Open Source IRC Client
A multiple-document interface IRC client for Windows and Linux


MERK connected to Libera, 2600net, and a local IRC server.
The connection dialog.

MERK is a graphical open source Internet relay chat client. The current development version is 020.002. It uses a multiple-document interface, much like the popular Windows IRC client mIRC. MERK is written in Python 3, using the PyQt5 and Twisted libraries, and runs on both Windows and Linux.

MERK is in beta, but it is usable. A lot of the fancier features don't work, but you can connect to a server, join channels, and chat with people. Private chat works, too.

Currently, user settings and logs are stored in the application directory. Later, user settings and logs will be stored in the user's home directory (or, via a command-line option, another directory of the user's choosing).

Requirements

MERK requires Python 3, PyQt5, and Twisted. PyQt5 and Twisted can be installed by using pip:

pip install pyqt5
pip install Twisted

To connect to IRC servers via SSL, two additional libraries are needed:

pip install pyOpenSSL
pip install service_identity

MERK is being developed with Python 3.7 on Windows 11, and Python 3.8.5 on Linux Mint.

If you're running Windows, and you're getting errors when trying to run MERK, you may have to install another library, pywin32. You can also install this with pip:

pip install pywin32

To run properly on Linux, the latest version of all required software is recommended.

There are three libraries that comes bundled with MERK:

Running MERK

First, make sure that all the requirements are installed. Next, download MERK. Extract the zipfile to a directory of your choice using your favorite archive/zip program. Open a command prompt, navigate to the directory you extracted MERK to, and type:

python merk.py

Usage

usage: python merk.py [-h] [--ssl] [--reconnect] [-p PASSWORD] [-D DIRECTORY]
                      [--config-name NAME] [--qtstyle NAME] [-N]
                      [SERVER] [PORT]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

Connection:
  SERVER                Server to connect to
  PORT                  Server port to connect to (6667)
  --ssl                 Use SSL to connect to IRC
  --reconnect           Reconnect to servers on disconnection
  -p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
                        Use server password to connect

Configuration:
  -D DIRECTORY, --config-directory DIRECTORY
                        Location to store configuration files
  --config-name NAME    Name of the configuration file directory (default:
                        .merk)
  --qtstyle NAME        Set Qt widget style (default: Windows)

Miscellaneous:
  -N, --noask           Don't ask for connection information on start

Developing MERK

Several tools are included in the official MERK repository for developing MERK. The pyrcc5 utility is required, and should be installed automatically when you install PyQt. These are only needed if you're developing MERK, and can be ignored if you're only using the MERK IRC client.

  • compile_resources.bat - This batch file compiles the miscellaneous resources (graphics, fonts, etc) required by MERK into a single file, resources.py, and inserts the file into the MERK source code. This is for development on the Windows platform.
  • compile_resources.sh - This shell script basically does the same thing that compile_resources.bat does, only it's for development on the Linux platform.
  • build_dist.py - This is a Python 3 script that, when executed, does several things:
  • Executes either compile_resources.bat (if the host system is Windows) or compile_resources.sh (if the host system is Linux); if the host system is not running either Windows or Linux, build_dist.py will exit with an error
  • Increments the MERK's minor version (which is stored in merk/data/minor.txt) and saves it
  • ReadsREADME.txt into memory and replaces several symbols in it:
  • ! _VERSION_ ! (without spaces) is replaced with MERK's major version
  • ! _MINOR_ ! (without spaces) is replaced with MERK's minor version
  • ! _FULL_VERSION_ ! (without spaces) is replaced with MERK's major and minor version, with a period in between them.
  • Overwrites README.md with the edited contents of README.txt
  • Creates a new directory named dist, and copies into it:
  • merk.py
  • LICENSE
  • README.md
  • The merk directory and its contents
  • The qt5reactor directory and its contents
  • The spellchecker directory and its contents
  • The emoji directory and its contents
  • Zips up the dist directory either using PowerShell (if the host system is Windows) or the zip utility (if the host system is Linux) into a file named dist.zip
  • Deletes the dist directory and its contents
  • Renames dist.zip to "merk-MAJOR VERSION.zip", referred to as merk.zip in this description.
  • If merk.zip exists in the downloads directory, the version in the downloads directory is deleted
  • If merk-latest.zip exists in the downloads directory, it is deleted
  • merk.zip is copied into the downloads directory, and is copied to merk-latest.zip
GitHub - nutjob-laboratories/merk: MERK is a open source multiple-document interface GUI IRC client for Windows and Linux.
MERK is a open source multiple-document interface GUI IRC client for Windows and Linux. - GitHub - nutjob-laboratories/merk: MERK is a open source multiple-document interface GUI IRC client for Win...
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