fIRC
About
fIRC chat is a free IRC client for the Android platform.
Download
The application is available on the android market. (Cyrket)
Bugs and feature requests can be posted >>> here <<<.
Donations
If you find this useful software, please consider a donation:
Feature list
TODO: update feature list (outdated)
Current features:
- Connect to irc servers such as Freenode, EFnet, Quakenet, Gamesurge and many more)
- Multichannel
- PM / Authserv / Whois
Connecting to the server/channel:
- In the Main Menu click connect
- Adjust the settings (nickname!!!) and touch connect
- After connecting it should show the Main Menu. Click #chat to view the channel list
Sending a private message:
- To start a private conversation, PM a user and let him/her reply.
- Go back to the Main Menu and select PM. It should show up in the list.
Notes:
- Most options (such as Join channel, Channel topic, Channel userlist and Leave channel) can now be accessed with the menu button.
- Help is now available in the channel view menu.
Update history
Changelog
=========
1. v0.1.0 (Release date: 22 / 12 / 2008)
- Initial release
2. v0.1.1
- Bug fix (nickname)
3. v0.1.2
- Bug fix (nickname)
4. v0.1.3
- added ACTION (/me)
5. v0.2.0 (Release date: 31 / 12 / 2008)
- Major improvements now supports Multichannel, PM, and lots of GUI improvements.
6. v0.2.1 (Release date: 01 / 01 / 2009)
- Custom fix for thanksgabe server
7. v0.2.2 (Release date: 04 / 01 / 2009)
- Fixed: ping pong issue (fixed gamesurge and quakenet servers)
- Note: gamesurge requires lowercase nickname, realname and ident.
- Fixed: crash on disconnect
- Fixed: notification bug in Server status window
- Added: AUTHSERV support (/authserv auth username password)
- Added: Linkify of text messages
- Added: Help button in the channel view to show available commands
- Added: show MODE
- Added: WHOIS support (/whois nickname)
- Updated: PM overview enhanced (displays username & hostmask in the overview)
- Updated: Userlist sorting
8. v0.2.3 (Release date: 05 / 01 / 2009)
- Added: Notification on incoming private message
9. v0.2.4 (Release date: 06 / 01 / 2009)
- Fixed: Mode issue on quakenet
10. v0.2.5 (Release date: 10 / 01 / 2009)
- Fixed: scrolling bug
- Fixed: auto forward (channel) bug
- Fixed: channel join/part bug (mode issue)
- Added: Timeout notification
11. v0.2.6 (Release date: 12 / 01 / 2009)
- Fixed: Focus issue in chatmode
- Added: Auto nickname complete (press search button while typing)
12. v0.2.7 (Release date: 28 / 01 / 2009)
- Changed: Default server, realname and ident
- Changed: Don’t clear channel on disconnect/time out
- Changed: Removed the ongoing flag for fIRC in the notification window
13. v0.2.8 (Release date: 26 / 02 / 2009)
- Added: Exit button
14. v0.2.9 (Release date: 15 / 03 / 2009)
- Fixed: IPv6 issue (thanks for reporting kash)
15. v0.2.10 (Release date: 15 / 03 / 2009)
- Added: Clickable userlist
- Added: Channel list (/list)
16. v0.2.11 (Release date: 26 / 03 / 2009)
- Fixed: /me bug in private chat
- Added: Join multiple channels on connect (comma separated, supports channels with a key)
17. v0.2.12 (Release date: 24 / 08 / 2009)
- Fixed: Layout, should now be compatible with the on screen keyboard
- Added: Disabled screen time out when chat view is enabled.
- Added: Warning for #android channel to prevent spam
- Changed: Shutting app down without kill pid
Screenshots (v0.2.x)
Screenshots (v0.1.0)
,
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:05 am
Can u implement some type of notification for PM’s? LED preferred.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:15 am
Sure, Im thinking of using either the notification window, the LED or a sound msg.
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Thanks for the update to firc! I was finally able to log into a channel with wifi.
A couple questions:
1) Should this work when not on wifi? When I try to connect to a server via the cellular net,
in the server status window I see ” ERROR: Closing Link: 0.0.0.0 (ping timeout: 38
seconds)” and I can’t connect to any channels.
2) The only channel I use is secured for betatesters with a password. With firc I cannot
connect by specifying a channel in the connect window. I have only been able to
connect by typing this in the server status window: “/join “.
Is there any chance you could add password support in firc’s connect window?
Thanks!
Paul
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Hi Paul,
1. I’m testing this mainly with 3G on… so yes it works without wifi.
2. Password support is available in the v0.2.x series. Just type “/join channelname password”
January 5th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Hello, Really impressed with this client especially with all the new version two extras. I was wondering if there are any plans to make fIRC support multiple server and SSL connections?
Thanks
Peepo
January 5th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
unable to see server window or join channel?
firc seems to run ok. I get an ongoing notification the service is running (v0.2.4) however when I hit connect in the connection settings I get nothing past (firc: connecting to server), is it possible to get a server window? if I try to join a channel I get a force close (The application fIRC chat (proces com.falcon4ever.fIRC) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again).
Any thoughts? Things worked before 0.2.x
January 6th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
It shows this everytime I log in on the Server status: -NickServ- this nickname is registered . Please choose a different nickname, or identify via /msg NickServ identify . But yet I am able to join the android channel. Do I need to change my Nickname?(Please say no)
January 6th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Hi,
I’m glad to see there’s finally an irc client coming out on Android. Thanks for your work!
I’m wondering if you’re planning on going open source with this project, this is typically the kind of project I’d love to contribute to!
January 7th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Hey paul!
First off – thanks for building this app. Slowly my g1 is replacing my pc.
I was wondering if you were going to add /kick command support.
Thanks!
L
January 13th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Auto-reconnect would be sweet.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Great to see an Android IRC client.
Where can I download the source for this? I’d like to work on improving it…
January 15th, 2009 at 4:58 am
It would be great if more modes could be implemented, like /topic, /mode #chanel add host ect
January 15th, 2009 at 11:23 am
@Remy/Rory: The application is free but not open source.
There are no plans to make it open source any time soon.
@Lance/Luismicro: I’ll ofcourse try to support those commands as soon as possible
January 15th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Love the program it has come a long way since the first iteration.
A few things I’d love to see:
-reconnect on disconnect 5s delay between attempts.
-Log save to sd card
-PM notify.
Thanks for the great woerk.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Sucks that this isn’t open source. Really needs improving and that would happen a lot faster with more developers. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll find a good open source one and jump on that bandwagon
January 19th, 2009 at 12:34 am
Second the request for open sourcing it — really, everyone benefits it its opened up. Any particular reason for keeping it locked up, Lawrence? It’s good stuff — but with a community behind it, it could be a lot better, and if you leave it closed, I guaruntee that in a few months an OSS project will come along and eat your lunch. Whereas as an open source, it will continue to grow, and you can probably even pimp for donations with some success if you’re thinking about filthy lucre.
Bugs (0.2.5): It worked pretty well when I first installed it, but after a day or two, it started erroring out. AtM, I have it up over wifi, but yeah, there are definately stability issues (I do live in NYC, so it needs to reconnect automatically after I go underground for an hour or so.
Annoyances:
I need to be able to hotkey to a channel — wow is going “goto firc, click on channel tab, click on the only channel I use” repetitive. No, please. At the very least, entering firc should take you back to where you left.
Log is cleared on disconnects. Say what? if I’m in my.irc.org in #mychan, and I get disconnected and reconnect, I should damned well see what was said in #mychan before I was kicked off.
PM notifications.
channel notifications (even if they’re quiet — “# new messages in #mychan” in the status bar would be ideal. Why would I stay in a channel if I didn’t want to see new messages?
This is all stuff whose lack I have found personally irritating. Naturally, obvious missing stuff I haven’t found cramping my style woudlbe supporting basic operator commands, DCC file transfer and chat, multi-server support, /ignore, and, of course, scripting.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:04 am
@Mneme:
I started fIRC as a personal project just to learn Java/Android (for that same reason fIRC sometimes locks up I guess due to nullpointer exceptions). I’m more a C++ programmer than Java.
I’m not against open source projects in general (for example, I even got open source projects like Dolphin, nJoy and PCSX2). However I dont think that everything should be open source. Its not like when I make fIRC open source, the development speed is doubled. Another reason not to open source is that some people like to just add a minor thing and then claim it as their own which I really dislike (I’ve seen it before with our open source projects).
Again, fIRC is just my personal project that I work on in my spare time and it will stay free.
About the bug, probably reconnecting gives some issues. I added a notification to inform the user that a connection was lost. But I’ll add an option to auto reconnect.
“Resume where you left” -> thats probably a view issue, gotta check that.
“Log is cleared on disconnect” -> Its not cleared on disconnect, the status view is just ‘hidden’ for now on disconnect afaik. It does clear on connect. This will change in the next version that will also be supporting logging all messages to the memorycard.
“PM/Chan notification” -> On my todo.
“Missing operator commands” -> Still gotta add that. I’m also planning to add an option for advanced irc users (to send raw irc messages). That way those users can already use special commands even if I didnt implemented them properly yet.
DCC file transfer is already working in my private build (60 kb/s over 3G).
January 20th, 2009 at 1:04 am
Great program, and finally a proper IRC client for the android platform. Question, though: any chance including a close button on the main screen so it doesn’t keep running in the background when I’m done? I’d like to get some of that memory back. ^-^
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:21 am
Hi, great app. Latest version connects to my favorite network (blitzed). A few issues to report:
1. Cannot connect to my BNC, since I need to send a password. Need to implement the ‘/quote’ command (or ideally add an option to input a server password in connect screen). When I connect it asks me to type
‘/QUOTE PASS yourPassHere’, but you seem to not have /quote added yet
2. Often crashes on disconnect. Or maybe it crashes and then disconnects? Many times I’ll find myself clicking on fIRC from the notification bar, then I’ll get the standard ‘Force Close’ dialog, and after I click it, I’m in fIRC but disconnect.
3. After disconnecting, no way to get rid of notification/status icon. If I get disconnected from the server, the icon stays in my notification tray, and there’s no way to get it out. I cannot click ‘disconnect’ inside fIRC since I’m already disconnected. Usually this happens right after #2 above happens.
4. An auto-reconnect feature would be nice, since cell networks can cause the occasional disconnect. Maybe have a limit on it, like don’t reconnect more than once per minute or five times per 10 minutes or something
5. A suggestion, be able to start a /msg by clicking on a user in the userlist. This would require a real scrollable user list, not just a popup with all the names that fades away after three seconds.
I’d also suggest using some type of software to manage feature requests & bug reports, like what they have on google code (the ‘Issues’ tab). I think it would make your life much easier.
Keep up the good work!
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:24 am
Oh, one more thing, some weirdness with the ‘back’ hardware button. Usually if I’m inside a channel, repeatedly pressing back will take me from:
channel -> channel list -> main fIRC screen -> in channel again -> channel list again -> main fIRC screen again -> return to previous app opened before fIRC
If you could eliminate the extra steps that would be nice, since a lot of times I’ll be reading in my browser, pop into fIRC, and then be annoyed at having to press back 7 times to get back to the browser
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:30 am
Whenever I try to connect to a server, it says “not enough parameters” every time, no matter which server.
If it were open source, I’d fix this. Obviously, open sourcing things doesn’t always make it progress faster, but it can’t make it any slower if you do it right. It’s not like you’d lose the ability to make changes whenever you had the time. Worst case, you could just hand out the source and not even manage it as a project or just et someone else manage so long as you got commit access. Sure, some folks might make one change and call it a different product, but how does that hurt you? As it is, every one of us with an issue will have to rewrite the whole application just to get a working version or we’ll have to bug the crap out of you and take up your time fixing bugs you’re not having and adding features you don’t need. Unless you’ve got government secrets in your code, I just don’t see the conflict.
Anyway, you’re only able to write the app because of open source code. Can’t hurt to give back.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
I am unable 2 get into the chat at all. A black screen comes up when I try 2 initiate the chat. Is ne 1 else havin this problem…Hit me up mrpiff82@gmail.com
January 27th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
For some odd reason it stopped working for me. Like the chatrooms don’t show up n e more. And I really like this app. If u can back 2 me in email that would be great..
January 28th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Seems like there are some DNS issues. I’ve checked the issue with another Tmo USA user and it seems that its failing to lookup chat.freenode.net (So either the DNS server is broken or someone is blocking the lookup on purpose).
I’ve uploaded a new version (fIRC chat
v0.2.7) with a different IP address.
January 28th, 2009 at 3:54 am
Awesome client man. One suggestion, you should add an option to keep the screen on when using it.
February 14th, 2009 at 3:50 am
Has anyone had luck with connecting to irc.coldfront.net? All I get when connecting is ” Not enough parameters” then ” ERROR :Closing Link: ping timeout”
February 27th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Awesome app, is there a plan to put in support for running lines on connection?
Would be sweet to be able to automatically AUTH with Q on quakenet on login, that and some sort of notification for PMs and when someone in the channel says your nick would tottally replace the need for a pc based client.
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Hi,
Very nice application. Please add an extra field to remember the nickserv password and issue an automatic “/msg nickserv identify password” after connecting to the channel. That would be great.
Many thanks for a great app.
Clem.
March 13th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
It would be awesome if you made fIRC open source.
It needs to be able to be configured to join multiple channels too.
March 24th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Is is open source or not? The comments here say it isn’t, but the code.google.com page says it is (software license is GPL).
March 24th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
@scott
I’m currently only using http://code.google.com/p/firc-chat/ as a bug/feature request tracker. The source code is not public for now.
@ivantis:
http://code.google.com/p/firc-chat/issues/detail?id=2
March 28th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Excellent work, any chance you could add support for server passwords?
March 28th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Good work, could you add support for server passwords?
April 1st, 2009 at 7:03 am
Can you please support text encoding settings?
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Trying to connect to irc.rizon.net but it always tells me “not enough parameters”. What can i do?
April 14th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
If you plan to release a newer version, would it be possible to put in an option in which you can have like bookmarks for your favorite irc server’s, so that way you dont have to remember every server off of the top of your head. Becasue i use 2 diffrent servers and it is a pain to have to log out, type in the new server then log in and if i want to go back to the previous server i have to do it all over again. I would be very helpful if firc could remember servers that you use.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I may be doing something stupid but don’t really see how. I installed firc from the market and it reliably gives me the stopped unexpectedly message. I do not see myself logged in to the channel I am trying to connect to.
I was hoping to follow the Summer of Code dupe resolution on my G1 in case I had to deal with a dupe student. Unfortunately don’t think it is going to work for me in time.
Any ideas or hints. Trying for chat.freenode.net.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Joel: Try downloading the log collector and run it after firc stopped working. It should create an email with a reason why firc stopped working. You can email it to the address found on the about page.
Hmm if you’re American (Tmo), don’t use chat.freenode.net it doesn’t seem to work properly (just hardcode a freenode server IP).
April 15th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Yes. T-Mobile and the IP address trick worked. I pinged chat.freenode.net, grabbed the IP and it connected first time. I even waved at myself from my XChat on my laptop. Thank you very much. Now my wife has another reason to call me nerdy!
Thanks for the cool program.
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:40 am
I once had this work, but now (since I had to reinstall after rooting my G1), I get nothing but a varied list of failures..
I usually see “not enough parameters” in the server trace followed by a disconnect. Sometimes it looks for a while as though it might have succeeded but the ier list is 0 users and the channel screen stays blank. someeimes it say ssomething liek “not registered”
I just type in irc.efnet.org as the server which should return dozens of IP addresses. I have tried just typing in one IP address from teh list but I get hit by the “not enough parameters” problem.
it’d be nice if the format for “default channel with password” were shown as an example (what is it?) name[space]password?
I’ve seen it run once. It’s so frustratingly close.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Hi. I just want to ask you to add operator commands, for some users they are extremely important. At least the most basic ones, /kick, /mode and /topic.
And by the way, firc is my most used app on my phone.
September 25th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Please add the /quote option for BNC users, this otherwise great app is now useless for me.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:15 am
@Laurence Muller
“DCC file transfer is already working in my private build (60 kb/s over 3G).”
Should I take this to mean you’re going to add this feature into the public version of the app eventually? That would really bring me over into using your client!
December 18th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
@l3reak
Well its a planned feature so yes, it will be in the next major release.
December 19th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Fantastic! That’s all I’ll need for a 5 star rating for fIRC.
April 11th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Hi! I like fIRC but can you please make it support ISO-8859-1 too?
April 21st, 2010 at 4:24 am
I’ll do my best, for now I still need to do some rewriting for the next version. If you want to make sure I don’t forget your suggestion, please post it on: http://code.google.com/p/firc-chat/issues/list . That would make it easier to keep track of feature requests