PoxChat is a fork of HexChat modernized around GTK4 with expanded IRCv3 support. This is not release-ready — expect bugs, rough edges, and the occasional crash. If you want a stable IRC client today, use upstream HexChat.
Upstream HexChat documentation still applies for most basics (FAQ, Python API, Perl API).
- GTK4 port (replacing the GTK+ frontend), with an overhauled xtext renderer (mark-based scroll anchoring, display-line cache), unified main-GUI margins, magnetic pane detents, and progressive column/tree collapse when space is tight.
- Tray icon rewritten on top of LizardByte/tray, replacing the old bespoke tray code. Currently wired up on Windows only; the library itself is cross-platform, so Linux/macOS backends can be enabled without swapping out the integration.
- SQLite-backed scrollback with a zstd-compressed VFS, replacing the old flat text-file scrollback. Also stores reaction and reply metadata alongside messages for IRCv3 draft features.
- IRCv3 3.1/3.2 core: multi-prefix, away-notify, account-notify, extended-join, server-time, userhost-in-names, cap-notify, chghost, setname, invite-notify, account-tag.
- IRCv3 message framework:
message-tags,batch,echo-message,labeled-response. - SASL: PLAIN, EXTERNAL, SCRAM-SHA-1/256/512, OAUTHBEARER.
- IRCv3 drafts (wired up, some with caveats — see below):
chathistory,multiline,event-playback,read-marker,message-redaction,metadata-2,channel-rename,pre-away,account-registration,extended-isupport.
- Persistence features (
chathistory/read-marker/metadata-2) don't yet surface auth-required failures gracefully — on servers that require login for history, requests just silently fail. - Intermittent crashes: opening the quit dialog; closing the find bar.
- Pane collapse can clip on fast drags.
- Chanview tree dotted-line indentation is currently broken.
- Display lists in compact mode/Chanview smaller text is incomplete.
- macOS integration is designed but not yet implemented.
Open win32/poxchat.sln in Visual Studio 2022. Build dependencies come from gvsbuild built for GTK4, plus a separately installed OpenSSL. Optional: libwebsockets, jansson, libcurl for OAuth2.
win32/poxchat.props contains environment-specific paths and is not committed.
meson setup builddir
meson compile -C builddirDebian-family dependencies:
sudo apt install build-essential meson ninja-build gettext libgtk-4-dev libssl-dev \
libdbus-glib-1-dev libcanberra-dev libnotify-dev liblua5.4-dev libpython3-dev \
libperl-dev libx11-dev python3-cffi libluajit-5.1-dev libpci-dev python3-dev \
desktop-file-utils libsqlite3-dev libjansson-dev libsoup-3.0-dev libwebsockets-dev \
libsecret-1-dev
X-Chat ("xchat") Copyright (c) 1998-2010 By Peter Zelezny. HexChat ("hexchat") Copyright (c) 2009-2014 By Berke Viktor. PoxChat fork Copyright (c) 2026- Evilnet contributors. This program is released under the GPL v2 with the additional exemption that compiling, linking, and/or using OpenSSL is allowed. You may provide binary packages linked to the OpenSSL libraries, provided that all other requirements of the GPL are met. See file COPYING for details.