NetIRC

NetIRC serves as a highly flexible framework for building IRC clients using the .NET Framework.

How is this flexible?

Most IRC frameworks don't allow you to send custom messages, and usually do not allow you to modify sent messages. NetIRC allows you to send custom messages, receive custom messages, and detect what messages are sent, all without modifying the source code and recompling the library.

How can I create a custom message to send?

In order to create custom messages, you just need to implement the NetIRC.Messages.ISendMessage interface.

class Custom : NetIRC.Messages.ISendMessage
{
    public void Send(StreamWriter writer)
    {
        writer.WriteLine("CUSTOM {0}", "ARGS);
    }
}

The Send method is called when the message is passed into Client.Send(). You would send this message the same way any other message would be called:

Client client = new Client()

client.Connect(/* connection options */);
client.Send(new Custom());

I can change how messages are received?

NetIRC uses custom IReceiveMessage classes to detect and parse received messages. These messages can be enabled and disabled at any time, including the messages that are provided with NetIRC. Custom receive messages must implement the IReceiveMessage interface.

class Awesome : NetIRC.Messages.IReceiveMessage
{
    public static bool CheckMessage(NetIRC.Messages.ParsedMessage message, Server server)
    {
        if (message.Command == "awesome")
        {
            return true;
        }
        
        return false;
    }
    
    public override void ProcessMessage(NetIRC.Messages.ParsedMessage message, Client client)
    {
        Console.output("An awesome message was detected");
    }
}

You must define two methods, CheckMessage and ProcessMessage. CheckMessage must return a boolean, true if the message should be processed and false if the message should not be processed. ProcessMessage is called if CheckMessage returns true and should process the actual message. This can be anything from sending a message in a channel to changing something in the cool UI you may be creating.

Registering and unregistering messages

Messages must be registered to the internal queue in order to process incoming messages. The queue is not global to all clients, but is unique to the client that the message is registered through. In order to register a message, you would call the RegisterMessage method of your Client:

client.RegisterMessage(typeof(Awesome));

Internally, the default set of messages which trigger the events are registered using this method. You can unregister messages using the UnregisterMessage method of your Client:

client.UnregisterMessage(typeof(Awesome));
client.UnregisterMessage(typeof(NetIRC.Messages.Receive.Chat));

This means that if you want to completely override one of the default messages, all you have to do is unregister the NetIRC version and register your own.

Handling all sent and received messages

NetIRC provides a way of processing messages which are sent and received through OutputWriter classes. By default, there are two writers which are registered, IrcWriter and ConsoleWriter. IrcWriter handles the sending of the actual messages and ConsoleWriter outputs all received and sent messages to the console.

Output writers must implement NetIRC.Output.IOutputWriter and must be registered to a Client. The process of registering and unregistering writers is similar to messages.