Some tips to beautify your WeeChat, using unicode chars and some colors.

Unicode chars (your locale must be UTF-8)

A full line for separator between prefix (usually nick) and messages:

/set weechat.look.prefix_suffix "│"

Full line for read marker:

/set weechat.look.read_marker_string "─"

Arrows for join/quit (be careful, impact on log files):

/set weechat.look.prefix_join "▬▬▶"
/set weechat.look.prefix_quit "◀▬▬"

String for bar item "buffer_filter" (WeeChat >= 0.3.6):

/set weechat.look.item_buffer_filter "•"

"More" indicators in bars (WeeChat >= 0.3.6):

/set weechat.look.bar_more_down "▼"
/set weechat.look.bar_more_left "◀"
/set weechat.look.bar_more_right "▶"
/set weechat.look.bar_more_up "▲"

Colors (for WeeChat >= 0.3.5 with a terminal supporting 256 colors)

Time with gray shading, and no colon separator (WeeChat >= 0.3.5):

/set weechat.look.buffer_time_format "${252}%H${245}%M${240}%S"

Note: updated in WeeChat 0.4.2, the syntax is now:

/set weechat.look.buffer_time_format "${color:252}%H${color:245}%M${color:240}%S"

Another "blue" for background of title and status bars:

/set weechat.bar.title.color_bg 60
/set weechat.bar.status.color_bg 60

Some dark colors for delimiters, host,...:

/set weechat.color.chat_delimiters 29
/set weechat.color.chat_host 24
/set weechat.color.chat_prefix_suffix 24
/set weechat.color.nicklist_away 244
/set weechat.color.separator 60
/set irc.color.reason_quit  244
/set irc.color.topic_new  36
/set irc.color.topic_old 244

More nick colors: add for example "31,35,38,40,49,63,70,80,92,99,112,126,130,138,142,148,160,162,167,169,174,176,178,184,186,210,212,215,247" to nick colors:

/set weechat.color.chat_nick_colors "cyan,magenta,green,brown,lightblue,default,lightcyan,lightmagenta,lightgreen,blue,31,35,38,40,49,63,70,80,92,99,112,126,130,138,142,148,160,162,167,169,174,176,178,184,186,210,212,215,247"

Mouse support has been added to WeeChat, and a "cursor" mode: a mode when you can move cursor everywhere and do actions with keys on focused area.

New commands added:

/mouse
/cursor

Before using mouse, add missing keys:

/key missing

Mouse events (clicks on buttons, gestures) are caught as special "keys", in context "mouse". For a list of default events, you can look at documentation (default keys) or output of this command in WeeChat:

/key list mouse

Mouse is not enabled by default. To enable it (at startup and now), do:

/set weechat.look.mouse on
/mouse enable

When mouse is enabled, you can use shift+selection or shift+buttons to select/paste text (like when mouse is disabled). Note that on some terminals like iTerm, you may have to use alt instead of shift.
New key alt+m will toggle mouse on/off.

Finally, thanks to Nei for his scripts, the mouse support in WeeChat is partially based on them.

Mouse support will be improved in near future, for example interactions with words/messages in chat area (select text, click on URLs, ..).
Stay tuned!

Version 0.3.5 is available!

As usual, many new features and bug fixes, see ChangeLog for detail.

Important: please read the release notes if you are upgrading to this version (from any other version).

New major features in this release:

• 256 colors support improved (dynamic allocation of colors) (see this post)
• attributes for colors (bold/reverse/underline) (see this post)
• better scroll of input (with long text)
• output of /help improved for list of commands and their arguments (see this post)
• remember scroll position of buffers in windows
• list of buffers in filters (see this post)
• count of messages in hotlist buffers (see this post)
• swap buffers of windows
• balance of windows
• new API function to set help on plugin/script options
• speller options in aspell plugin (see this post)
• option for SSL priorities in IRC servers
• color nicks in nicklist and output of /names

New options:

• weechat.look.hotlist_add_buffer_if_away
• weechat.look.hotlist_buffer_separator
• weechat.look.hotlist_count_max
• weechat.look.hotlist_count_min_msg
• weechat.color.status_count_msg
• weechat.color.status_count_private
• weechat.color.status_count_highlight
• weechat.color.status_count_other
• weechat.look.highlight_tags
• weechat.look.read_marker_string
• weechat.look.input_cursor_scroll
• weechat.look.color_pairs_auto_reset
• irc.color.topic_old
• irc.color.topic_new
• irc.color.nick_prefixes
• irc.look.buffer_switch_autojoin
• irc.look.buffer_switch_join
• irc.look.smart_filter_nick
• irc.look.color_nicks_in_nicklist
• irc.look.color_nicks_in_names

New keys:

• alt + "w", alt + "b": balance the sizes of all windows (/window balance)
• alt + "w", alt + "s": swap buffers of two windows (/window swap)

Note: to add missing keys, you can use command /key missing

It is now possible to use a list of buffers in filters. Exclusion of buffers is allowed using prefix "!".

Example: add IRC smart filter on all freenode channels, but not channels beginning with "#private":

/filter add irc_smart irc.freenode.*,!*#private* irc_smart_filter *

The list of commands in /help commands has been improved.

By default it's now a short list (only names of commands), and long list is possible with option -listfull. Moreover, it is possible to list commands for one plugin (or core) only.

Example of short list for irc plugin: /help -list irc

[irc]
  admin      deop       join       mode       part       samode     stats      voice
  allchan    devoice    kick       motd       ping       sanick     summon     wallchops
  allserv    die        kickban    msg        pong       sapart     time       wallops
  ban        disconnect kill       names      query      saquit     topic      who
  connect    halfop     links      nick       quote      server     trace      whois
  ctcp       ignore     list       notice     reconnect  service    unban      whowas
  cycle      info       lusers     notify     rehash     servlist   userhost
  dcc        invite     map        op         restart    squery     users
  dehalfop   ison       me         oper       sajoin     squit      version

Example of long list for core commands: /help -listfull irc

[irc]
  admin - find information about the administrator of the server
  allchan - execute a command on all channels of all connected servers
  allserv - execute a command on all connected servers
  ban - ban nicks or hosts
  connect - connect to IRC server(s)
  ctcp - send a CTCP message (Client-To-Client Protocol)
  cycle - leave and rejoin a channel
  dcc - start a DCC (file transfer or direct chat)
  dehalfop - remove channel half-operator status from nick(s)
  deop - remove channel operator status from nick(s)
  devoice - remove voice from nick(s)
...

Moreover, display of command arguments in /help <command> has been improved.

Old version: /help server

[irc]  /server  [list [servername]] | [listfull [servername]] | [add servername hostname[/port] [-temp] ...

New version: /help server

[irc]  /server  list|listfull [<server>]
                add <server> <hostname>[/<port>] [-temp] [-<option>[=<value>]] [-no<option>]
                copy|rename <server> <new_name>
                del|keep <server>
                deloutq|jump|raw

Version 0.3.4 is available!

As usual, many new features and bug fixes, see ChangeLog for detail.

Important: please read the release notes if you are upgrading to this version (from any other version).

New major features in this release:

• 256 colors support, with unlimited number of nick colors (see this post)
• irc proxy (relay plugin)
• redirection of IRC commands (see this post)
• new irc command /notify
• rmodifier plugin (see this post)
• regular expressions for highlights
• color support for timestamp in chat buffer (see this post)
• irc option to force color for some nicks
• share input line between buffers

New options:

• weechat.color.chat_nick_colors
• weechat.look.highlight_regex
• weechat.look.hotlist_unique_numbers
• weechat.look.input_share
• weechat.look.input_share_overwrite
• weechat.look.prefix_align_min
• irc.look.notify_tags_ison
• irc.look.notify_tags_whois
• irc.network.notify_check_ison
• irc.network.notify_check_whois
• option "notify" in irc servers
• irc.look.nick_color_force
• irc.look.item_away_message
• irc.color.nick_prefix
• irc.color.nick_suffix

It is now possible to add color in time displayed for each line in formated buffers.

Option weechat.look.buffer_timeformat now supports colors with format: "${xxx}" where "xxx" is a color name (lightblue, red, ...) or a number (for example: "214" for orange).

Note: updated in 0.4.2, the syntax is now: "${color:xxx}".

Screenshot of colored time, with french flag colors:

It is now possible to disable highlights from some nicks, per buffer, or per group of buffers (like IRC servers).

A new buffer property "no_highlightnicks" has been added. It can be set easily with script buffer_autoset.py, see /help autosetbuffer for example.

If you have already opened buffer, then script option will not apply immediately to buffers. Then you can use /buffer command to manually set this property on a buffer, for example, to disable highlights from "joe" and "mike" on current buffer:

/buffer set nohighlightnicks_add joe,mike

Updated on 2010-12-02: this option has been replaced by "hotlist_maxlevel_nicks", see Max hotlist level for some nicks.

Version 0.3.2 is available!

As usual, many new features and bug fixes, see ChangeLog for detail.

Important: please read the release notes if you are upgrading to this version (from any other version).

Version 0.3.1 is available!

As usual, many new features and bug fixes, see ChangeLog for detail.

Important: please read the release notes if you are upgrading to this version (from any other version).

It is now possible to merge buffers with command /buffer merge (or unmerge). IRC plugin uses that feature to merge server buffers, with the new option irc.look.server_buffer (merge_with_core, merge_without_core, independent).

When a buffer is merged to one or more other buffers, they will have same number, and chat area will display mixed lines (short name of buffer is displayed on each line, to know to which buffer line belongs). Bars still display content for current selected buffer.

New key Ctrl+x has been added to swtich current active buffer when many buffers are merged (old key Alt+s has been removed).

For devel users: it's not possible to upgrade from previous versions to this one, and you should do /key missing to add missing key.

Completion has been improved for command arguments. Now many templates are allowed for one command, and WeeChat will automatically choose and use the better template according to arguments you give on command line.

Let's take an example: the /proxy command. Completion template is this string:

add %(proxies_names) http|socks4|socks5 || del %(proxies_names) || set %(proxies_names) %(proxies_options) || list

The single pipe is still used to add many possible items for one argument. Now a double pipe has been added to separate many templates. WeeChat will choose template according to arguments you give before completion location in command line.
Example 1: if you enter: "/proxy add [+tab]", then WeeChat will use first template ("add %(proxies_names) http|socks4|socks5").
Example 2: if you enter: "/proxy set [+tab]", WeeChat will used third template ("set %(proxies_names) %(proxies_options)").

Now, you'll ask: but how to complete first argument of command? WeeChat can't know which template to use!
Hey, good question! I was sure you would ask that ;)
The answer is very simple: for first argument, WeeChat will make a "or" between first argument of each template (so it will use a fictive template which is: "add|del|set").

It's recommended to use plain words for first argument of each template (when using many templates). If you use many words (separated by single pipe), or items (%(xxx)), then WeeChat will not know which template to use, and may not complete at all.

Another thing you should know, default completion items (defined by WeeChat core) have been renamed. Old name was something like "%x", new name is"%(xxx)". For example %n has been renamed to %(nicks). Some new completions have been added too. Please read doc for new names (and now that includes names of completion items defined by plugins).

If you are using old development version, nick completion will be broken, so you'll have to issue following command: /unset weechat.completion.default_template

Happy completion party!

Support for many proxies has been added. It's now possible to create many proxies, and assign different proxy (or no proxy) for each IRC server.

To create, delete, list proxies, use new /proxy command. New IRC option for each server is irc.server.xxx.proxy = name, where name is the name of proxy to use for connection.

For example, to define a http proxy and use it only on freenode server:

/proxy add myproxy http sample.host.org 8888
/set irc.server.freenode.proxy "myproxy"

New command /layout has been added and a new option weechat.look.save_layout_on_exit. WeeChat now saves layout (windows layout and order of buffers). With /layout command, you can show saved layout, apply layout, and save layout for windows and/or buffers.

Windows layout is position of windows (including size), and buffer displayed in windows (plugin and buffer name).
Buffers layout is order of buffers, ie numbers assigned to buffers.

Filters have been added. This feature replaces old /ignore command for IRC, but is more powerful and is not specific to IRC, it applies on buffer content. With new /filter command, you can ask WeeChat to filter lines displayed, by tags and/or regular expression on content of line. Unlike old /ignore command, the /filter command only hides lines, they are not removed, and you can see them when you want.

To understand filters, you should know what are tags. Each line displayed in a (formated) buffer may have optional tags, which are one or more words for this line. Number of tags is not limited, but should be reasonable (4 or 5 max). Tags are not visible (not displayed in buffer), they are used to filter content of buffers.

IRC plugin uses tags for all messages displayed if they're issued from an IRC server. Tags are: "irc_xxx" where "xxx" is the command received. For example if someone joins IRC channel, line with "--> nick has joined #channel" will have tag "irc_join". For IRC numeric command, tag is "irc_cmd_xxx" where "xxx" is number (3 digits), and second tag is "irc_numeric".

Some examples of filters:

• filter IRC join/part/quit messages (if you find them boring!): /filter add joinquit * irc_join,irc_part,irc_quit *
• filter lines containing word "spam": /filter add spamfilter * * spam
• filter lines containing "weechat sucks" on channel #weechat: /filter add sucks irc.freenode.#weechat * weechat sucks

You can enable/disable filters by /filter command (look at /help filter) or with shortcut key meta + "=".

In a later version, you'll be able to see indicator in status bar, to know if filters are enabled or not, and if something is filtered on current buffer (lines hidden). This will be possible with new bars.