Here is an egg.

ChatZilla Easter egg

It is a simple egg, decorated with 20 smileys, and counting…Mmm… Counting?

This egg is made of the original ChatZilla smiley icons from Lim Chee Aun. ( http://phoenity.com/icons/classic )

Great News, happy Few (I mean, Reader(s))!

 Yesterday, a new version of ChatZilla was released!

We are proud to offer you an insight of this new release, namely a Polaroid snapshot taken on the Internet, just for you:

That is all.

Found on the Internet:

A ChatZilla fan hacking it to make it reconnect faster in case the first attempt fails!

Oooohhhhhhhh…  If they start doing this, where will they stop?

We need a Hacking category. And a Wishlist. Meanwhile, you can use this hack.

That is all.

• To add to Wishlist
  • Create said Wishlist
    
    • Wish things to fill in Wishlist

ChatZilla 0.9.80 release introduces a great innovation: the Dungeons And Dragon tabs.

Here is a picture of what the game looks like:

Dungeons are optional of course, you can supply them yourself. But at least one gecko MOnZter is included.

Drag-and-dropping the tabs is fun, and it can be useful too. You can reorder your tabs in any order, alphabetical, activitical, randomical…, anything you like:

Also, if you’re lucky enough to run an OS which supports it (so, not Windows 2000), you will see a transparent copy of the tab being dragged:

Of course, being transparent, the copy of the tab is rather hard to capture on a screenshot, but you get the idea. Now, have fun!

 That is all!

N.B.: The Tabby MOnZterz are from the Mozilla Museum , the Dungeons are open source SVG cliparts from OCAL – Open Clipart Library.

     Neo: There are only two possible explanations: either no one told me, or no one knows.

Once again, Neo was right. And that means, I was wrong. ChatZilla wasn’t born on Jan 3rd., 2004, as said in the ChatZilla family tree (chapter 1).

The real date is Sept. 6th, 1999, and archives are here to prove it. This is the date of the first check-in, and the date at which it became available to public. Two days before it was released, ChatZilla looked like that:

Six days later, it looked like that:

You’ll notice that it already had a CSS motif to style the chat window … Awesome! More awesome screenshots are available at ChatZilla Home.

That is all.

 Which means that if you’re using the cutting-edge Firefox and SeaMonkey releases, you can play “Spot the Gecko!”.

Here is the proof:

Motifs authors can stick an animated PNG in their CSS, just as a normal static PNG.

Use Justin Dolske’s APNG Edit extension to create beautiful animations yourself!
(Requires Firefox 3.0b2 and higher)

Ok. This is the first article of the History section, where the ChatZilla family tree and genealogy will be studied.

Let’s take a look at a picture of this tree, first.

At the beginning were dinosaurs.

The one pictured at the top of the tree is called Mozilla (it does look like a Zilla, heh).

• This branch of the family still has good relationships with ChatZilla, and is represented by the following members:

• Mozilla Suite, version 1.0 to 1.8 (earlier ancestors might even still work)
• Netscape Navigator, version 9.0b1 to 9.0.*

We do not know exactly how that happened nor who was the mother, but around 2004, Jan. 3rd, a man named R. Ginda gave birth to the first ChatZilla, which he – the Father- did not call “ChatZilla 1.000″,  but “ChatZilla 0.954″, because it (ChatZilla) was still small and unpolished.

Computers being a bit silly with commas and 1K or 2K numbers, ChatZilla was born to the World!, as 0.9.54. You can check how old ChatZilla currently is yourself.

We imagine that despite being in its infancy, ChatZilla was already awesome, and completely kewl, as it is now. Being a child prodigy, ChatZilla rapidly attracted a dense cloud of proud and talented Uncles, who devoted themselves to its development and sane building. The current list of these “godfather” uncles includes, but is not limited to, in alphabetical order:

• Gijs, from the Netherlands (not to be confused with Neverland)
• Silver, in the U.K. He also has stuff here. Silver is the master of Sugnim, who is the cutest bot on the ChatZilla IRC channel.
• ssieb_*, in Canada. Don’t panic, Canada does exist.
• tH, in Jamaïca Kingston upon Hull, U.K.

These Uncles, since then, make ChatZilla able to run on a variety of platforms (which in this article, we’ll call “branches” of the tree, even though sometimes, they are “trunks”. Someday, we’ll explain that. Let’s concentrate for now):

• Mammals, mostly foxes: Mozilla Firefox, version 1.0 to 3.0. In that case, ChatZilla installs as an extension.
• Brine Shrimps, particularly Artemia Salina: SeaMonkey, version 1.0 to 2.0. ChatZilla comes with it (but is not a shrimp itself, obviously).
• Gregarious animals, coming in groups: Flock, version 0.4 to 1.0+. ChatZilla extends itself in these groups, too.

That’s where you have to work a little and ask, dear Reader, a question: is.there.only.ChatZilla?

Thank you for asking. The answer is yes, and in that case, there.is.only.XUL.runner. ChatZilla is smart enough to run on its own, or standalone, on XULrunner.

And now, as in all fairly tales… we see a bright future for ChatZilla. We’ve heard of plans, we’ve seen tests on birds (Songbird). So… stay tuned!

</To be continued>

That is all for now!

What is ChatZilla?

Good question! The answer is: It’s an IRC client, or software.

Let’s start at the very beginning, and study in details the anatomy of the first ChatZilla window, right out of the box, without any plugin or motif, all naked.

So, let’s see the important bits here.

First:

• The cZ icon, and the window title, saying “ChatZilla!”. In case you’re wondering, the cZ icon uses the font Cooper Black Outline BT.
• The very important MENU BAR, to make your life easier.

Second, we find a TAB, the very first TAB, which is called *client*. It has 3 parts:

• The Header, which tells you important things, like the number of built-in or connected networks, the ChatZilla release number, etc.,
• The Userlist, on the left for now, and it’s empty,
• All the rest, which will be the chat area. There are things written in the *client* TAB, these things are important to read, at least once!

And, of course, we see also:

• • The Name of the tab, at the bottom left corner. (*client*, here)

Third, we find:

• YOU! Well, not you, but your default nick. If you connect to a network without chosing another nick, you’ll be known as that, the nick which shows here on the *client* tab.
• The Input Box. It works pretty much like a URL bar: you type stuff in it, and the stuff is sent to the chat area that you are currently viewing.
• An arrow pointing to the top.

Fourth, and last:

• Something which looks like a worm: it’s the connect icon, which tells you if you’re connected to the Internet, or not.

That is all!

Next, we’ll study the anatomy of a network TAB, and how to get there.