ERC layer

Table of ContentsClose

1. Description
- 1.1. Features:
2. Install
3. Key bindings
4. Spacemacs Layout Support

1. Description

1.1. Features:

Highlight nicks (using erc-hl-nicks)
Image inline support (using erc-image)
Logging to ~/.emacs.d/.cache/erc-logs and ViewLogMode for viewing logs (using erc-view-log)
YouTube videos Thumbnails inline (using erc-yt)
Social Graph for ERC messages (using erc-social-graph)
Optional SASL authentication via the variable erc-enable-sasl-auth (using erc-sasl)
D-BUS notifications via the variable erc-enable-notifications
Completion of Emojis using company-emoji (still needs a way of showing, either using the emoji layer or having a proper font) :clap:

2. Install

2.1. Layer

To use this configuration layer, add it to your ~/.spacemacs. You will need to add erc to the existing dotspacemacs-configuration-layers list in this file.

2.2. macOS

It's recommended to install the terminal-notifier gem so that you get notifications via the macOS Notification Center.

2.4. Disable notifications

By default D-BUS notifications are enabled, to disable them set the layer variable erc-enable-notifications to nil.

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
             '((erc :variables erc-enable-notifications nil)))

2.5. Enable SASL authentication

To enable SASL authentication set the layer variable erc-enable-sasl-auth to non nil.

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
             '((erc :variables erc-enable-sasl-auth t)))

2.6. Default servers

You can define the default servers in the ERC custom layout by setting the variable erc-server-list. Setting :ssl non nil will connect with erc-tls. You can also use <leader>aiD to connect to your default servers outside the custom layout.

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
             '((erc :variables
                    erc-server-list
                    '(("irc.freenode.net"
                       :port "6697"
                       :ssl t
                       :nick "some-user"
                       :password "secret")
                      ("irc.myworkirc.net"
                       :port "1234"
                       :nick "some-suit"
                       :password "hunter2")))))

2.6.1. Security Note

You should not store your passwords in the clear in your .spacemacs, and that goes double if you version your config file. ERC allows for a number of ways of protecting this information.

First, ERC will check your ~/.authinfo.gpg, looking for lines like

machine <irc.server.url> login <yournick> password <yourpassword> port <portnumber>

You can omit :password in this case.

You could also set an environment variable (or otherwise secret variable) and read that in :password.

3. Key bindings

Key binding	Description
`SPC a c i e`	Starts ERC
`SPC a c i E`	Starts ERC via TLS/SSL
`SPC a c i i`	Switch to next active ERC buffer
`SPC a c i D`	Start ERC with default servers
`SPC m c`	Open the log file of the current channel
`SPC m b`	Switch between ERC buffers
`SPC m d`	Interactively input a user action and send it to IRC.
`SPC m D`	Draw Social Graph using erc-social-graph
`SPC m j`	Join a channel, executes the /join command
`SPC m n`	Run "/names #channel" in the current channel.
`SPC m l`	Run the /list command
`SPC m p`	Part from the channel
`SPC m q`	Quit server

Note: If you want to connect securely to an IRC server, you must run erc-tls command on SPC a i E instead of the erc command.

4. Spacemacs Layout Support

ERC buffers are added automatically to the default layout for ERC controlled by the variable erc-spacemacs-layout-name (defaults to "@ERC") and the default binding ("E") is controlled by erc-spacemacs-layout-binding

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