Text input and commands

The input line (statusbar item input in the prompt status bar) shows the text cursor and takes your command and text input. Irssi is controlled through commands that you type into the input line.

Commands

Any char in the cmdchars setting can begin a command. The default cmdchars is the slash: /. The syntax for a command is the following:

<CMDCHAR>[<CMDCHAR>][^]<DATA>

If <CMDCHAR> is repeated two times, alias expansion is disabled, enabled otherwise. If ^ is present, command output is disabled. If <DATA> begins with a space, command lookup is inhibited and the data is sent to the active window item (useful to send a line that begins with <CMDCHAR>).

Text input

Any input that does not start with a cmdchar are sent as input to the currently active window item, for everyone or your partner to see in a channel or query. This includes lines that start with a space followed by <CMDCHAR>!

To purposefully send an actual text that starts with a cmdchar, type

<CMDCHAR><Space><CMDCHAR>rest of the text...