WeeChat is an open-source, multi-platform lightweight and extensible chat client, having a text user interface only. Having support for scripts and plugins that can be loaded either at startup or dynamically, the app has support for IRC.
Also, it permits multiple connections to multiple servers, has support for UTF-8 and can use multiple character sets for encoding/decoding messages.
The latest version available is WeeChat 1.4, which brings the below new features:
New features:
- core: add a parent name in options, display inherited values if null in /set output, add option weechat.color.chat_value_null
- core: add tag “term_warning” in warnings about wrong $TERM on startup
- core: add option weechat.look.paste_auto_add_newline
- core: display a more explicit error when a filter fails to be added
- api: add function string_hex_dump()
- api: add argument “length” in function utf8_is_valid()
- alias: display completion in /alias list
- fifo: add /fifo command
- irc: evaluate content of server option “addresses”
- irc: move option irc.network.alternate_nick into servers (irc.server.xxx.nicks_alternate)
- irc: track real names using extended-join and WHO
- irc: add support of SNI (Server Name Indication) in SSL connection to IRC server
- irc: use current channel and current server channels first in completions “irc_server_channels” and “irc_channels”
- irc: add support of “cap-notify” capability
- irc: add command /cap
- irc: add hex dump of messages in raw buffer when debug is enabled for irc plugin (level 2 or more)
- logger: display system error when the log file can not be written
- relay: add option relay.irc.backlog_since_last_message
- script: add completion with languages and extensions, support search by language/extension in /script search
- script: add option script.scripts.download_timeout
- doc: add Czech man page and quickstart guide
- build: add scripts version.sh and build-debian.sh, separate stable from devel Debian packaging
- tests: check if all plugins are loaded
Bug-fixes:
- core: fix execution of empty command name (“/” and “/ ” are not valid commands)
- core: fix memory leak when using multiple “-d” or “-r” in command line arguments
- core: don’t complain any more about “tmux” and “tmux-256color” $TERM values when WeeChat is running under tmux
- core: fix truncated messages after a word with a length of zero on screen (for example a zero width space: U+200B)
- api: fix handle of invalid escape in function string_convert_escaped_chars()
- alias: do not allow slashes and spaces in alias name
- irc: fix channel forwarding when option irc.look.buffer_open_before_{autojoin|join} is on
- irc: add a missing colon before the password in PASS message, if the password has spaces or begins with a colon
- irc: fix charset decoding in incoming private messages
- irc: display the arrow before server name in raw buffer
- irc: fix display of messages sent to server in raw buffer
- irc: fix display of invalid UTF-8 chars in raw buffer
- relay: display the arrow before client id and protocol in raw buffer
- ruby: fix load of scripts requiring “uri” (
- ruby: fix Ruby detection when pkg-config is not installed
- tests: fix locale used to execute tests
Installation instructions:
WeeChat is available via PPA, so the Ubuntu users can get the latest versions of the app on their systems easily. Just add the ppa to the system, refresh the repository index and install the weechat package.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nesthib/weechat-stable
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install weechat
If you are unhappy with weechat, you can remove it:
$ sudo apt-get remove weechat
The instructions should work on all the supported Ubuntu systems and derivatives: Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf,Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, Linux Mint 17.x and Elementary OS 0.3 Freya.
