BeWare Highlight: Felix (IRC Client)

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a very popular service on the Internet--just take a look at the hundreds of channels available at Dal.Net during the middle of the day! BeOS users can participate on IRC thanks to Felix, a native BeOS IRC client. Felix was authored by Xavier Ducrohet and Laurent Pontier (of Kftp fame). Now in release version 1.2, Felix has undergone significant user interface changes that give the end user a lot of power to easily automate and manage multiple connections. Felix is maturing nicely and provides a high level of stability.

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When you run Felix you're presented with the Sign On screen which allows you to set up multiple default nicknames; if your first choice is already taken, Felix will automatically try another two. Through the Preferences panel, you can configure and save as many IRC servers as you like and automatically connect to a particular channel once you're logged in. You can log into as many servers and channels as your chat skills can handle. Once logged into a channel, your main window is very flexible and you can resize the various areas to best suit your preferences.

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One really nifty feature of Felix is the 'URL Secret Agent'. This agent takes the form of another window on the screen. The agent 'watches' the conversation for URL references. If someone posts a URL, the agent will display it in its window. At any time you may click on the URL in the agent window to either visit the web site or download a file via FTP. Future versions of Felix will support protection against message flooding, the ability to ignore other individuals, and more configurable use of colors and fonts in the chat window.

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Adding to your Be trivia knowledge, Felix was named after Felix the cat. "Cat" in French is spelled, "chat". You get the rest.

Vital Statistics

Availability: Available Now!
Web Page: http://www.efrei.fr/~ducrohet/
FTP Site: ftp://ftp.be.com/pub/contrib/network/Felix-1.22.tar.gz
Cost: Free
Contact: Xavier Ducrohet, ducrohet@efrei.fr