Colloquy is an
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
IRC
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...
,
SILC,
ICB and
XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), it ...
client for
Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
. Colloquy uses its own core, known as Chat Core, although in the past it used
Irssi
Irssi ( ) is an IRC client program for Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Microsoft Windows. It was originally written by Timo Sirainen, and released under the terms of the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later in January 1999.
Features
Irssi is written in the C progr ...
as its IRC protocol engine. One of the primary goals behind Colloquy was to create an IRC, SILC and ICB client with Mac OS X visuals. Colloquy contains a
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
that follows
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
's
Human interface guidelines in addition to containing support for traditional IRC command-line controls such as /nick and /join.
An official app for
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
was released and features support for all IRC commands, a built-in browser, push notifications and other features.
Features
Colloquy supports a variety of different text modifications. One text manipulation supported by Colloquy is the use of colors as used by mIRC; with the primary colors being: White, Black, Navy, Forest, Red, Maroon, Purple, Orange, Yellow, Green, Teal, Cyan, Blue, Magenta, Grey, and Ash. Additionally, Colloquy supports formatting text with underlining, italics, bold, and outline.
Colloquy supports scripting in languages such as
AppleScript
AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control over scriptable Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in all versions of macOS as part of a package of system automa ...
,
F-Script,
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
,
Objective-C
Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was selected by NeXT for its NeXTS ...
and
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
. Colloquy shows changes such as mode changes, ban sets, etc. in a human-readable format, rather than showing raw modes.
Plugins and customizability
Colloquy is built on Apple's
WebKit
WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the PS ...
engine and supports customizable message views called "styles" using a combination of
XSLT
XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) is a language originally designed for transforming XML documents into other XML documents, or other formats such as HTML for web pages, plain text or XSL Formatting Objects, which may subseque ...
,
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
,
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
and
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
. These act like themes, altering the way the application displays chat sessions. The software also supports a wide array of
plugins that enable customization of the application and integration with other aspects of the Mac OS X environment.
The Colloquy ''Web Interface'' plugin allows monitoring of the Colloguy desktop IRC connection from an iPhone's Safari browser, or any web browser.
Reception
Both the desktop client and the mobile (iPhone) client have received positive reviews. The desktop client was selected as a Pick of the Week on MacOSXHints.com.
The Colloquy iPhone app was favorably reviewed on
Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
,
The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Weblogs, Inc. was a blog network that published content on a variety of subjects, including tech news, video games, automobiles and pop culture. At one point, the network had as many as 90 blogs, although the vast majority of its traffic could be ...
, GigaOM, and
AppleInsider
The Apple community is a group of people interested in Apple Inc. and its products, who report information in various media. Generally this has evolved into a proliferation of websites, but latterly has also expanded into podcasts (both audio and ...
.
[Gwilym, Sam (January 26, 2009]
"Colloquy IRC client now available for iPhone"
AppleInsider
The Apple community is a group of people interested in Apple Inc. and its products, who report information in various media. Generally this has evolved into a proliferation of websites, but latterly has also expanded into podcasts (both audio and ...
.
See also
*
Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients
The following tables compare general and technical information between a number of notable IRC client programs which have been discussed in independent, reliable prior published sources.
General
Basic general information about the notablecl ...
*
Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
The landscape for instant messaging involves cross-platform instant messaging clients that can handle one or multiple protocols. Clients that use the same protocol can typically federate and talk to one another. The following table compares gener ...
*
Comparison of instant messaging protocols
The following is a comparison of instant messaging protocols. It contains basic general information about the protocols.
Table of instant messaging protocols
See also
*Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
*Comparison of Inte ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Colloquy (software)
MacOS-only free software
Internet Relay Chat clients
Free Internet Relay Chat clients
MacOS Internet Relay Chat clients
Free software programmed in Objective-C
Software based on WebKit
2004 software