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Outlining my current irssi setup: config, theme, scripts, etc. Hat-tip to rson for the post idea.

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:27:55 -0400

Irssi

Irssi is an IRC client. If that sentence made no sense, then read no further. This post outlines my current irssi setup as I think it's quite nice and others may wish to copy it.

Config

For the longest time I didn't really touch ~/.irssi/config except to set up auto connections etc. Then I started using awl.pl (which I'll describe in the scripts section). This meant I no longer had a use for one of the statusbars. So for the sake of completeness, here is the change I made to get the statusbar look you see in the screenshot:

  statusbar = {

    # <snip>

    default = {
      window = {

        # disable the default bar containing window list
        disabled = "yes";

        # window, root
        type = "window";
        # top, bottom
        placement = "bottom";
        # number
        position = "0";
        # active, inactive, always
        visible = "active";

        # list of items in statusbar in the display order
        items = {
          barstart = { priority = "100"; };
          time = { };
          user = { };
          window = { };
          window_empty = { };
          lag = { priority = "-1"; };
          more = { priority = "-1"; alignment = "right"; };
          barend = { priority = "100"; alignment = "right"; };
          active = { };
          act = { };
        };
      };

      # <snip>

      prompt = {
        type = "root";
        placement = "bottom";
        # we want to be at the bottom always
        position = "100";
        visible = "always";
        items = {
          barstart = { priority = "100"; };
          time = { };

          user = { }; # added my current nick here b/c it was the only useful
                      # item in the disabled bar

          prompt = { priority = "-1"; };
          prompt_empty = { priority = "-1"; };
          # treated specially, this is the real input line.
          input = { priority = "10"; };
        };

      };

      # <snip>

    };
  };

My full config (sans passwords) can be downloaded here.

Theme

The theme I currently use was originally generane.theme; I've gradually hacked away at it until, at this point, it's entirely unlike that theme. I just call it my.theme and it can be downloaded here. It's basically a really grey theme to go with my overall desktop. Messages from me are a bright-ish grey, with messages to me as bright yellow. Actions (/me stuff) are magenta and offset to the left which I really like.

Scripts

And the best part, the scripts. All of these can be easily googled for so I won't provide links; the versions on my box could even be out of date anyway.

nm.pl - this handles random/unique nick coloring and nick alignment. Personally, I /set neat_maxlength 13.

awl.pl - the advanced window list (sometimes called adv_windowlist.pl). This gives that nice statusbar with the channel names and numbers. Channels turn bright white when active and magenta if I'm highlighted. Personally, I use /set awl_display_key "%w$N.$H$C$S" and awl_maxlines 1.

trackbar.pl - this puts a dashed mark in the buffer at the last point you viewed the conversation. I really like this script, it's simple but affective. If you hop around between windows this is a great little addition to your .irssi/scripts/autorun.

screen_away.pl - thank you rson for turning me onto this. Once I started using irssi exclusively in screen (as outlined here) this script really started coming in handy. It just auto-sets you as away when you detach your screen session and brings you back when you reattach. This means Ctrl-a d logs me off, and when I do reattach I've got all my messages waiting for me right there in window 1.

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