README file for DarkStar/EPIC5 $Id: README,v 1.57 2011/10/20 00:00:24 brian Exp $ DarkStar written and maintained by Brian Weiss Copyright (c) 2002, 2011 Brian Weiss Please see the 'COPYRIGHT' file for licensing information. See the bottom of this file for a list of contributors. ABOUT DarkStar is a modular script pack and scripting framework for the EPIC5 IRC client. It is highly extensible and includes a module loading system, theme support, advanced tab completion, nick management and more. The modular design offers many benefits and allows for a very high level of customization. While it has been designed with power users and other scripters in mind, it still provides a nice environment for all types of users right out of the box. REQUIREMENTS The only requirement is EPIC5-0.3 or higher. This script pack will NOT work correctly with EPIC4 or older clients. You have been warned. EPIC5-1.1.2 is the latest version of EPIC5 at this time. It is recommended that all users run this version. WHERE TO GET DARKSTAR AND EPIC5 There is now an official DarkStar website. You can find it at one of the following locations. http://darkstar.epicsol.org/ Recent versions of both DarkStar and EPIC5 can also be found at the following URLs: http://www.epicsol.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/~brian/ A snapshot of my current tree (as well as EPIC) is also available via CVS: export CVSROOT=:pserver:anoncvs@epicsol.org:/home/cvs/repository cvs login (Password is "anoncvs") cvs co darkstar (or to checkout the latest EPIC5 tree...) cvs co epic5 Once you have done a checkout you can just do the following to update it. cd darkstar/ (or epic5/) cvs update -dP GETTING STARTED If you're the impatient type, it should be safe to just go ahead and load darkstar.irc now. It should automatically detect its location and set things up accordingly. There are a few things that get set at load time that you may want to change. This can be accomplished by setting the following environment variables. DARKSTAR_HOME - DarkStar home directory (default: ~/darkstar) *** You are no longer required to set this if you install somewhere other than the default. It will now use $loadinfo() to determine the home directory. DARKSTAR_RC - Location of the RC file. This is loaded every time darkstar.irc is loaded, including /RELOADs. This file should be used for EPIC settings instead of ~/.epicrc, so that ~/.epicrc it can be used to load darkstar.irc on startup. (default: ~/.dsrc) DARKSTAR_USERDIR - Location of the "User directory". This just contains directories where you can put your own modules, status bars, and themes so they are not messed with when you upgrade. Saved settings also go here by default. (default: ~/.darkstar) The way you set these variables depends on the shell that you are using. (sh, bash, zsh, etc) export DARKSTAR_USERDIR=~/.epic5/darkstar (*csh) setenv DARKSTAR_USERDIR ~/.epic5/darkstar If you don't want to create these variables every time you login, I recommend putting them in a shell startup script. (~/.bash_profile, ~/.profile, ~/.zshrc, ~/.cshrc, etc.) Nothing else is required to begin using DarkStar. However, I recommend having a look at sample.epicrc in the main directory. At this point you can just type "/LOAD /path/to/darkstar.irc" from the EPIC input prompt to begin using the scripts. A number of modules will be loaded by default (changed via /DSET AUTO_LOAD_MODULES) and you should be prompted to choose a theme. After that you may want to browse some of the files located in the help/ directory within the main DarkStar directory. If you would like to load DarkStar automatically on client startup, you can place the following code in ~/.epicrc load /path/to/darkstar.irc That's it! I hope you find these scripts as useful as I do, and please feel free to send me any feedback you might have. FILES COPYRIGHT - The license file README - You're reading it :-) TODO - To-do list UPDATES - Contains information about important changes. darkstar.irc - The startup script. This is the file that you /LOAD to begin using DarkStar. sample.epicrc - Sample EPIC RC file (~/.epicrc) core/*.dsc - The scripts that make up the DarkStar core. doc/* - Any documentation that is not browsed via /DHELP help/* - Help files for the core scripts and included modules modules/*.dsm - The modules that provide most of the features - All of these are completely optional and are independent of each other. themes/* - Theme files for use with the themes module. I would like to thank the following people for contributing in some way to this project. Jeremy Nelson Colten Edwards Eli Sand Daniel Shatter Tyler Hall Terry Warner BlackJac@EFNet CrazyEddy RoboHak shade dialtone myke ww adm End of file.