0.052.000

Summary

MERK is a free, open source, multiple-document interface Internet relay chat for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It can be run with Python 3.9+ if PyQt5 and Twisted are installed; to connect to TLS/SSL enabled servers, install pyOpenSSL and service_identity. If you encounter problems running MERK with Python 3.9+ on Windows, you may need to install pywin32. All PyInstaller versions of MERK are built for 64-bit operating systems.

What's New

• User "bot" status can now be displayed to the user. If the server has the option to mark users as bots (user mode +B) turned on, MERK will display if a user is a bot or not. This can be shown in userlists and in the userlist right click menu.
• Double click nicknames in chat to open a private message subwindow. This behavior can be toggled in the "settings" dialog. In channel subwindows, only nicknames "present" in that channel can be double clicked; in server or private message subwindows, any "visible" nickname can be double clicked.
• More servers to connect to. MERK now features more than 200 servers to connect to in the connection dialog.
• Bugfixes, and cleaned up dialog layouts.

Files

• Python distribution
  • merk-0.052-000.zip contains the Python code for MERK; unzip the source to any folder, navigate to that folder with your favorite console application, and type python merk.py to run MERK. Instructions for running the source on Windows, Linux, and macOS can be found in the repository.
• Windows PyInstaller distributions
  • merk-windows-0.052-000.zip can be unzipped to any folder, and contains an executable and a directory with support files; unzip to any folder, and double click on merk.exe to run MERK.
  • merk-windows-setup-0.052-000.zip contains an installer for MERK; unzip and double click setup.exe.
• Linux PyInstaller distribution
  • merk-linux-0.052-000.zip can be unzipped to any folder, and contains an executable and a directory with support files; unzip to any folder, and double click on merk to run MERK.
  • merk-linux-0.052-000.flatpak can be installed with flatpack install --user merk-linux-0.052-000.flatpak.
• Other files
  • MERK_User_Guide.pdf contains a guide for using MERK, as well as writing scripts and plugins. It is available in the app, in the "help" menu.
  • CHANGELOG contains a list of changes in new release.

All downloads contain README.html, which contains usage information about the application and a list of all commands supported by MERK. Further information can be found on the MERK source code repository.

MERK has a plugin framework. For more information about how to write plugins, please see MERK_User_Guide.pdf. The official repository contains some example plugins right here.

Configuration files and logs are stored in a directory named .merk in the user's home directory.

CHANGELOG for 0.052.000

APPLICATION CHANGES

• Whois responses can now show if a given user is a bot, if that option is
  turned on in the server.
• Userlists can now display if a user is a bot or not, if that option is turned
  on in the server.
• MERK can now fetch the bot status of any user in a channel MERK is in. The
  settings (which are "on" by default) work the same way as fetching hostmasks
  from the server.
• The "fetch hostmask frequency" setting has been changed to "fetch user data"
  due to it also being used for bot status.
• Bugfix: the "all visible nickname" list was being improperly built, if at
  all. This has been fixed and works properly now.
• Bugfix: the internal "channel nickname list" tracked in the client was also
  being built improperly.
• The "channel nickname" and "all visible nickname" lists are now sorted as
  they were intended to be.
• Bugfix: channel names are now detected easier, more efficiently, and more
  accurately for highlighting in the text input widget.
• The "too long message" indicator now takes into consideration if commands
  (and their targets) are in the text input widget, and subtracts the length of
  the command and target from the payload.
• Bugfix: nickname autocomplete now works for "weird" names with punctuation in
  them.
• Bugfix: the widget for entering nickname now allows nicknames that previously
  wouldn't be allowed to be entered, but are valid IRC nicks.
• Bugfix: the nickname "validator" for commands was re-written to use the same
  rules the nickname entry widget uses.
• Added over 100 servers to the internal server list for use with the
  connection dialog.
• Tweaked the connection dialog due to the added width from the new built-in
  server list.
• New feature: double click nicknames in chat to open a private message
  subwindow to that nickname. In channels, this only works for nicknames
  inside that channel; for server and private chat subwindows, this works for
  any "visible" nickname.
• Added new options to the private subwindow chat context menu: request WHOIS,
  send CTCP message, and copy miscellaneous information to the clipboard.
• Re-wrote the repo README, thanks to Ivan!
• Bugfix: the logo graphic on the connection dialog now scales properly for new
  font sizes.
• Changed the example link in the text styler to "https://www.fsf.org/" from
  "ebay.com". Seems more free-software friendly :-)
• Cleaned up the layout of the connection dialog.
• Added the ability to toggle audio notifications to the "/toggle" command.
• Added the ability to toggle the system tray icon to the "/toggle" command.
• Cleaned up the layout of the settings dialog.
• Prevented some commands from being auto-suggested in the hotkey bind dialog.
• Bugfix: occasionally, the default QUIT message was not used when quitting
  with /quit and /quitall.
• Cleaned up the layout for the about dialog.
• Bugfix: SASL login is now supported on servers that do not necessarily support
  IRCv3 3.0.2. SASL login now functions on MansionNET again. Apparently, MERK's
  support was a bit too version specific.
• The log display is now "trimmed" during runtime, to help lessen memory usage.
  This uses the same value as the "length of loaded logs" value in settings.
• Added an option to chat display context menus to scroll chat to the bottom.
• Cleaned up README.HTML, that is both embedded in and shipped with the
  application.
• Added "ack" and "nak" events to the Python editor's event generator.

WARNING! MERK may appear to be infected with something by your Windows antivirus. It is not infected with anything, it just seems to appear that way because some malware in the past was packed with PyInstaller (at least, this is my theory). I have uploaded all binaries to VirusTotal.

Released Wednesday June 17, 2026