The only thing you need to set up in order for Snak to work is a Connection record. This is explained in a previous chapter "Connecting to a server". However, Snak can be customized to suit your IRC preferences more closely.
Preferences are accessed by using the Edit/Preferences menu item or the cmd-r shortcut.
That will bring up the Preference window which has a list of available preference panels on the left and the currently selected panel on the right. Initially the Connection record panel will be displayed, and you can switch to another panel by clicking in the list on the left.
The Preference window is "dynamic" - you do not need to save changes for them to be active. Just make the change and it will take effect immediately.
Snak supports Apple's Drag and Drop technology so that you can drag items from the tables in the Preferences window to the trash to delete them, or drag them to another program and insert them as text snippets.
Setup panel
In the Connection record panel you set up the Connection records that is used to connect to a server. Please see chapter "Connecting to a Server" for more information.
 
Server panel
In the Server panel you can edit, delete and add servers. You can also move a server from one network to another.
 
You can store a comment with each server and you can also specify a different timeout than the normal 35 seconds if the server is slow to respond. This is also where you can specify what port to connect to on the server.
Ignore panel
The Ignore panel displays the list of Ignore masks that you have entered.
 
From the panel you can edit,delete and create Ignore masks, but the program also supports the /ignore command.
Pressing the New button, or selecting a line and editing it will bring up the ignore options dialog:
 
Snak supports time limited ignores, so if someone is only temporarily obnoxious you can put on a time limit. At the end of this time the user will be taken off the ignore list.
Guardian panel
The Guardian panel is intended for parents or teachers that want to limit the channels or functions that their children or students can access. Initially it can be freely accessed, but once you fill out the password you will have to provide it to access the panel. To remove the password protection and turn off the Guardian features, empty the password field.
 
Snak intentionally only asks for the password once per session, and will thereafter remember that you are the supervisor.
You can selectively turn each feature on and off with the checkboxes next to each feature if they have been activated by providing a supervisor password. You can specify that channels whose name contains certain words are off limits, and you can specify certain words that may not be uttered in the channel. If they do, the program will leave the channel unless the user provides the supervisor password.
Personal panel
The Personal panel stores your real name and the default quit message that is displayed when you quit or close a connection.
 
It also provides a field to enter the text that you want the program to return when some one asks for a ctcp userinfo.
General panel
The General panel contains checkboxes to customize the way the program reacts to specific events.
 
Options include :
"Reconnect on disconnection" to automatically try to disconnect if you lose the connection to the server,
"Join channel on invite" to automatically join a channel you are invited to>
"Rejoin channel when kicked" to automatically go back into a channel you get kicked from. This may result in a full-scale ban instead of just a temporary kick if you are really not welcome.
"Open Query window on private msg" will automatically open a query window so that you can easily respond if someone sends you a private message.
The Timestamp choices will put a time indication before the messages like this:
 
Channel panel
In the activity panel you can specify what channel actions you want displayed.
 
You may not care to see a message every time someone changes the topic, or enters or leaves the channel. This panel is also where you can specify the default settings for the font and font size used for the channel text.
The font, font size and background color settings can later be set individually for each channel, console and query window by using the Format menu.
DCC panel
DCC is a protocol that allows IRC clients to transfer files, and open a special kind of chat sessions. The DCC panel allows you to make the program automatically accept DCC requests, either only from the nicks in the list or from everybody.
 
This preference can be set for chat and file receive individually.
DCC Chat sessions do not pass through the network of IRC servers that normal messages use. Instead these messages are transmitted directly between the two involved computers, which makes for a more secure connection.
The File Send options can be used to optimize the transfer speed, but certain older clients do not support large block sizes.
The protocol options "Binary" and "MacBinary" are described in the DCC chapter. MacBinary should be used to transfer Macintosh files (that have resources etc.) to another Mac. Binary should be used when sending to a PC. This option only governs DCC that are started by dragging a file onto a nick in the userlist.
Normal DCC transfers will bring up a file select dialog where you can set this option on a transfer by transfer basis.
Sounds Panel
In the Sound panel you can turn individual action sounds on and off and control the processing of sound requests.
 
The sounds are off per default. Selecting one of the checkboxes will play the sound so that you can hear what it sounds like.
The other group of options control how Snak deals with sound requests that someone sends to the channel. A sound request is sent with the command "/CTCP #channelname SOUND soundname.vaw" and will cause that sound to be played by the other members of the channel, provided they already have the sound file. The command does not send the sound file out.
If you receive a sound request and you do not have the sound file, it is a convention that it can be requested with a special private nick message. To enable this, select the last checkbox. If the other client supports this, it will send the file via normal DCC.
Logging Panel
The Automatic logging feature is controlled from the Logging panel.
 
As the name suggest, the "Activate" check box turns Auto logging on and off.
If you prefer to have one (big) log file per channel, select the "Auto Log all Channel sessions to the same file". That will create one log file per channel, and each session will be appended to the file. The logfile will be called <#channel name>.
If you prefer a separate log file to be created each time you enter the channel, select the other option. The logfiles will be called <#channel name month/date> and if there are duplicates Snak will append a '#' and a number in order to make the files unique.
The creator of the Log files are set to BBEdit, a shareware text editor that can handle text files that are larger than 32K. Older versions of SimpleText can not open files larger than 32K, but if the log files are smaller that that they can also be opened with that program.
The Logging panel also provides a way to select where the log files are placed. It allows you to select an Auto Log folder, and inside that folder Snak will create a folder for each Connection record you have defined. The actual log files will be placed inside these folders.
Color panel
The color panel lets you select the colors that Snak uses for the different kinds of messages and types of users.
 
Click on the colored fields to bring up a color picker dialog.
Clicking panel
In the Clicking panel you can select what happens when you double click in the notify list and the channel user list.
 
The options are to either put the nick in the input line, or the program can run an alias that can do someting with the selection.
The ConsoleClick and ChannelClick aliases are defined in the script file "basical" and the default definitios are:
alias ChannelClick query $E -- this will open a query window
alias ConsoleClick msg $E $* -- this will send the contents of the console window input list as a private message to the selected nick
