A typical X-Chat session on the
Freenode IRC network showing an active
conversation in the #Wikipedia channel as well as other channels in tabs. Unread conversations are red
X-Chat, commonly written XChat or xchat, is one of the most popular IRC client for Unix-like systems. It is also available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X (via an offshoot of the project, called X-Chat Aqua, which keeps in sync with the main development branch and is much more popular than the official version maintained by the Fink project). It has a tabbed interface, support for multiple servers, and a high level of configurability. Both command line and graphical versions are available, although use of the graphical version far outweighs use of the command line version. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License and uses the GTK+ toolkit for its interface.
X-Chat can be scripted with a number of programming languages: Perl, Python, Tcl, and Ruby, which are available as external plugins and contain a binary module interface, usually for the C programming language.
As of August 23, 2004, the official Windows build of X-Chat has become shareware, and must be purchased for USD$20 or AUD$25 after a 30-day trial period. There has been a great deal of discussion about the legality of this move. Since the X-Chat project has not required copyright assignment, the maintainer of the X-Chat project does not actually hold copyright to the entirety of the code. While he has offered to remove and rewrite any patches, provided the author of the patches asks him to, there are many who feel that he is still in violation of the GPL, especially since the code for the shareware enforcement is not disclosed. Unofficial Windows builds of X-Chat are made available (at no cost) by contributor SilvereX, who maintains a binary of the latest release, and also compiles frequently from CVS. These unofficial builds require an installation of a Windows port of GTK+ runtime libraries to operate (they are not statically linked like the official build), and are provided for download.
External links
Support
Unofficial Versions and Builds
Windows Builds (GPL)
Third-Party Plugins
Programming Languages
System Tray
