Clown

An IRC client written in Rust, with the goal to be memory and CPU light.

Features

• Run in terminal
• Multiple channels and servers
• Message logs
• Tab completion
• Link preview on hover
• Scroll with mouse or keyboard
• Auto reconnect
• Spell checking (optional)

Build

git clone https://github.com/F4r3n/clown.git
cd clown
cargo build --profile dist

Features

Feature	Default	Description
website-preview	on	Link preview when hovering a message
spell-checker	off	Spell checking via /spell <language>

Build without link preview:

cargo build --profile dist --no-default-features

Build with spell checker:

cargo build --profile dist --features spell-checker

Commands

All commands are typed in the input bar and start with /.

Command	Description
/connect	Connect to the server (no-op if already connected)
/quit [reason]	Disconnect and exit the app
/nick <nickname>	Change your nickname
/join <channel>	Join a channel
/part [channel] [reason]	Leave the current or specified channel
/msg <target> <message>	Send a private message to a user or channel
/me <action>	Send an action message
/topic <text>	Set the topic of the current channel
/close [buffer]	Close the current buffer, or a named one
/spell [language]	Load the spellchecker for a language (fr, en, …), depends on a build feature
/config get <path>	Read a config value
/config set <path> <value>	Write a config value
/help	List all available commands

Config

File location

Platform	Path
Linux	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/clown/clown.toml (usually ~/.config/clown/clown.toml)
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/com.share.clown/clown.toml
Windows	%APPDATA%\share\clown\config\clown.toml

Minimal example

[[servers]]
name = "Libera"

[servers.connection]
address = "irc.libera.chat"
port = 6697

[servers.login]
nickname = "mynick"

[servers.channels]
list = ["#rust"]
auto_join = true

Config dictionnary

[[servers]] — one block per server, at least one required

Key	Required	Default	Description
name	yes	—	Display name
connection.address	yes	—	Server hostname
connection.port	no	6697	Port (6697 = TLS, 6667 = plain)
login.nickname	yes	—	Your nickname
login.password	no	—	Server password (sent as PASS)
login.real_name	no	nickname	Real name
login.username	no	nickname	Username
channels.list	no	[]	Channels to join
channels.auto_join	no	false	Join channels.list automatically on connect

[completion]

Key	Default	Description
on_empty_input.suffix	""	Suffix appended after completing a nickname on an empty input
in_message.suffix	""	Suffix appended after completing a nickname mid-message

[nickname_colors]

Key	Default	Description
seed	0	Seed for the automatic colour generator
overrides.<nick>	—	Hex colour override for a specific nickname, e.g. f4r3n = "#FFFFFF"

Display

Key	Default	Description
discuss.left_bar.time	true	Show timestamp column
discuss.left_bar.nickname	true	Show nickname column
users.enabled	true	Show user list panel
topic.enabled	true	Show topic bar