                           INTRODUCTION TO ICB
                           -------------------

ICB (International CB) is a teleconferencing system that allows Internet users
to participate in realtime online discussions. This package builds a client
program (called, strangely enough, "icb") that is used to access ICB.

ICB is based on Sean Casey's ForumNet ("forum" or "fn") 0.10, with his 
permission.  The new name was devised by Mark Giaquinto and John 
Atwood DeVries.  The actual code here is based on release 5.0.9 of the 
Tcl C-Icb client.  It has been severely modified by a loose knit group of
users who can't seem to part with the traditional client code.


                       COPYRIGHT AND REDISTRIBUTION
                       ----------------------------

The parts of the code that are left over from ForumNet are Copyright (c) 1990 
by Carrick Sean Casey.

The parts of the code that are left over from icb 5.0.9 is Copyright (c) 1993 
by Mark J. Reed.

That said, cicb 5.1 is a nearly complete rewrite of the original code by
the cicb-workers committee, which includes, but is not limited to:
Erik Fichtner, Phil Stracchino, Michal Hoche-Mong, and Felix Lee.

This code has been placed under the GNU Public License with Mark Reed's 
blessing.  Please see the file "COPYING" for further information. 


                           SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
                           -------------------

ICB runs on Internet Unix systems with Berkeley compatable TCP/IP
and select(). It has been successfully compiled and run on several
systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, several popular distributions 
of Linux, Solaris, and Irix.   ICB requires a POSIX system with an ANSI C
compiler, a relatively recent version of TCL, and the GNU readline library.


                               INSTALLING
                               ----------

cicb now uses the gnu configure utility to try to figure out the correct 
settings for your system. See the file "INSTALL" for details on building 
the executable. 

                          NEW FEATURES IN 5.1.0
                          ---------------------

Triggers:

	When the client receives messages from the server, it can now feed
that event into the tcl interpreter by calling a "trigger function", if 
that function has been defined in your ".icbrc" file.   With this
functionality and minimal exposure to the TCL scripting language, you can
craft an autopilot for your client or whatever strikes your fancy.  Read
the file "TRIGGERS" for an introduction to the trigger API.


Asynchronous I/O:

	The client can now display messages to you while you're in the middle 
of typing the current line.  Just "/oset asyncread true" to enable this 
behavior.  Also, whether you're displaying async or not, the client can now 
be busy doing things in the background while you're typing.

Color:

	You can now adjust the colorization of the client's messages on
the fly.  See the file "README.COLOR" for documentation of the new color
parser.  

Message Highlighting:

	For important people in your busy ICB lifestyle, the client offers
personal (/m) message highlighting.   This is provided through a TCL string;
"personalhilite" containing the nicknames of those people you wish to 
highlight, and it has its own color code values.  This is stored as a TCL 
variable to allow ease of modification of the highlight list from built-in 
trigger functions.

Timestamping:

	The client is now able to optionally timestamp its output, which
can be handy for those that can't watch their client at all times.  To
use this, just "/oset timestamp true".  It too has its own color code. 
	
ICB Servers:

	Most of the icb servers out there have been listed under the
icb.net domain name, and the west coast primary server (icb.evolve.com) wishes 
everyone to switch to evolve.icb.net.  So, this is the new default host, and 
the icbserverdb file has been updated to reflect the new DNS domain.  


                         MODIFYING THE PROGRAM
                         ---------------------

Guidelines and tips for messing with the source code are in the file
"Modifying". I'm always interested in getting patches from people that
have extended icb's functionality. 

In addition, see the file "README.autoconf" for information on modifying 
the configuration process.

                              DEVELOPMENT
                              -----------

The files in the attic subdirectory, most notably "HISTORY" provide 
information regarding program development.  One can also examine the log 
messages in the cvs repository.

Anonymous, read-only, CVS access to the latest source code can be obtained
via the following:
	$ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@bartertown.obfuscation.org:/cvs login
	Password: anonymous
	$ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@bartertown.obfuscation.org:/cvs get cicb

which will check out the latest source code into a directory "cicb". 

                         ---------------------

Please send bug reports, fixes, and suggestions for improvements to the
development list at "cicb-workers@obfuscation.org".

You can keep track of important events in the development cycle of cicb by
subscribing to the "cicb-announce" list.  To subscribe, send an empty
message to "cicb-announce-subscribe@obfuscation.org". 


                               KNOWN BUGS
                               ----------

	When using readline 2.x, SIGWINCH is not handled properly.  If you 
run into screen redraw problems when changing window sizes, try using 
readline 4.x instead.

	NetBSD and OpenBSD both ship with a native readline library that is
based on ancient history, and we do not support it.

	TCL 8.1.x has caused us some problems with the client.

	When using asynchronous I/O mode and [=More=] pagebreaks, logging
to the replay log does not happen. 

	The "personalhilite" string is a case-insensitive substring match
and can cause unexpected things at times.


                            ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
                            ----------------

Thanks to Sean Casey for starting this whole thing, and to Mark
Giaquinto and John Atwood DeVries for making sure it continued past
ForumNet's untimely end.

Thanks to Mark J. Reed for the original 5.0 client and all the effort
therein. 

Kudos for ideas, bugfixes and previous effort go to Aashi Deacon, 
Rich Dellaripa, Thomas Krueger, Bill Fenner, Bill Wisner, Brian Kendig, 
Dan Chaney, David Herron, Eric Lechner, Eric Scott, Eric Zamost, 
George Herbert, Glenn Stone, Jessica Koeppel, Jim Griffith, Jim Lai, 
Joel Abbott, John deVries, Kris Cox, Lisa Hamilton, Mark Hopkins, 
Paul Callahan, Stephen Chappell, Thomas Kunselman, Thomas Krueger, 
Katrina Werpetinski, Keith Graham, Rich Dellaripa, Greg Williams, 
and others too numerous to mention.

$Id: README,v 1.7 2001/01/01 20:59:57 emf Exp $
