Help with .chat files.

mIRC offers the possibility to easily join channels and IRC networks advertised on the World Wide Web. Traditionally, you need to use the /list command to list all channels on the IRC network you are on. Then you pick a channel name you like and you join it. With the new mIRC you can use the World Wide Web to navigate through the channels offered on IRC. People can create collections of their favorite chat channels and include links to these channels on their home pages. The same is true for IRC servers. You can click on a link and mIRC will be started automagically and join the channel and/or server you clicked on.

Compatibility with other systems.

The system mIRC uses to hook you up to IRC, with these mIRCLinks, is fully compatible to the system used by the Global Chat or Prospero IRC client. You can easily join the chats organized on their Web pages by simply following the provided links.

Configuring your WWW browser to work with mIRCLinks.

To enter a channel and/or server on IRC from a Web page, you just need to have your Web browser set up to use the mIRCLink helper application. This page will tell you how to correctly set up this program with some of the most popular browsers.

Configuring Netscape to understand chat files.
mIRC supports all popular chat file systems, you just have to configure Netscape to launch the mIRCLink helper application for the .cha and .chat files of the GlobalChat type and the .nsc NetscapeChat files.

• First you have to start both Netscape and mIRC..
• In Netscape go to the "Options" pull-down menu and select "General Preferences.."
• In the list of TABs at the top, select "Helpers"
• To be safe, scroll through the list of File types looking for "application/x-chat" and "application/x-nschat" in the leftmost column. If you can find one or both of these lines, then your copy of Netscape has already been set up to work with some chat application. This can be mIRC of course but also NetscapeChat, Chatman or GlobalChat. In this case you might only have to check if the "Launch the Application" option is set to launch the mIRCLink helper for both lines, and you are done. For both lines select the 'Browse..' button and select the mlink.exe or mlink32.exe found in the mIRC directory.
• If no chat application was already configured to work with mIRC you can easily get mIRCLink to work. Select the 'Create New Type..' button and fill in :
  
  Mime Type : application
  Mime SubType : x-chat
  File Extention : chat,cha (to assure proper use of local files)
  Action : Launch the application : c:\mirc_directory\mlink.exe or mlink32.exe
  
  Do the same for the
  
  Mime Type : application
  Mime SubType : x-nschat (see the difference?)
  File Extention : nsc (to assure proper use of local files)
  Action : Launch the application : c:\mirc_directory\mlink.exe or mlink32.exe
  
• Now that you have set Netscape to start the mIRCLink helper application with the GlobalChat and NetscapeChat chat file types you can click OK.
• You're done now, Go ahead and explore the mIRCLinks on the WWW !

  Configuring MS-Internet Explorer 3.xx to understand chat files.
  Similar to Netscape you have to set up MS-IE to understand what to do with the chat files that contain the mIRCLink info.

• First you have to start both mIRC and MS-IE..
• In MS-IE go to the "View" pull-down menu and select "Options.."
• In the list of TABs at the top, select "File Types"
• To be safe, scroll through the list of File types looking for "Chat Files". If you find an item like this then your copy of MS-IE has already been set up to work with some chat application. This can be mIRC of course but also NetscapeChat, Chatman or GlobalChat. In this case you just have to make sure that the "File Type Details" are set to
  Extention: .cha .chat Content Type: application/x-chat Open with: c:\path\mlink.exe or mlink32.exe
  Extention: .nsc Content Type: application/x-nschat Open with: c:\path\mlink.exe or mlink32.exe
• If no chat application was already configured to work with mIRC you can easily get mIRCLink to work. Select the 'Add..' button and fill in :
  Description : Chat Files
  Mime Type : application/x-chat
  Suffixes : .chat .cha (to assure proper use of local files)
  Encoding : Text
  Helper Application : c:\mirc_directory\mlink.exe or mlink32.exe
• Do the same for the
  Description : NetscapeChat Files
  Mime Type : application/x-nschat (mind the difference)
  File Extention : .nsc (to assure proper use of local files)
  Encoding : Text
  Action : Launch the application : c:\mirc_directory\mlink.exe or mlink32.exe
• Now that you have instructed MS-IE to start the mIRCLink helper application with the GlobalChat and NetscapeChat file types you can click OK and have fun with the mIRCLinks.

  Configuring MS-Internet Explorer 4.xx to understand chat files.

• Click on a chat link. IE4 will pop up the "Whattya want me to do with this?" window.
• Click the "open" radio button, and the "Always do this with this type of file" checkbox.
• Now open Windows Explorer, select "View"|"Folder Options".
• Select the "File Types" tab.
• Choose the "Chat" filetype, and "Edit" it, as follows: Use C:\mirc-directory\mlink32.exe to open this type of file, then click on the "open" method and "Edit" that to get rid of the "%1" which Windows95 insists on using.
• Back out all the way using the "Close" or "Okay" buttons - now if you click the link again, either mirc will be started, or, if it's already running, the current copy will be logged onto the linked server/channel. Have fun!

  Configuring other browsers.
  You could just click on a mIRCLink in one of the lists above. The first time you click on a mIRCLink your browser will come with an error message like "Unknown MIME type..." and ask you to configure a helper application or viewer. Select the 'Configure External Viewer' option and browse to the directory where mIRC and the mIRCLink helper application are found. Select the mlink.exe or mlink32.exe file and press OK. That should do the trick :-)
  Please note that not all Web browsers offer the capability to launch helper applications. The Netcom Netcruiser Web browser is known to not support this feature.

  Troubleshooting mIRCLinks.

  If the above mIRCLinks fail to work you can safely assume your WWW browser is configured wrong or not at all yet. If you for instance just get a page with 3-4 short lines of text, or some error message from your WWW browser then you just need (once only) to configure your copy of Netscape, Internet Explorer, Mosaic, or other browser to use the mIRCLinks helper application. In these cases the browser you use doesnt recognize the MIME type associated to the chat files (correctly) and you just need to check your settings against the setup info given above.

  If the mIRCLinks start some other chat application instead of mIRC you just need to reconfigure the setup of helper applications in your WWW browser. Just setting the associated helper application to be the mIRCLink program will help.

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