Emacs is a great text editor, the most wonderful one I’ve been used :D Also it has built-in support for ERC chat client. And now I used it as my chat client instead of Adium and the f**king Yahoo Messenger for Mac.

There are two ways to run a chat client through Bitlbee. First is to connect to a public Bitlbee server, register an account and start using the service. The second method is to setup your private Bitlbee server and connect to it. Of course I choose the second way because I don’t trust the first one. And also you cannot install or config the server if you’re using a public server.

Install Bitlbee

If you wish to use the easy method or you just want to try Bitlbee first, you can use Bitlbee public server at im.bitlbee.org:6667 or get one from the public server list here http://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/servers.html.

If you wish to use your own Bitlbee server, first install it from the homepage. If you’re using Mac OS like me, I have an article here to demonstrate how to install and config it on Mac OS Mountain Lion. I see the instruction is easy but the real situation on my Mac is so complicated >.< I don’t know how the installation prcess happens on other OS so if you have expreienced, please share with me. After finishing installation, you need to run Bitlbee in Daemon mode by either editting the config file to set RunMode = ForkDaemon or running bitlbee with the argument -D like this

$ bitlbee -D

Connect Emacs to Bitlbee server

In Emacs, press M-x, type in erc and input server address (localhost if you installed bitlbee server on your own computer) and port (default is 6667). If this is the first time you connect to bitlbee server, choose a user and type in any password that you want.

Now you’re successfully connected bitlbee server. Type in help to show the help on how to use Bitlebee.