Chatting in Opera

Opera has a built-in chat client that lets you connect to IRC (Internet Relay Chat) servers.

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Setting Up a Chat Account

Go to Tools > Mail and chat accounts > Add > Chat to set up your first chat account.

  1. Type in your real name and e-mail address if you want your name to be visible to other users.
  2. Select a suitable nickname to use when chatting. If you log on to a network where your selected nickname is in use, you will be asked for an alternative nickname.
  3. Select an IRC network from the drop-down list, or type in the name of an IRC server.
  4. You should now be presented with a dialog containing a list of available rooms for you to join. Select from the list, or click "New" to type in the name of the room yourself. Entering a non-existant chat room creates a brand new room.

Tip: There are multiple chat rooms for you to join on the OperaNet network.

The Chat Panel

The "Chat" panel will display all rooms you have previously visited for quick and easy access. Rooms are grouped by server. Passwords for password-protected chat rooms are remembered after the first visit.

The chat client is integrated with the contacts manager. This panel will therefore also keep track of any on-line contacts that have a chat nickname added to their contact properties. The easiest way to add a nickname to an existing contact, is by using the right-click menu in a chat room user list.

In addition to displaying the nickname of on-line contacts, their status will also be displayed as a small icon if they have set it to anything other than "On line" (for example "Out to lunch" or "On the phone"). You change your own on-line status by using the Chat menu.

Chatting

Once you have joined a chat room, you will normally see a page containing the room's conversation, and a list to the right containing the nicknames of users present in the channel.

Chatting in rooms

If someone has set a topic for the room, this will be displayed at the very top of the chat page.

Talking to others in the room is simple. Just type what you would like to say in the edit field at the bottom of the page, and hit Enter. To grab the attention of a particular user, enter that person's nickname at the beginning of your line. Typing the first few letters and pressing Tab will auto-complete the nickname. Starting with the nickname will make the line highlighted on the other user's screen in most IRC clients, including Opera's.

You may notice that some of the names in the list of users are bolded. These users are operators; users with special permissions regarding administration of the chat room and granting permissions to other users. If you have started your own chat room, you are automatically made the operator of that room.

Note: Creating a chat room on the fly is simple and also temporary. Unless there is a so-called bot present in a room (often visible in the user list simply as X), it does not exist when no users are present, no one will be able to guard the room as 'theirs'.

In addition to "just" talking, you may perform IRC actions. By typing "/me" followed by an action description, normally in the third person, your action will be displayed in purple in the chat room.

Tip: You can type a lot of IRC commands directly into the text input field. Find more commands using this command guide for new IRC users or take a look at an advanced guide to IRC commands.

Chatting in private

If you would like to say something for only one user to hear, start a private conversation. This is most easily done by clicking on the user's nickname in the list - or in the "Chat" panel.

You can also type "/msg nickname" in the chat page input field. If you know the nickname of a person that is neither in your contacts, nor in the same chat room as you, this is particularly useful.

The private conversation will be displayed in a separate page. Go to your account's properties and the "Outgoing" tab if you would like private conversation pages to pop up in front of the other pages to grab your attention, rather than open in the background.

Sending files to other users

Opera allows you to send files to other users on a chat network. The easiest way to send files is to right click on the user's nickname in the list, and selecting "Send file", or by clicking the "Send file" button in a private chat window.

For more information about avoiding problems with sending files via chat, please see our knowledge base article.

Operators

A chat room's operators, commonly known simply as "ops", have extended permissions. "Control" in the right-clickmenu for nicknames in the user list is a sub-menu available only to operators.

Ops may kick other users from the chat room, select who gets to speak if the chat room is moderated that way (quite uncommon), and grant operator privileges to other users.

Which operations require operator privileges may vary from chat room to chat room. For instance, some rooms may let all users change the topic, whereas others require you to be a room operator. Click the "Properties" button on the chat page toolbar to see these settings for the room you are in.

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