IRK README
==========

Welcome to IRK, a Tcl IRC client library. IRK is intended for Tcl
programmers that want to use the IRC protocol for communication. It
can be used to ease the creation of IRC "bots", as shown by the
examples in the examples directory, and it can also serve as the basis
for graphical chat clients. Finally, it can be used to allow IRKs to
find each other without centralized coordination, by meeting on a
designated IRC server and channel. It is therefore ideal for setting
up the initial contact for P2P programs without requiring a central
registry or server.

LICENSE
=======

IRK is distributed under the BSD license, the same license as Tcl.

INSTALLATION
============

IRK is written in pure Tcl, which means it requires no extensions. It
works with Tcl 8.0 and all later releases of Tcl.

IRK has been tested on Solaris 7, Red Hat Linux 7.2, Windows 98,
Windows 2000 and FreeBSD 4.2. It should work on any platform that is
able to support Tcl 8.0 or later.

Just drop this directory into one of the directories in Tcl's auto
path. In your Tcl scripts, add the line:

	package require irk

and the IRK package should load into your Tcl interpreter.

USAGE
=====

Read docs/usage.txt for a short overview of the commands provided by
IRK.

RECENT CHANGES AND CURRENT VERSION
==================================

Please read docs/changes.txt to see a list of all changes, ordered
chronologically by release.

REQUIREMENTS
============

IRK is event driven, and it requires the event loop to be active. If
you want to use IRK from tclsh or other programs embedding a Tcl
interpreter where the event loop is inactive, enter the event loop by
adding the following line somewhere in your program:

	vwait infinitely

If you are using IRK in Wish, you do not need to take any action.

TODO
====

Please docs/todo.txt for a list of planned enhancements.

CREDITS AND CONTACT
===================

IRK benefited from examination of the Zircon and savIRC code written
by Lindsay Marshall and Saverio Castellano, respectively. The future
OO wrapper API is based on an idea suggested by Dave N. Welton.

You can contact Jacob Levy, the author of IRK, at jyl@best.com. Please
do drop a note if you use IRK, or if you have suggestions for
enhancements, or if you run into problems.


