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Quassel IRC: cross-platform, distributed IRC client

165 points by Rondom 10y ago

dvirsky 10y ago
is there a special reason why this is the top HN item? I've used Quassel for years and it's a fine client, but why now?
- fimdomeio 10y ago
  I think ita a byproduct of the discussion on "The Lounge" also currently on the front-page
- cocotino 10y ago
  Because somebody sent the link now.
  - dvirsky 10y ago
    that's why it's here, not why it's the top item, but WTH, I guess enough people just discovered it, so enjoy, it's a really nice client. I personally switched to gnome-xchat recently, which is not as feature rich, but is really nice as well, and looks better IMHO.
    - fcanela 10y ago
      XChat doesn't seem to be maintained anymore (I do not know about gnome-xchat). Have you considered Hexchat? I migrated to it one year ago and seems solid while keeping the same look and feel.
      - dvirsky 10y ago
        xchat-gnome seems to be in low-maintenance mode, 2 commits in Q2 2016 (https://git.gnome.org/browse/xchat-gnome/ https://git.gnome.org/browse/xchat-gnome/). I tried hexchat, and I don't remember why, I didn't like it so much. I'll give it another try I suppose.
fcanela 10y ago
Probably someone just discovered it. I think it is relevant in the Slack-oriented era. I would love IRC getting the hype instead: the protocol and software is open and easy to understand.
- dvirsky 10y ago
  The only problem about it for me, is that having search and offline messages is not possible by default. I'm using IRC for the #redis community channel, and joining a discussion after my laptop has been in my bag for a couple of hours is not really feasible.
  - giancarlostoro 10y ago
    To my understanding you can setup Quassel as a bouncer on a server, so when you reconnect it will update all you missed, you just need a cheap VPS or another desktop to connect through elsewhere. Some channels also have searchable logs via bots as well. Ironically BotBot.ME which is powered by redis doesn't have a bot at #redis but oh well...
    - wcummings 10y ago
      That's not out-of-the-box
      - fcanela 10y ago
        There are other out-the-box alternatives. IRCCloud was mentioned in comments.
        skrowl 10y ago
        IRCCloud disconnects you after 2 hours of idle time unless you pay them
      - rurounijones 10y ago
        It is on linux. Ubuntu has the combined client and the separate client / server ones ready to go.
sktrdie 10y ago
Does this allow for me to be "always on"? The reason I moved from IRC to Slack is exactly this. If there was a way for me to use many different peers to keep my connections alive even when I'm offline, that would make want to use IRC again. Otherwise I just don't have time/energy/money to get a server just to host my IRC session.
- detaro 10y ago
  The core stays online and connected to IRC even if all clients disconnect.
- fcanela 10y ago
  You are looking for a BNC[1]. Quassel is a superset of the features you could expect in one. I think that there is a lot of people in your situation. They don't know about the existence of this tools or think their setup is hard or time consuming and ends using Slack. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software)
  - pluma 10y ago
    When I first looked for something to let me be "always on" I ran into the same advice you're giving. It didn't help me at all. Most people looking for the answer to "how can I have always-on IRC with a backlog" don't want to learn about what a BNC is or the pros and cons of the various BNC solutions out there, they want something actionable. I ended up installing Quassel with a docker image and downloading a Quassel client for my laptop and smartphone. I hear it's possible to connect to Quassel (and other bouncers?) with regular IRC clients, too, but I can't be arsed to figure out how.
    - LeoPanthera 10y ago
      > When I first looked for something to let me be "always on" I ran into the same advice you're giving. It didn't help me at all. Most people looking for the answer to "how can I have always-on IRC with a backlog" don't want to learn about what a BNC is or the pros and cons of the various BNC solutions out there, they want something actionable. This is a really strange comment. If the question is "How do I get always-on IRC" then the answer is "Use a bouncer". Following up with "People don't want to learn about a bouncer" is the same thing as "People don't really want the answer". I'm confused. How is "Install ZNC" (as an example of a bouncer) not "actionable"?
foobarbecue 10y ago
"but also ubiquitous available." --> "but also ubiquitously available."
- ionwake 10y ago
  Leave Britney Alone!
wanda 10y ago
If you're looking for a cross-platform, distributed IRC client, there's also Smuxi (https://smuxi.im/ https://smuxi.im/) which I used to use. These days I just use IRC on the move with Palaver (https://palaverapp.com https://palaverapp.com) on my iPhone.
jbermudes 10y ago
Quassel is awesome, and has a really interesting idea in wanting to store logs in an sqlite db for better searching, but ironically in the current client implementation this seems to make it harder to search for stuff. While searching for things in the immediately loaded buffer is easy (CTRL+F), searching for things said a long time ago can't be searched via the client. You either have to use command line tools to dump the sqlite db into a grepable text file or install the quasselsuche web app (last updated in 2012). Once better long term search has been implemented in the client, quassel will become the best GUI IRC client hands down, I look forward to seeing the progress made in this area.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > While searching for things in the immediately loaded buffer is easy (CTRL+F), searching for things said a long time ago can't be searched via the client. You either have to use command line tools to dump the sqlite db into a grepable text file or install the quasselsuche web app (last updated in 2012). Why not just open the sqlite file and search in there? Could even ask for the log to be stored in an FTS table for fast FTS queries.
  - jbermudes 10y ago
    That may work, but then you're in the same workflow as the more traditional IRC clients with their .txt logfiles and needing tools external to the IRC client. Ostensibly the point of moving away from the human-readable logfiles to something like an SQL DB was to let the client be a more powerful search engine into your chat history. So this is mostly a lament that while there's a great vision to what an IRC client can be in designing Quassel's infrastructure, Quassel has not yet fully realized its vision in this area, but I'm sure it'll get there some day.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      but then you're in the same workflow as the more traditional IRC clients with their .txt logfiles and needing tools external to the IRC client Is this really a problem?
kiallmacinnes 10y ago
I've used Quassel for a few years now, it's great. Your always only, history is preserved and shown on all devices - no matter how long they've been disconnected for. Unlike most BNCs, this also makes sure all the timestamps are correct when data is replayed..it also doesn't notify you for mentions if you've already been notified about the message. 10x more useable than any other BNC I've used.
knocte 10y ago
Haven't tried Quassel, but I use Smuxi because it's a very good (also distributed) alternative, which is multi-protocol (not only IRC).
utbabya 10y ago
Speaking of IRC clients, I don't understand why one particular feature that has been requested all time (feature request in various clients I've gone through) but never implemented - keyword highlight and notification, but customizable depending on the channel. This way you don't have to pay visual attention to certain channels. And I thought the need is common enough and it's easy enough to implement..
- kuschku 10y ago
  This is definitely possible in Quassel - Each highlight rule has a regex for the message, and a regex for the channel. Only if both match, it will highlight. This means you can get highlights on every message in channel #support, or highlights on "quassel" in every channel.
  - utbabya 10y ago
    Perfect, then I'd definitely switch from LimeChat. I thought it wasn't possible because of this http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/issues/1348 http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/issues/1348 , and saw no mention of it in the doc. I guess it's just a request for blacklist instead.
- fcanela 10y ago
  I never faced this need and is the first time I saw it stated. If it appeared in various clients and got implemented in none then it should be a reason. Examples: - It is not a need for enough people - No developer suffers your problem (you can always try to do the PR by yourself) This feature requests got ignored or received some reply by devs? I am curious.
  - utbabya 10y ago
    e.g. https://github.com/psychs/limechat/issues/31 https://github.com/psychs/limechat/issues/31 I remember I spent quite a bit of fruitless time searching for a reasonably good looking and well maintained one having such feature on OSX.
kuschku 10y ago
As this discussion started with webIRC clients, I'd like to mention the awesome quassel-webserver project from Magne`: https://github.com/magne4000/quassel-webserver https://github.com/magne4000/quassel-webserver Basically, the same features as The Lounge, but it just connects to a Quassel core, allowing you to connect to the same core with the desktop app or with the Android app, and allowing you to use the ecosystem of software developed around Quassel.
pizzeys 10y ago
Weechat, the terminal based client, also supports a protocol like this. There aren't really any nice graphical clients for it, but there is a mobile one which is very usable, and there's an HTML5-y one, but I haven't tried that. If you like irssi, but wish you had a better way to use it on mobile, you might like Weechat - that's how I use it currently, terminal over SSH on desktops, mobile client over the relay protocol on the go.
- eugeneionesco 10y ago
  >and there's an HTML5-y one, but I haven't tried that Glowing Bear is excellent!
- IsmaOlvey 10y ago
  There's a script for irssi that provides compatibility with Glowing Bear: https://github.com/ailin-nemui/teddy/wiki https://github.com/ailin-nemui/teddy/wiki
softinio 10y ago
What clients on iphone are used with this that support notification?
- kuschku 10y ago
  Sadly, the current iOS client hasn’t been supported in quite a while. But there are 2 independent projects that allow sending notifications via Pushbullet or GCM to your phone if you get a highlight via quassel, quassel-pushbullet and quassel-irssi-notifier.
h_ar 10y ago
Quassel is nice and I'd recommend it, even when I stopped using it for a year and moved to AdiIRC (mainly because I found the customization on AdiIRC is more fun to play with)
aagat 10y ago
This seems to do same thing as tmux+weechat on server and weechat/weechat-android/glowing bear as client but graphical. If you want try tmux+weechat combo but don't have/want to setup a VPS, create an account at hashbang.sh. It's a free shell service and we drop new users in weechat instance running tmux.
- Tuna-Fish 10y ago
  The main difference is that quassel puts logs in sqlite/postgres. The database makes the entirety of your logs easily searchable. The Gui lacks a great search tool, but I just use a few python scripts.
  - detaro 10y ago
    Are your scripts published somewhere? A good & documented solution for this would be great to have!
ctrlrsf 10y ago
Very interesting. Right now I'm using a znc bounce to allow all my clients to stay connected. For clients I use either weechat, Textual from macOS, or Mutter from iOS. All clients work seamlessly. Same nicks, channels, and logs from any device.
- dijit 10y ago
  Have you tried palaver for iOS, how does it compare to mutter- I only ask because palaver has ZNC integration that allows push notifications and such.
mavhc 10y ago
It's a BNC, but good; or it's IRCCloud, but free.
fiatjaf 10y ago
No installation instructions.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
moogly 10y ago
I evaluated this along with some other clients fairly recently (4-5 months ago). I really liked it except for an issue where it appeared (from my end) that I was online but I was actually disconnected. I missed a couple of days of discussion and my messages ended up in a void. I dunno if it didn't like my ZNC bouncer, but I considered it a showstopper nonetheless.
ivcha 10y ago
So many clients, so much effort spent... I wish the shared functionality could be encapsulated and used within other clients (some of which arguably far more flexible and thus usable), like pidgin (which is my favorite) and irssi...

165 points by Rondom 10y ago

dvirsky 10y ago

is there a special reason why this is the top HN item? I've used Quassel for years and it's a fine client, but why now?

fimdomeio 10y ago
I think ita a byproduct of the discussion on "The Lounge" also currently on the front-page
cocotino 10y ago
Because somebody sent the link now.
- dvirsky 10y ago
  that's why it's here, not why it's the top item, but WTH, I guess enough people just discovered it, so enjoy, it's a really nice client. I personally switched to gnome-xchat recently, which is not as feature rich, but is really nice as well, and looks better IMHO.
  - fcanela 10y ago
    XChat doesn't seem to be maintained anymore (I do not know about gnome-xchat). Have you considered Hexchat? I migrated to it one year ago and seems solid while keeping the same look and feel.
    - dvirsky 10y ago
      xchat-gnome seems to be in low-maintenance mode, 2 commits in Q2 2016 (https://git.gnome.org/browse/xchat-gnome/ https://git.gnome.org/browse/xchat-gnome/). I tried hexchat, and I don't remember why, I didn't like it so much. I'll give it another try I suppose.

fcanela 10y ago

Probably someone just discovered it. I think it is relevant in the Slack-oriented era. I would love IRC getting the hype instead: the protocol and software is open and easy to understand.

dvirsky 10y ago
The only problem about it for me, is that having search and offline messages is not possible by default. I'm using IRC for the #redis community channel, and joining a discussion after my laptop has been in my bag for a couple of hours is not really feasible.
- giancarlostoro 10y ago
  To my understanding you can setup Quassel as a bouncer on a server, so when you reconnect it will update all you missed, you just need a cheap VPS or another desktop to connect through elsewhere. Some channels also have searchable logs via bots as well. Ironically BotBot.ME which is powered by redis doesn't have a bot at #redis but oh well...
  - wcummings 10y ago
    That's not out-of-the-box
    - fcanela 10y ago
      There are other out-the-box alternatives. IRCCloud was mentioned in comments.
      - skrowl 10y ago
        IRCCloud disconnects you after 2 hours of idle time unless you pay them
    - rurounijones 10y ago
      It is on linux. Ubuntu has the combined client and the separate client / server ones ready to go.

sktrdie 10y ago

Does this allow for me to be "always on"? The reason I moved from IRC to Slack is exactly this. If there was a way for me to use many different peers to keep my connections alive even when I'm offline, that would make want to use IRC again. Otherwise I just don't have time/energy/money to get a server just to host my IRC session.

detaro 10y ago
The core stays online and connected to IRC even if all clients disconnect.
fcanela 10y ago
You are looking for a BNC[1]. Quassel is a superset of the features you could expect in one. I think that there is a lot of people in your situation. They don't know about the existence of this tools or think their setup is hard or time consuming and ends using Slack. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software)
- pluma 10y ago
  When I first looked for something to let me be "always on" I ran into the same advice you're giving. It didn't help me at all. Most people looking for the answer to "how can I have always-on IRC with a backlog" don't want to learn about what a BNC is or the pros and cons of the various BNC solutions out there, they want something actionable. I ended up installing Quassel with a docker image and downloading a Quassel client for my laptop and smartphone. I hear it's possible to connect to Quassel (and other bouncers?) with regular IRC clients, too, but I can't be arsed to figure out how.
  - LeoPanthera 10y ago
    > When I first looked for something to let me be "always on" I ran into the same advice you're giving. It didn't help me at all. Most people looking for the answer to "how can I have always-on IRC with a backlog" don't want to learn about what a BNC is or the pros and cons of the various BNC solutions out there, they want something actionable. This is a really strange comment. If the question is "How do I get always-on IRC" then the answer is "Use a bouncer". Following up with "People don't want to learn about a bouncer" is the same thing as "People don't really want the answer". I'm confused. How is "Install ZNC" (as an example of a bouncer) not "actionable"?

foobarbecue 10y ago

"but also ubiquitous available." --> "but also ubiquitously available."

ionwake 10y ago
Leave Britney Alone!

wanda 10y ago

If you're looking for a cross-platform, distributed IRC client, there's also Smuxi (https://smuxi.im/ https://smuxi.im/) which I used to use. These days I just use IRC on the move with Palaver (https://palaverapp.com https://palaverapp.com) on my iPhone.

jbermudes 10y ago

Quassel is awesome, and has a really interesting idea in wanting to store logs in an sqlite db for better searching, but ironically in the current client implementation this seems to make it harder to search for stuff. While searching for things in the immediately loaded buffer is easy (CTRL+F), searching for things said a long time ago can't be searched via the client. You either have to use command line tools to dump the sqlite db into a grepable text file or install the quasselsuche web app (last updated in 2012). Once better long term search has been implemented in the client, quassel will become the best GUI IRC client hands down, I look forward to seeing the progress made in this area.

masklinn 10y ago
> While searching for things in the immediately loaded buffer is easy (CTRL+F), searching for things said a long time ago can't be searched via the client. You either have to use command line tools to dump the sqlite db into a grepable text file or install the quasselsuche web app (last updated in 2012). Why not just open the sqlite file and search in there? Could even ask for the log to be stored in an FTS table for fast FTS queries.
- jbermudes 10y ago
  That may work, but then you're in the same workflow as the more traditional IRC clients with their .txt logfiles and needing tools external to the IRC client. Ostensibly the point of moving away from the human-readable logfiles to something like an SQL DB was to let the client be a more powerful search engine into your chat history. So this is mostly a lament that while there's a great vision to what an IRC client can be in designing Quassel's infrastructure, Quassel has not yet fully realized its vision in this area, but I'm sure it'll get there some day.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    but then you're in the same workflow as the more traditional IRC clients with their .txt logfiles and needing tools external to the IRC client Is this really a problem?

kiallmacinnes 10y ago

I've used Quassel for a few years now, it's great. Your always only, history is preserved and shown on all devices - no matter how long they've been disconnected for. Unlike most BNCs, this also makes sure all the timestamps are correct when data is replayed..it also doesn't notify you for mentions if you've already been notified about the message. 10x more useable than any other BNC I've used.

knocte 10y ago

Haven't tried Quassel, but I use Smuxi because it's a very good (also distributed) alternative, which is multi-protocol (not only IRC).

utbabya 10y ago

Speaking of IRC clients, I don't understand why one particular feature that has been requested all time (feature request in various clients I've gone through) but never implemented - keyword highlight and notification, but customizable depending on the channel. This way you don't have to pay visual attention to certain channels. And I thought the need is common enough and it's easy enough to implement..

kuschku 10y ago
This is definitely possible in Quassel - Each highlight rule has a regex for the message, and a regex for the channel. Only if both match, it will highlight. This means you can get highlights on every message in channel #support, or highlights on "quassel" in every channel.
- utbabya 10y ago
  Perfect, then I'd definitely switch from LimeChat. I thought it wasn't possible because of this http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/issues/1348 http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/issues/1348 , and saw no mention of it in the doc. I guess it's just a request for blacklist instead.
fcanela 10y ago
I never faced this need and is the first time I saw it stated. If it appeared in various clients and got implemented in none then it should be a reason. Examples: - It is not a need for enough people - No developer suffers your problem (you can always try to do the PR by yourself) This feature requests got ignored or received some reply by devs? I am curious.
- utbabya 10y ago
  e.g. https://github.com/psychs/limechat/issues/31 https://github.com/psychs/limechat/issues/31 I remember I spent quite a bit of fruitless time searching for a reasonably good looking and well maintained one having such feature on OSX.

kuschku 10y ago

As this discussion started with webIRC clients, I'd like to mention the awesome quassel-webserver project from Magne`: https://github.com/magne4000/quassel-webserver https://github.com/magne4000/quassel-webserver Basically, the same features as The Lounge, but it just connects to a Quassel core, allowing you to connect to the same core with the desktop app or with the Android app, and allowing you to use the ecosystem of software developed around Quassel.

pizzeys 10y ago

Weechat, the terminal based client, also supports a protocol like this. There aren't really any nice graphical clients for it, but there is a mobile one which is very usable, and there's an HTML5-y one, but I haven't tried that. If you like irssi, but wish you had a better way to use it on mobile, you might like Weechat - that's how I use it currently, terminal over SSH on desktops, mobile client over the relay protocol on the go.

eugeneionesco 10y ago
>and there's an HTML5-y one, but I haven't tried that Glowing Bear is excellent!
IsmaOlvey 10y ago
There's a script for irssi that provides compatibility with Glowing Bear: https://github.com/ailin-nemui/teddy/wiki https://github.com/ailin-nemui/teddy/wiki

softinio 10y ago

What clients on iphone are used with this that support notification?

kuschku 10y ago
Sadly, the current iOS client hasn’t been supported in quite a while. But there are 2 independent projects that allow sending notifications via Pushbullet or GCM to your phone if you get a highlight via quassel, quassel-pushbullet and quassel-irssi-notifier.

h_ar 10y ago

Quassel is nice and I'd recommend it, even when I stopped using it for a year and moved to AdiIRC (mainly because I found the customization on AdiIRC is more fun to play with)

aagat 10y ago

This seems to do same thing as tmux+weechat on server and weechat/weechat-android/glowing bear as client but graphical. If you want try tmux+weechat combo but don't have/want to setup a VPS, create an account at hashbang.sh. It's a free shell service and we drop new users in weechat instance running tmux.

Tuna-Fish 10y ago
The main difference is that quassel puts logs in sqlite/postgres. The database makes the entirety of your logs easily searchable. The Gui lacks a great search tool, but I just use a few python scripts.
- detaro 10y ago
  Are your scripts published somewhere? A good & documented solution for this would be great to have!

ctrlrsf 10y ago

Very interesting. Right now I'm using a znc bounce to allow all my clients to stay connected. For clients I use either weechat, Textual from macOS, or Mutter from iOS. All clients work seamlessly. Same nicks, channels, and logs from any device.

dijit 10y ago
Have you tried palaver for iOS, how does it compare to mutter- I only ask because palaver has ZNC integration that allows push notifications and such.

mavhc 10y ago

It's a BNC, but good; or it's IRCCloud, but free.

fiatjaf 10y ago

No installation instructions.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

moogly 10y ago

I evaluated this along with some other clients fairly recently (4-5 months ago). I really liked it except for an issue where it appeared (from my end) that I was online but I was actually disconnected. I missed a couple of days of discussion and my messages ended up in a void. I dunno if it didn't like my ZNC bouncer, but I considered it a showstopper nonetheless.

ivcha 10y ago

So many clients, so much effort spent... I wish the shared functionality could be encapsulated and used within other clients (some of which arguably far more flexible and thus usable), like pidgin (which is my favorite) and irssi...