That said, it is usable for basic chatting; if you use a good IRC client, you won't have many problems. See the support matrix (pun intended) below for what it can do. The issue tracker is here: https://todo.sr.ht/~emerson/reflectionircd
They don't work. You'll join the channel but won't be able to read any messages. You can send messages but they'll show up as "unencrypted" with a scary icon next to them.
You can't send a PM to individual users, since a "PM" in Matrix is just another room, and you can't join rooms from IRC yet. Also because they're just another room, they're given a channel prefix (`&`) so that topics/PLs/etc work correctly.
There's no IRC equivalent to Spaces (I'll probably write a spec for it since it's widely used elsewhere). Since they are just regular rooms, they show up in IRC as just regular rooms. You aren't supposed to send messages to them, once I implement mode handling I'll use `+m` to disallow sending.
### Highlighting users
In order to highlight users, you need to prefix their nick with an `@`, so `@emerson: hi`. Reflection automatically expands this to the user's MXID, so even though it's annoying, it's needed to stop inadvertent highlights for now.
It's for people who want to use their IRC client to chat on Matrix. It's like Bitlbee or Matterbridge, but focused specifically on IRC <-> Matrix, as well as being a reference server for IRCv3 specifications.
It's not meant for community use; if you are a homeserver admin and want to allow all your users to use IRC, you would be better off with [heisenbridge](https://github.com/hifi/heisenbridge).
If you have `server-time` enabled on your client, you might find messages arriving late or out of order. Similarly, if you're joined to the same channel from different homeservers, you may see messages appear on one several minutes/hours before the other(s). This is called "federation", and is considered a feature of Matrix.
### Does IRC actually support all of these cool new features?
In theory, yes. In reality, no. There's currently no free, standalone IRC client that supports reactions, replies, editing/deleting messages, and channel renaming. But one day they might, and when they do, Reflection will be ready to help them in their quest for world domination.
### What does "Sync is lagging" mean?
The matrix sync is set with a timeout of 15 seconds. The server is supposed to return an HTTP response after 15 seconds (if not sooner). If the server doesn't respond after 20 seconds, that message is printed to the console to warn you that the homeserver is lagging.
### Why is there a random JSON object in my console?
That means you were sent an event type that I didn't know existed. Please hop into [the chat](#support) and tell me what the `type` value is.
## Running
Copy `config.example.json` to `config.json`, edit the values if needed, then `npm run build` and then `node reflection.js` to start it
## Authentication
Authentication is done via `SASL PLAIN`, the username is your mxid and the password is an access token from another session plus your server domain, separated by a `:` (so `access_token:matrix.org` if your server is matrix.org). Note this is the domain for `m.server`, not necessarily the homeserver domain. You can find this value by going to https://yourhomeserver.tld/.well-known/matrix/server. If your server is using port 443, you don't need to include the port.
## Support
The main chat is `#reflectionircd` on Libera ([webchat](https://web.libera.chat/gamja/?channel=#reflectionircd)), which is available on Matrix at [`#reflectionircd:matrix.org`](https://matrix.to/#/#reflectionircd:matrix.org). Testing channels are `#reflectionircd-test` on Libera, `#reflectionircd-test:matrix.org` (portal to Libera), and `#reflection-matrix-test:matrix.org` (not linked to IRC). Please test in the testing channels and not in the main channel.
On Libera I'm `emerson`, on Matrix I'm `@emersonveenstra:matrix.org`, feel free to ping me in the channel with any questions/bug reports/complaints.
