Better web IRC client for #io.js

[aravindet]

The io.js homepage currently links to freenode webchat for #io.js. For IRC newbies (the typical web client user), the user interface isn’t the friendliest or most modern. It also does not show any logs (you have to go elsewhere for that), which is somewhat confusing.

Scrollback is an open-source web IRC client that has integrated logs and a more modern frontend. There’s a hosted service here.

Perhaps we could link to that instead of freenode webchat?

Disclaimer: I’m one of the authors of scrollback.io

Possibly relevant features:

• The scrollback server is whitelisted by freenode for hundreds of connections.
• There’s a widget that can be embedded in the iojs.org site
• You can add custom CSS to match the site’s look and feel
• Audible notifications if the user is mentioned while scrollback is in a background tab
• Our server-side stack is Node + Redis + LevelDB (via LevelUp) + our fork of Node-IRC
• The client uses WebSockets, LocalStorage and AppCache (where available) for performance
• (Experimental) Classifies IRC logs into discussion threads; this uses machine learning and is about 70% accurate for typical english channels
• There’s an Android app with push notifications

[Fishrock123]

Ideally you wouldn't use a web client for IRC, but I agree the default one is definitely not that great.

(Also, belongs on https://github.com/iojs/iojs.github.io)

[rvagg]

Best take this this to https://github.com/iojs/iojs.github.io (now renamed to https://github.com/iojs/website) as that's the team that would decide if this is a good fit for the website.

(aside: I'm a Linux nerd, ircii from way back, then xchat, but have become an irccloud convert so +1 for web-based IRC IMO)