
		Welcome to the documentation for BitchX97 for 
			Windows 95/NT/UNIX/OS/2

BitchX is written and supported by me Colten Edwards (aka panasync@efnet).
BitchX represents a quite alot of my free time in the last 2 years.
I only hope that you enjoy using the client.

Win95 notes
Many people over the past year have tried to port BitchX to a Win95/NT
environment, but nobody has ever been successful to my knowledge. Success
depended on a working select() and alarm() function from the underlying c
libraries, and until CYGNUS released their beta 18 unix emulation library,
this port was not feasible without rewriting large portions of the code.
More information about CYGNUS can be found at www.cygnus.com, as well you
can download their emulation libraries and tools at the same place. YES you
too can port your favorite unix programs. One other block that I found
when starting this port was that there term handling wasn't quite upto
handling a screen intensive program like BitchX. Compiling ncurses or
termcap was a possibility but the underlying term handling still couldn't do
everything that was required of it. So I looked at the linux console driver
and used it as an example of how to emulate the features we need in order
to use a program like BitchX. Newer versions of the CYGWIN.DLL are available
from http://www.lexa.ru/sos

[General BitchX notes]
BitchX the client.

Starting BitchX is as simple as typing BitchX at a command prompt or
clicking on a icon. BUT there are some options which I'll list below.

Usage: BitchX [switches] [nickname] [server list]
	[nickname] can be at most 9 chars unless you have the source
	[server list] whitespace separated list of servers irc.vol.com:6666
	[switches] can be one or more of the following.
	-c <channel> 	Join channel on startup.
	-b		load bx-rc or irc-rc after connecting to a server.
	-p <port>	use <port> as the default port for the server
	-d		use BX in dumb mode
	-q		does not load irc-rc or bx-rc
	-r <file>	loads <file> as a list of servers
	-a		adds default servers and command line servers
	-v		show BitchX's version
	-l <file>
	-L <file>	Load <file> in place of bx-rc and irc-rc files.
			-L expands environment variables placed in it.


As well we have a few environment variables that should be setup so that
things will run smooth. (Remember this is a unix client port). One
thing that really helps this client is the existance of what's called a
$HOME directory. This is where the special character ~ (tilde) points to
in a unix enviroment. All the following need tobe set in either
autoexec.bat or the WinNT registry.

HOME		Sets the default directory where files are loaded and stored
		ex.  set HOME=/edwards

IRCNICK		Sets the default nickname to use

USER
IRCUSER		Sets the default "username" to use. "Unknown" is set if not
		found.
IRCHOST
IRC_HOST	Sets the virtual host name to use. Don't worry about this
		one unless you need it.
IRCNAME		Sets the "name". when doing a /whois nick it is displayed
		next to the nick

IRCSERVER	Sets the default server to use

IRCPORT		Sets the default port to use. Usually 6667 or 6666

IRCPATH		Sets the path from which files are /load'd ie scripts.
		ex.  ".:~/irc" sets current directory and $HOME/irc as the
		directories to use when loading files.

IRCUMODE	Sets the default usermode

IRCRC		Sets the filename to use in place of irc-rc

IRCLIB		Sets the BitchX library path. (Used for some small example
		scripts).

IRC_SERVERS_FILE Sets the name of the irc-servers file that is loaded first
		before any other	

[Windows notes]
Unfortunately all the above paths can not be used like a DOS pathname yet.
So we need to fudge a few things. An example dos path is c:\winnt\system32
which would translate into a CYGNUS path of //c/winnt/system32. If all you
are going to use is c: drive then /winnt/system32 is fine.

irc-rc
bx-rc		This is used to load a default script when starting the
		client. This file is in the $HOME directory.

bx-conf		This directory is created in the $HOME directory
		the first time the client is run. The BitchX.hlp, BitchX.qt
		BitchX.qk files should be placed here. As well certain files
		are created by the client - BitchX.awy (your away msg log),
		BitchX.sav (/saveall creates this file) which contains
		your settings which are reloaded when you restart the client.
		It also contains your userlist, shitlist, auto-join list,
		bot-list, lame nick list etc.


irc-serv	List of servers which are loaded by the client. File is in
		the $HOME directory and has one server per line.

Currently a identd server will be required to use the client on most efnet
servers. I will look at the possibility of adding a small identd server to
the client internally. Of course if your root running some unix variant,
then many differant options exist for a identd server. Pick one and install
it. Personally I like cidentd which is available from sunsite.unc.edu.

Most of the BitchX scripts will currently run with this windows client. 
Your only problem will be to get someone to actually give you a non-tar'd 
non gzip'd version. At some point I will make it so that you can just
download a package of all the scripts in one zip file. Currently the 
following popular scripts are being written  evolver, dRK, neon apple, 
mdk and crackrock. I'm sure there are many many more that I've missed.

Well I think that's it for now. I will try and expand on this documentation
in the future, documenting the very powerful / commands as well as some of
the $functions() that the scripters are using. For right now though pressing
/<esc><esc> or /<tab>  will bring up the complete list of commands and
functions. The /bhelp command documents the most important / commands. But
it does depend on the BitchX.hlp file and a properly setup $HOME directory.
At some point in the near future a complete source package for BitchX will
become available on a ftp/www site as well as for dcc in #bitchx channels.
The current version of BX97 I've decided to make non-tcl due to a problem
with a system crash in the dll's from CYGNUS.

						Colten Edwards
                				edwac@sk.sympatico.ca
						panasync@efnet #bitchx


If you really like the program and wish to help the author.
	Box 10
	Gerald,SK
	S0A-1B0
	Canada

Hardware, donations, postcard, even job offers :)


