How to install and use Waartaa IRC client as a local standalone application

1 Introduction

Waartaa is an open source communication and collaboration tool. It is an IRC client focussed to overcome the subtle disadvantages of existing clients. It is a web based IRC client as a service, facilitating some extremely useful services such as: centralised logging, unique Identity, global access, notifications, responsiveness to devices and displays across multiple clients.

This project is opensourced under the MIT Licence and built on the Meteor Platform and written using Meteor JS. The database at the backend is MongoDB and it has also incorporated node-irc, an IRC client library written in JavaScript for Node.

Waartaa being a web application, can scale very easily on different devices and it has got a beautiful UI that appeals instantly to anyone who uses it. One of the advantage of Waartaa is that, it can be deployed on any server and can be used for private purposes as well. In this post, we go about installing Waartaa and running it locally on Ubuntu 14.04 and using it’s various features.

2 Installing dependencies

Waartaa requires that a few dependencies be satisfied before it can be installed. The main dependencies are Node JS and curl. It involves adding the Node JS repositories, updating the list and then installing curl. Use the following commands, one after the other.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js
sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install nodejssudo apt-get install curl

3 Downloading Waartaa

Waartaa can be downloaded either through git or by direct download. Either of the method gives the same packages.

3.1 Download through git

Use the following command to download and extract Waartaa through git.

git clone –recursive https://github.com/waartaa/waartaa.git

3.2 Direct download

You can download the zipped folder here. Once downloaded, extract it into your home folder.

4 Setup and starting the application

Before Waartaa can be run, we have to set it up with the server details and then install it onto our system. Use the following commands:

cd waartaa./setup.sh

Now wait for the setup to finish.

Once the setup is complete, we now have to configure the server hosts file. Open the file settings-local.js file by using the following commands:

cd appgedit server/settings-local.js

Once the file is opened, scroll to the very bottom and add your details such as the “SUPER_USER”, “SUPER_USER_EMAIL”, “SUPER_USER_PASSWORD” and “SECRET_KEY”. An example is given in the image below. Do remember to change it to your preferred credentials.

This completes the setup. We can now run Waartaa. The first time you run it, it will download the meteor platform tools and the dependencies it needs to run the application like the MongoDB packages. But the 2nd time onwards, it runs immediately. To run the application use the following command:

meteor

Make sure that while running the meteor command, you are always present in the app folder of Waartaa, which is the meteor’s project folder. Once the command successfully launches the application, your terminal will look similar to the image below:

If upon running the command “meteor” you get an error saying: ” project uses Meteor 1.0.2.1, which is not installed and could not be downloaded. Please check to make sure that you are online.”, then all you have to do is run the “meteor” command again and it will download the required version and start the application.

For using the GUI  and oter features, read my full article here.

WAARTAA : web based IRC client

You may be satisfied with IRC clients like Pidgin, Xchat, mIRC or any other, But now there is a reason for you to change that. Its the new web based IRC client “WAARTAA”. Its got a beautiful UI and appeals instantly to anyone who uses it.

“waartaa” is a hindi word which means to communicate, and its apt because its the reason why it was made.
Opensourced under the MIT Licence, this is one amazing project worth giving a try. It is very user friendly ,has a beautiful and bold user interface and very easy to join channels or even create your own IRC server.Being a web based IRC cliesnt as a service it facilitates centralized logging, idling functionality, unique identification across multiple clients.

It is built on the meteor platform. its written in meteor JS and it uses mongoDB and It has also incorporated node-irc which is an IRC client libraary written in JavaScript for Node and also uses a host of meteorite apps.

The User Interface

       
(click on image to get a better view)

The Options

        

           

 

 

Installation procedure as a local application can be found here.

The question that may arise is why another IRC client when there already exist so many of them?
Well, waartaa has a tons of things to offer that you may have wished were present in existing clients:

•       while GUI clients work only for single machines, waartaa on a better infrastructure will ensure
  that the user is always connected to IRC while it also captures IRC logs.
•       It also preovides a central place to store all the chat logs
•       No matter what device you login from to Waartaa, YOU are always YOU in the IRC and not some
  YOU_, YOU__, etc. which means the it can identify you when you are logged in from multiple devices simultaneously.
•       Being a web service, it runs flawlessly on the browser of any device making your experience comfortable

Sourcecode available HERE.

Installation tutorial and procedure for waartaa here.
Waartaa is not yet deployed and will  soon be , but as of now you can run it locally as of now and try it out. The sourcecode and the setup instructions can be download from the github page.
So fork it and customize it as you want your client to look like. So do try it out, this might  just be the thing you always wanted.