Dear mIRC friend, Thank you for your interest in translating this basic helpfile to your language. Translations of this file will be placed on mIRC's website and spread by our 'helpdesk'. This way we hope to help people who can not easily read all our help in English. You would be amazed to know how many people this involves! - Please first look on http://www.mirc.co.uk/translations and make very sure a translation in your language is not yet available! - You are welcome to add information to your translation that is of extra value to people in your country, or people speaking your language. Do not add too much information; this file is ment to stay short, simple, and to the point. Do not add version specific information or information that gets outdated quickly! Your translation might serve other users for several years! - You are encouraged to add links to good websites in your language that give more help with IRC and mIRC. If your country has local (and good) IRC networks you should maybe tell your readers about them? - You are invited to add your name to the end of this file, eventually together with your E-mail address. But be aware that this will result in requests for help! Of course you can place (parts of) this file on your own website! Your completed translation should be sent to me by E-mail at tjerk@mirc.com. Do not send HTML-ed files; I need the plain text version! Comments and updates on existing translations are welcome too! Tjerk. --- all of the information below has to be translated ---------------- --- you have to replace the part between the [ and ] brackets -------- 0 - The installation of mIRC [in English]. mIRC is an English program and no translated versions are currently available. Nevertheless, using mIRC is not too difficult for people speaking other languages. Most of the buttons, features and functions use simple and to the point commands and settings. The installation of mIRC and first use of IRC often are the first and only hurdle. That's what we want to solve with this file and its translations. This information is translated by [yourname] from the original file written by Tjerk Vonck found at http://www.mirc.co.uk/english.txt. Note that Tjerk does not speak [yourlanguage]. Questions about mIRC can be send to help@mirc.com in English only. 1 - What is IRC. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a virtual meeting place where people from all over the world can meet and talk, well - type. As a user you run mIRC; a small program which connects to a server in an IRC network. All servers are interconnected and pass messages from user to user over the IRC network. You will be able to participate in group discussions on one of the thousands of IRC channels, on one of the hundreds of IRC networks, or just talk in private to family or friends, wherever they are in the world. You will find the whole diversity of human interests, ideas, and issues on IRC. 2 - What is mIRC. To use IRC you need a small program like mIRC, a shareware IRC client for Windows, written by Khaled Mardam-Bey. mIRC is a friendly IRC client that is well equipped with options and tools. You can download mIRC for free from the mIRC Homepage at http://www.mirc.com/. In this helpfile we will help to you download, install and use mIRC. 3 - How to join IRC. No worries, we will help you with Downloading, Installing and the Setup of mIRC. If you made it this far you will certainly manage to get and install mIRC on your PC, if not today then tomorrow! Just read on and follow the instructions..... If you get lost somewhere then simply re-read the paragraph. If things dont *snap* at first, you could make a little step sideways and read some other information in between? I'd like to suggest the IRC Intro at http://www.mirc.com/ircintro.html. Always keep in mind; there is a lot of help and information available but -you- have to do the reading. 4 - How to download mIRC. mIRC is distributed in self-extracting cabinets that will install mIRC on your PC. Just like a lot of other Internet programs. You first have to find out what mIRC issue you will be running. mIRC is available in a 16 bit issue and a 32 bit issue. The 16 bit issue is meant for very old 16 bit Operating Systems like Windows 3.1 or 3.11. The 32 bit issue is meant for all modern 32 bit Operating Systems like Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, NT or newer. I bet you already know what cabinet you need? The cabinet with the 16 bit issue is named mirc591s.exe. See the 's' in there? It stands for 'sixteen'. The cabinet with the 32 bit issue is named something like mircxxx.exe. For instance mirc601.exe. Now you are ready to download the appropriate mIRC cabinet from one of the mIRC websites. Start your web-browser and go to http://www.mirc.com or one of its mirrors. You will see a link to the download page with a long list of download addresses. It does not matter what download address you use; they all offer the same file! Of course downloading from a nearby location will go faster. Simply save the file you selected to your harddisk. Select a directory on your harddisk where you can find it back later. Be patient, downloading mIRC might take some minutes... 5 - What to do next? Installation! Now that you have downloaded mIRC, you are ready to install mIRC on your PC. Do you remember the name of the file you just downloaded? Search for it on your harddisk. Once you have found it you can double click on it. This will start the installation of mIRC. The program will ask you to read the user licence, and it will ask for the 'Destination folder'; the directory on your harddisk where you want mIRC to be installed. Normally the proposed c:\mirc\ directory will do fine. Press 'OK' a few times and finally the 'Install' button and you are done! The installer will take care of all the work. 6 - Now start mIRC for the first time. mIRC is now installed on your PC and ready for use. Before you proceed make sure you have an active connection to Internet. Simply start your modem like you always do, ok? Now look for the small mIRC icon somewhere in the Start Menu or in the mIRC program group. You can click on this icon to start mIRC. mIRC will start for the first time and the Options menu appears. It requires you to fill in some basic information. At first only the main 'Connect' dialog is important. It is the very first item in the list. Forget about all other distracting options. Fill in the lines about Full name, E-mail address, Nickname and Alternate; - Full name: Your real name (ie, Tjerk Vonck) - E-mail address: Your email address (ie, tjerk@mirc.com) - Nickname: A one to nine character alias to use on the chat system (ie, Kreet) - Alternate: If someone else is already using the nickname you you've chosen for IRC, you will be known by this alternate name instead. (ie, Kreet2) You can select another IRC server if you want but the default Random US DALnet server will do fine. You don't *have* to use your real Full name and E-mail address if you want to stay unknown. Oh, see the small 'Invisible mode' checkbox? I suggest you activate that since it shields you from being seen in Server-wide searches. Now that all is set, click on the large 'Connect to IRC Server' button and you will go straight to IRC. Congratulations! And the best is; next time you dont have to do all this work again :) 7 - What is happening? Take it easy and look around... A lot of things are happening. mIRC (hopefully) made connection to some DALnet IRC server. This server sent some messages to you about the system status in the 'Status' window. Also the mIRC Channels Folder popped up. Look at it carefully; it shows a selection of the most popular IRC Channels available all over the world. You might want to try some of them? You can double-click on any channel suggested in the list. When you join a channel, a new window appears on your screen. The names in the right side column are the people who are already chatting in the channel. The left- hand window is where the conversation takes place. Try to say 'Hi!' to the people on the channel, just type your text in the single line box at the bottom of the channel's window... Have fun and chat away! To leave a channel, just double click on the close box, which is located at the top-left corner of the channel's window. 8 - Hey, this is fun! Yup it is.. As you see it wasn't too hard to get on IRC. And now that you have come this far there is a lot to explore! The small list of channels you have seen is by far not complete. There are thousands of them on this IRC network. You can type the /list command to see them all. Hint: In the Commands menu - at the top of your screen - all the basic mIRC commands are found. This can be usefull if you don't know what you are doing. You can connect to other IRC networks easily. As you have seen already, in the File/Options/Connect menu you can select other IRC networks and other IRC servers. Push the large 'Connect to IRC Server' button to connect to some other network. Give it a try? If you want to meet some friends on IRC make sure to go to the same IRC network. Knowing the Channel where they meet but not the network is like searching for main-street but not knowing in what city to look. Now that you have installed mIRC it is up to you to get a little experience. At first everything will look very confusing but you just have to get used to the medium. And dont forget; there are always friendly people around who can help you... simply ask if you need a little help! You can disconnect from IRC with the top left button on the button bar. It shows a little connector. Before disconnecting I suggest you try some of the other buttons. You might need them later. 9 - More information. For more information please look on the following websites: mIRC's official website: http://www.mirc.com/ ... [ Add some good websites written in your language here. ] [ Make sure they tell about IRC and mIRC in general. ] [ Do not add scripting or bot websites; ] [ newbies will not understand that anyway! ] Also look in mIRC's HELP menu. As you will see mIRC comes with two important help files; one for mIRC itself and one for IRC in general. The latter file -the IRC Intro- I already referred to before and I really suggest you read that file today or tomorrow. The IRC Intro explains almost all phenomena you will encounter within some days and it introduces the strange habits and funny behaviour of people on IRC to you! Succes, and looots of fun on IRC! Original English version by Tjerk Vonck - tjerk@mirc.com Translated by [yourname] - [your email address] © Copyright 1995-2002 Tjerk Vonck & mIRC Co. Ltd. --- end of the information that has to be translated -----------------