Connect

Before you can connect to a server and start chatting you will need to enter the following information into the connect dialog.

Full Name

You can enter your name here or a comment if you prefer. Whatever you enter here can be seen by other people on IRC. Most people do not enter their real name.

Email Address

You should enter an email address here. Most people do not enter their real email address.

Nickname

Your nickname is the name by which people will know you on IRC.

There are many hundreds of thousands of people on IRC, so it is possible that someone might already be using the nickname you choose. If that is the case, you should choose a different nickname.

You can also enter an alternative nickname which will be used if someone is already using your main nickname. If both nicknames are in use, mIRC inserts "/nick" into the status window edit box so that you can enter a new nickname and press the enter key.

IRC Servers

The IRC server that you choose is the most important factor in determining how quickly and easily you connect, so if it's taking a long time to connect to one IRC Server, choose a different one and try connecting again.

Note: If you're having problems connecting to an IRC Server, see the Connection Issues section.

You can manage your list of IRC servers by using the add, edit, and delete buttons. Each IRC server consists of the following information:

Description

This can be any text you want and serves only as a description.

Address

This is the IRC server address eg. irc.dal.net

Port Number

This is usually 6667. If the server allows connections on different ports, you can enter them all separated by commas eg. 6667,6668,6669 and mIRC will pick one randomly each time it connects to the server.

Group

This allows you to group related servers together.

Password

This is rarely required, so you should not have to enter anything here unless you have been specifically told to do so.

New Server Window

The new server window option allows you to connect to more than one IRC server at the same time. Just check the new server window checkbox, and click the connect button. The checkbox setting isn't remembered, so it will be turned off the next time you open the connect dialog.

To open a new server window without connecting to a server, you can check the new server window checkbox and then press the OK button.

Hint: If you click your right mouse button on the connect toolbar button, a popup menu listing your most recently accessed IRC servers will appear. If you press the shift key while selecting a server in the popup menu it will open in a new server window.