spacemacs/layers/+chat/erc/README.org

ERC layer

• Description
  • Features:
• Install
  • Layer
  • macOS
  • Social graph
  • Disable notifications
  • Enable SASL authentication
  • Default servers
    • Security Note
• Key bindings
• Spacemacs Layout Support

Description

Layer for ERC IRC chat.

Features:

• Highlight nicks (using erc-hl-nicks)
• Image inline support (using erc-image)
• Logging to ~/.emacs.d/.cache/erc-logs and ViewLogMode for viewing logs (using erc-view-log)
• YouTube videos Thumbnails inline (using erc-yt)
• Social Graph for ERC messages (using erc-social-graph)
• Optional SASL authentication via the variable erc-enable-sasl-auth (using erc-sasl)
• D-BUS notifications via the variable erc-enable-notifications
• Completion of Emojis using company-emoji (still needs a way of showing, either using the emoji layer or having a proper font) 👏

Install

Layer

To use this configuration layer, add it to your ~/.spacemacs. You will need to add erc to the existing dotspacemacs-configuration-layers list in this file.

macOS

It's recommended to install the terminal-notifier gem so that you get notifications via the macOS Notification Center.

Social graph

erc-social-graph needs graphviz to be installed on your system.

Disable notifications

By default D-BUS notifications are enabled, to disable them set the layer variable erc-enable-notifications to nil.

  (setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
               '((erc :variables erc-enable-notifications nil)))

Enable SASL authentication

To enable SASL authentication set the layer variable erc-enable-sasl-auth to non nil.

  (setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
               '((erc :variables erc-enable-sasl-auth t)))

Default servers

You can define the default servers in the ERC custom layout by setting the variable erc-server-list. Setting :ssl non nil will connect with erc-tls. You can also use <leader>aiD to connect to your default servers outside the custom layout.

  (setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
               '((erc :variables
                      erc-server-list
                      '(("irc.freenode.net"
                         :port "6697"
                         :ssl t
                         :nick "some-user"
                         :password "secret")
                        ("irc.myworkirc.net"
                         :port "1234"
                         :nick "some-suit"
                         :password "hunter2")))))

Security Note

You should not store your passwords in the clear in your .spacemacs, and that goes double if you version your config file. ERC allows for a number of ways of protecting this information.

First, ERC will check your ~/.authinfo.gpg, looking for lines like

  machine <irc.server.url> login <yournick> password <yourpassword> port <portnumber>

You can omit :password in this case.

You could also set an environment variable (or otherwise secret variable) and read that in :password.

Key bindings

Key binding	Description
SPC a i e	Starts ERC
SPC a i E	Starts ERC via TLS/SSL
SPC a i i	Switch to next active ERC buffer
SPC a i D	Start ERC with default servers
SPC m b	Switch between ERC buffers
SPC m d	Interactively input a user action and send it to IRC.
SPC m D	Draw Social Graph using erc-social-graph
SPC m j	Join a channel, executes the /join command
SPC m n	Run "/names #channel" in the current channel.
SPC m l	Run the /list command
SPC m p	Part from the channel
SPC m q	Quit server

Note: If you want to connect securely to an IRC server, you must run erc-tls command on SPC a i E instead of the erc command.

Spacemacs Layout Support

ERC buffers are added automatically to the default layout for ERC controlled by the variable erc-spacemacs-layout-name (defaults to "@ERC") and the default binding ("E") is controlled by erc-spacemacs-layout-binding