and Android (with a better Android client in beta) and a webclient. You get contiguous logs like in Slack, Push Notifications (with the Android beta, soon), and you can search through your logs. In fact, I don’t bookmark things in my browser anymore – I send them in a query to myself, and just use quassel-suche half a year later to find them, or, if there hasn’t been much activity in the channel, just scroll up (infinite scroll to load more logs).

exelius 11y ago

Just set up an IRC log bot to log all channel traffic to a web site (can't be bothered to look one up; but I know they existed when I last messed with IRC 20 years ago).

jeena 11y ago
I am using ZNC but it's not obvious how to make it to log everything and make it searchable.
- babatong 11y ago
  How on earth could it get more obvious to tick the tickbox labelled 'log'? How you search the created logfiles is up to you, znc is not a log management system, it merely creates.
  - jeena 11y ago
    Uhm, ZNC runs on the console, there can not be a "tickbox labeled 'log'" because there is no GUI?
    - PuercoPop 11y ago
      znc comes with an web GUI to admin/configure it.

wstrange 11y ago

Practically speaking, Slack does not do this either. Most open source projects can not pay for the archiving feature - so messages are deleted and gone forever.

s_kilk 11y ago
Yup, we're facing this problem right now in the Clojurians group, where there's usually less than 24 hours worth of history before it disappears.
solipsism 11y ago
so messages are deleted and gone forever They aren't deleted and gone forever. They're simply not searchable. If at some future point you decide to pay, your entire history is made available to you. I realize that doesn't help projects who will never want or be able to pay, but it's an important point for those who might.

darkr 11y ago

Many channels have a logging bot which pushes logs to a publicly accessible archive. There's also services like https://botbot.me https://botbot.me that offer easy setup of this