This is the third installment in a series devoted to irssi. This is going to be quick because it deals with installing scripts to improve irssi's performance and usability.
You can read more about it in the official website http://scripts.irssi.org/
I use irssi inside screen on the command line and I usually connect to it through ssh. Well the paradox here is that I connect to an only text environment from a graphical one. So I would like to have the cake and eat it too. Well, to a certain extent it is possible running scripts. There are hundreds!!! There is even a .deb package for it. Simply:
# apt-get install irssi-scripts
But you do not need to do that if you only want to use several scripts. It is better to download them from the official website and install them by hand.
You can for example use your mouse to swipe from channel to channel just as if you were using your fingers on a touch screen mobile phone (By the way I use irssi-connectbot on my android to do that )
Then you would download mouse.pl into ~/.irssi/scripts/ and in order to load it type:
/script load mouse.pl
In order to unload it:
/script unload mouse.pl
I use several scripts. I'll name some personal favourites: nicklist.pl and proxy_backlog.pl They were written by Wouter Coekaerts Now that I see mouse.pl was written by him as well nice!
nicklist.pl prints a user list on the right (similar to other GUI/CLI clients) In order to use it inside screen, you have to /script load nicklist.pl and then /nicklist screen. Please read more about it on the author's site.
proxy_backlog.pl sends the backlog to any client connecting to the proxy. It is still in the works but it works great if the client connecting is irssi but not so well with other clients. To get the backlog you have to type:
/ctcp -proxy- IRSSIPROXY BACKLOG SEND
Another favourite one:
nickcolor.pl is self-expanatory enough. It prints nicks in different colours.
update: If you want your scripts to be run at startup you have to place them in a directory named autorun:
.irssi/scripts/autorun
