Channel:Encoding

From #japanese

This guide will help you set up your favourite client!

Contents 1 Common 2 Client-Specific HOWTOs 2.1 mIRC 2.2 XChat 2.2.1 Using ISO-2022-JP encoding for the whole network 2.2.2 Using different encodings per-channel 2.3 CGI:IRC 2.4 Konversation 2.5 Irssi 2.5.1 Set up environment encoding 2.5.2 Encoding conversion using Recode 2.5.2.1 Checklist 2.5.3 Using system locale 2.6 Gaim 2.7 ChatZilla 3 Clients in need of documentation 4 Related Topics

Common

Regardless of which IRC client you use, in order to see Japanese text in software you usually need to have a Japanese font installed. If you can view a Japanese webpage, such as http://www.google.co.jp, then you should have the necessary font.

Then you also typically need to tell your IRC client to use the ISO-2022-JP, a.k.a. JIS or JIS7 encoding. After that, you may need to tell your IRC client to use a Japanese font, or it may be smart enough to do it automatically. The following sections describe how to set up specific clients.

Some Japanese channels use different encodings, and you should adjust the instruction below to adapt to them. The encodings used by some known Japanese channels:

• #japanese@rizon : ISO-2022-JP
• #japanese.utf8@rizon: UTF-8
• #japanese@2ch : ISO-2022-JP
• #japanese@irchighway : UTF-8

Client-Specific HOWTOs

mIRC

mIRC is capable of sending and receiving Japanese. #japanese uses JIS encoding since all Japanese IRC servers exchange messages using JIS as well.

1. Click on the channel window that you wish to display Japanese. Go to View -> Fonts, or right-click on the channel bar and select Fonts.

   

2. Select any Japanese capable font such as MS Gothic, MS Mincho, MS PGothic, or MSPMincho. If the fonts don't show up then you must enable support for East Asian fonts in Windows. (see Channel:IME)
3. Change the script list box from Western to Japanese.
4. Ensure that UTF-8 is set to Display Only, unless you are certain that the channel you are speaking in is one which uses UTF-8 for its communications, otherwise other users will be unable to read your text. (This applies only to versions 6.17 and later. Previous versions do not support Unicode.)
5. Check Set as Default Channel Font to make all channel windows use the same settings, if you wish. Click OK.
6. Go to Tools -> Options (Alt+O) and within the tree on the left open IRC -> Messages.
7. Ensure that SJIS/JIS Conversion is checked. Click OK.

strongly recommend disable sound when receive 'notice' message because Japanese IRC users often use 'notice' messages casually. please check Tools-Option in menu, then select 'Sounds' in category tree. choose 'Notice' event and specify 'No Sound'.

XChat

Using ISO-2022-JP encoding for the whole network

XChat is also capable of sending and receiving Japanese text.

To do this:

1. In the Network list window, which should be the first window that should open when you open XChat (when set to default). The network list can be displayed at any time by going to the XChat menu and selecting Network list, you can also press Ctrl + S. Select the server that you wish to use Japanese encoding on, then select the IRC network name that you wish to apply the encoding to (which in my case is 2ch.net), and then click "Edit...".

   

2. Now, just change the Character set to "ISO-2022-JP (Japanese)". Also, if you are connecting to either the 2ch.net IRC servers, or the Rizon server, and you would like to connect to the #japanese channel straight away... You may want to set the "Channels to join" text box to #japanese. Once finished click "Close".

   

3. Once you've done that, you may want to set XChat's font to a font that supports Japanese text. This step is not usually necessary for X-Chat installed on Linux, but seems to be necessary on Windows because the Gtk included does not support font substitution. To do this, go to the "Settings" menu and then the "Preferences" menu. Then select "Text Box" under "Interface". Then click browse next to the text box that says "Fonts". Then select a Japanese text capable displaying font such as MS Gothic, MS Mincho, MS PGothic, or MSPMincho. (Sazanami Gothic isn't included with Windows by default).

   

4. Once finished, click "OK" and then connect to the server! You should be able to see Japanese text! But to allow input using Windows' IME, you must right click the text box where you enter your messages, go to "Input Methods" and then select "Windows IME".

   

Using different encodings per-channel

Using the Python plugin ccharset, you can configure X-Chat to use different encodings for channels on the same network. X-Chat needs to be installed with Python plugins enabled. Once the plugin is loaded, you can switch the charset for a channel by issuing the command:

 /ccharset iso-2022-jp

CGI:IRC

You will have to do this every time you start the client
enter this in the text field:

 /charset iso-2022-jp

Konversation

Right click the channel tab, in the Set Encoding submenu, choose ISO-2022-JP

Irssi

Set up environment encoding

Ensure that your terminal and shell use an encoding that supports Japanese characters. Use echo $LANG in a terminal to check. Any UTF-8 locale, such as en_US.UTF-8 works. Also, if you use Irssi in GNU Screen and/or ssh, you might need to configure them to use UTF-8 too (see Irssi, PuTTY, Screen & Unicode UTF-8). Changing the locale on Linux is usually done by modifying the environment variable LANG in a file such as /etc/profile, but this may differ depending on the distro.

Encoding conversion using Recode

Irssi can use ISO-2022-JP encoded Japanese in channels, through the Recode module. The following instruction configures Recode to use ISO-2022-JP on channels named #japanese.

1. Ensure that term_charset is set to the encoding used by your terminal. For most common Linux terminals, this is UTF-8.
2. Execute /recode add #japanese ISO-2022-JP, which lets Irssi use ISO-2022-JP for the channel #japanese.
3. In some versions of Irssi, including 0.8.10a, it is necessary to set recode_autodetect_utf8 to OFF. See Irssi bug 392

Checklist

Type these commands in irssi; if you have set up irssi correctly, the output should approximately match the following.

/recode
Target                         Character set
#japanese                      ISO-2022-JP

/set recode
recode_autodetect_utf8 = OFF
recode = ON

/set term_charset
term_charset = UTF-8

Using system locale

Alternatively, you can just use irssi in an ISO-2022-JP locale, which can be done with LANG=ja_JP.ISO-2022-JP irssi on Linux shells. This does not require Recode support. However, ISO-2022-JP will be used for the entire irssi program, which means you might not be able to use other languages and encodings.

Gaim

Gaim is capable of sending and recieving Japanese text input.

1. To view Japanese input go to Account > (Your IRC Account) > Edit Account > Advanced tab and change UTF-8 to iso-2022-jp. This is the same for Windows and Linux.

   

2. To enable Japanese input for Windows follow standard instructions to install Windows IME. Enable Windows IME and set to Japanese, then right click the chat input box > Input Methods > Windows IME.

   

ChatZilla

1. ChatZilla > Preferences > Character encoding (can be set for server or just for a single channel) > Change utf-8 to iso-2022-jp.

   

Clients in need of documentation

• KVirc - KDE users might want to use konversation instead (change encoding by right clicking on channel tab)
• HydraIRC
• BitchX
• Trillian
• PJirc (java/web client)

Related Topics

• Japanese IME Input
• How to use a Japanese keyboard
• Japanese Resources