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Mibbit Documentation

First of all, check out the FAQ. This may answer a lot of common questions about mibbit.

Mibbit is an online chat client. Mibbit supports a variety of Platforms including the main PC browsers, the wii, Nokia N800, iPhone, and probably a lot more. It does this without any plugins. Just javascript. Mibbit currently supports IRC, with other protocols due to be supported soon.

Why use Mibbit?

• Security - Since Mibbit runs in a browser, it is restricted in what it can do to your machine. Even java applets can seriously mess up your machine, as you have to 'trust' them and give them access to everything. Mibbit on the other hand is actually running on a mibbit server. All you see in your browser is a 'view' into mibbit.
• Ease - You may well not want to install a desktop client on every machine you want to access chatrooms. Setting up a desktop client can be a pain.
• Portability - You can use mibbit from your laptop, iphone, a cybercafe, and have access to your logs etc

What other people think about Mibbit

• Reviews

Key features

• Fast lightweight client - as opposed to flash or java applets.
• Connect to multiple channels on multiple servers (even using ssl).
• Full utf8 support means whatever language, you can use mibbit.
• Typing notification (Users name turns red when they are typing).
• Tab completion on nicknames (Just starting someones name, and try pressing tab).
• Input history for each channel (Up and down arrows).
• Chat scrollback on join. This allows you to see some of the recent discussion in a channel so you have a clue what's going on.
• Extended whois information.
• Device identification - Wii users show up as a joystick, iPod touch show up as an ipod, iPhone as a phone... You get the idea. This makes it easy to tell why someone is typing slowly for instance.
• Parsing of links, channels, smilies, mIRC color, nicknames, irc urls.
• Auto thumbnailing of image URLs
• Integrated pastebin
• On the fly language translation

And many many more.

To get up and running with Mibbit as soon as you can, try the QuickStartGuide.

Finding places to chat

Finding interesting chat rooms can be a problem, so there's a quick and easy way to find them on Mibbit. On each of the networks we have access to, we index all the channels. To find new places to chat, just fill the input field at the top with some keyword(s), e.g., 'music trivia' and click on the 'Find channels' button. Then you'll get back a list of results, with a count of how many users are in the channel, and a description. If you click on the channel title, you can join in with the chat straight away. Easy as that!

Make your own place to chat

If you'd like your own chatroom, the easiest thing is to create a channel on irc.mibbit.com. Simply connect to the server, and then follow the guides Create Your Own Nickname or Create Your Own Channel.

Using Mibbit on your website

If you have/create your own irc channel you can also use the new Widget to embed a chatroom on your own website, allowing your visitors to easily interact, and stay on your site longer. It adds a lot to any community to be able to chat with each other. People get to know each other, and come back to your site more often. To learn more about the Mibbit widget, click here.

You can also link to Mibbit, and have some information pre-filled into the connect form. You may pass server,channel, nick over in the URL. These must be URL encoded.

There are also several modules for existing softare including Drupal, Joomla, phpBB2 and MediaWiki

If you have an iGoogle page setup, you can add it as a widget. Just choose 'other widget', then put in this url: (http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/109578123145862366321/mibbit.xml)

Customization

If you'd like to customize the client to your own liking, you can set your own Preferences or Configure your Widget

You can now load up skins, or specify a skin for your widget. See Skins

IRC Specifics

All of the connections to IRC servers come from the same IP address. However, Mibbit is not, and will never be an anonymizer. Mibbit has a couple of methods it uses to notify the IRC servers of the visitors real IP address, so that the user can still be identified, and banned if needed. Most IRC servers have a 'session limit' which may mean that you cannot connect from mibbit. If you are unable to connect somewhere, please email us, and we will request a limit increase from them. All of the IRC servers listed in the drop down are servers we have agreements with.

Enable Mibbit on Your Server

If you would like to enable Mibbit on your IRC network, click here

How you can help

Mibbit is in development, so if you do experience a bug, please report it. Also, if there are any features you'd like to see, please add them to the WishList. View the Mibbit Development Blog here. If you have any general feedback, good or bad, please email us.