Limnoria/docs/FAQ

Q: Why does my bot not recognize me or tell me that I don't have the
   "owner" capability?

A: Because you've not given it anything to recognize you from!
   You'll need to identify with the bot ("help identify" to see how
   that works) or add your hostmask to your user record ("help
   addhostmask" to see how that works) for it to know that you're you.
   You may wish to note that addhostmask can accept a password; rather
   than identify, you can send the command "addhostmask myOwnerUser
   [hostmask] myOwnerUserPassword" and the bot will add your current
   hostmask to your owner user (of course, you should change
   myOwnerUser and myOwnerUserPassword appropriately for your bot).


Q: What's a hostmask?

A: Each user on IRC is uniquely identified by a string which we call
   a "hostmask."  The IRC RFC refers to it as a prefix.  Either way,
   it consists of a nick, a user, and a host, in the form
   nick!user@host.  If your Supybot complains that something you've
   given to it isn't a hostmask, make sure that you have those three
   components and that they're joined in the appropriate manner.


Q: How do I make my Supybot op my users?

A: First, you'll have to make sure that your users register with the
   bot.  They can do this with the "register" command.  After they do
   so, you'll want to add the #channel,op capability to their user.
   Use the "channel addcapability" command to do this.  After that,
   your users should be able to use the "op" command to get ops.

   If you want your users to be auto-opped when they join the channel,
   you'll need to load the Enforcer plugin and turn its autoOp
   configuration variable on.  Use the "config" command to do so.
   Here's an example of how to do these steps:

   <jemfinch> I'm going to make an example session for giving
              you auto-ops, for our FAQ.
   <dunk1> ah ok ;]
   <jemfinch> First, I need you to register with supybot, using
              the "register" command (remember to send it in
              private).
   <dunk1> done
   <jemfinch> what name are you registered under?
   <dunk1> dunk1
   <jemfinch> ok, cool.
   <jemfinch> @channel addcapability dunk1 op
   <supybot> jemfinch: The operation succeeded.
   <jemfinch> now use the "op" command to get ops.
   <dunk1> @op
   --- supybot gives channel operator status to dunk1
   <dunk1> works!
   <dunk1> ;]
   <jemfinch> @load Enforcer
   <supybot> jemfinch: The operation succeeded.
   <jemfinch> @config channel supybot.plugins.Enforcer.autoOp On
   <supybot> jemfinch: The operation succeeded.
   <jemfinch> ok, now cycle the channel (part and then rejoin)
   <-- dunk1 (dunker@freebsd.nl) has left #supybot
   --> dunk1 (dunker@freebsd.nl) has joined #supybot
   --- supybot gives channel operator status to dunk1
   <jemfinch> cool, thanks :)


Q: Can users with the "admin" capability change configuration
   variables?

A: Currently, no. Feel free to make your case to us as to why a 
   certain configuration variable should only require the "admin"
   capability instead of the "owner" capability, and if we agree
   with you, we'll change it for the next release.


Q: Can Supybot do factoids?

A: Supybot most certainly can!  In fact, we offer three full-fledged
   factoids-related plugins!

   Factoids (written by jemfinch) is Supybot's original
   factoids-related plugin.  It offers full integration with Supybot's
   nested commands as well as a complete 1:n key to factoid ratio,
   with lookup by individual number.  Factoids also uses a
   channel-specific database instead of a global database, though
   that's configurable with the
   supybot.databases.plugins.channelSpecific configuration variable.

   MoobotFactoids (written by Strike) is much more full-featured,
   offering users the ability to define factoids in a slightly more
   user-friendly way, as well as parsing factoids to handle <reply>,
   <action>,  and alternations (defining a factoid "test" as
   "<reply>(foo|bar|baz)" will make the bot send "foo" or "bar" or
   "baz" to the channel (without the normal "test is " at the
   beginning)).  If you're accustomed to Moobot's factoids or
   Blootbot's factoids, then this is the Factoids plugin for you.
   Unfortunately, due to the more natural definition syntax (required
   to be compatible with Moobot) you can't define Factoids with nested
   commands; you'll have to evaluate the command first and then copy
   the result into your factoid definition.  

   Infobot (written by jamessan) is used for Infobot compatibility;
   if you still want the basic functionality of Infobot, this is the
   plugin to use.


Q: Can I import my Infobot/Blootbot/Moobot factoids into Supybot?

A: As of present, we have no automated way to do so.  Strike has
   written a few scripts for importing a Moobot database into
   MoobotFactoids, however, so you'll want to talk to him about
   helping you with that.  We're certainly happy to help you convert
   such databases; if you can provide us with such a database exported
   to a flat file, we can probably do the rest of the work to write a
   script that imports it into a database for one of our
   factoids-related plugins.


Q: Do I really have to use separate databases for each channel?

A: Of course not!  We default to separate databases for each channel
   because, well, that's what jemfinch always thought was
   reasonable.  Anyway, if you change the configuration variable
   supybot.databases.plugins.channelSpecific to False instead of
   True, for *most* databases, each channel will share the same
   database (the exceptions are ChannelStats, Herald, Seen, and
   WordStats, which are inherently rather channel-based).


Q: Karma doesn't seem to work for me.

A: Karma by default doesn't acknowledge karma updates.  If you check
   the karma of whatever you increased/decreased, you'll note that
   your increment or decrement still took place.  If you'd rather
   Karma acknowledge karma updates, change the
   supybot.plugins.Karma.response configuration variable to On.


Q: I added an alias, but it doesn't work!

A: Take a look at "help <alias you added>".  If the alias the bot has
   listed doesn't match what you're giving it, chances are you need
   to quote your alias in order for the brackets not to be
   evaluated.  For instance, if you're adding an alias to give you a
   link to your homepage, you need to say:

   alias add mylink "format concat http://my.host.com/ [urlquote $1]"

   and not:

   alias add mylink format concat http://my.host.com/ [urlquote $1]

   The first version works; the second version will always return the
   same url.

Q: Is there a command that can tell me what capability another
   command requires?

A: No, there isn't, and there probably never will be.  Commands have
   the flexibility to check any capabilities they wish to check;
   while this flexibility is useful, it also makes it hard to guess
   what capability a certain command requires.  We could make a
   solution that would work in a large majority of cases, but it
   wouldn't (and couldn't!) be absolutely correct in all
   circumstances, and since we're anal and we hate doing things
   halfway, we probably won't ever add this partial solution.

   Besides, is the error message so bad?  If we did have such a
   command, many users would call the command, see that they could
   perform it, and then run the command, thus doubling the activity
   in the channel.  Is that something you want?


Q: How do I make my Supybot connect to multiple servers?

A: Just use the "connect" command in the Network plugin.  Easy as pie!


Q: My bot can't handle nicks with brackets in them!  It always
   complains about something not being a valid command, or about
   spurious or missing right brackets, etc.

A: You should quote arguments (using double quotes, like this:
   "foo[bar]") that have brackets in them that you don't wish to be
   evaluated as nested commands.  Otherwise, you can turn off nested
   commands by setting supybot.commands.nested to False, or change
   the brackets that nest commands, by setting
   supybot.commands.nested.brackets to some other value (like <>,
   which can't occur in IRC nicks).


Q: I've edited my configuration file, but my Supybot doesn't notice
   the changes!  Even if I restart it, it doesn't see them.  What's
   the deal?

A: Supybot won't reload its configuration files unless you tell it
   to.  In addition, when Supybot exits (and periodically while it
   runs) it flushes its configuration file to disk.  The safest way
   to avoid problems with configuration file edits is simply to exit
   the bot before editing the configuration file(s).  If you don't
   wish to do that, however, you can edit the file, save the changes,
   and tell the bot to reload its configuration, either via the
   reload command in the Config plugin, or by sending the bot a
   SIGHUP.  There is a brief period in this whole sequence where the
   bot can flush its configuration to disk after you write your
   changes, but we even have something to fix that: set the
   configuration variable supybot.flush to False, and then reload the
   configuration.


Q: I found a bug, what do I do?

A: Submit it on Sourceforge through our Sourceforge project page:
   <http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=58965&atid=489447>.  If
   Sourceforge happens to be down when you try to submit your bug,
   then post it in the "Supybot Developer Discussion" forum at our
   forums at <http://forums.supybot.org/>.  If that doesn't work,
   email supybot-bugs@lists.sourceforge.net.  If that doesn't work,
   email jemfinch@supybot.org.  If that doesn't work, find yourself
   some carrier pigeons and ... hah!  You thought I was serious!

   Anyway, when you submit your bug, we'll need several things.  If
   the bug involved an uncaught exception, we need the traceback
   (basically the stuff from "Uncaught exception in ..." to the next
   log entry).  We'd also like to see the commands that caused the
   bug, or happened around the time you saw the bug.  If the bug
   involved a database, we'd love to see the database.  Remember, it's
   always worse to send us too little information in a bug report than
   too much.


Q: Is there a way just to load *all* the plugins Supybot has?

A: No, there isn't.  Even if there were, some plugins conflict with
   other plugins, so it wouldn't make much sense to load them.  For
   instance, what would a bot do with Factoids, MoobotFactoids, and
   Infobot all loaded?  Probably just annoy people :)

   If you want to know more about the plugins that are available,
   check out our "Plugin index" at our website.