Provided by: utalk_1.0.1.beta-7_amd64 bug

NAME

       utalk - a UDP-based full screen talk program

SYNOPSIS

       utalk [options] user[@host][#tty]
       utalk [options] !port@host
       utalk [options] -s port
       utalk [options] -c host port

OPTIONS

       -s, --server
              Tells  utalk not to use the talk daemons to announce itself, and instead wait for a
              connection on the given port number.

       -c, --client
              Tells utalk not to use the talk daemons to announce itself, and instead connect  to
              the given port number on the given host.

       -a, --announce-only
              Makes  utalk  decide on a local port number, and send out an announce with the port
              number instead of your username.  Useful to start a utalk session with a host  that
              has a talk daemon when yours doesn't.

       -7, --seven-bit
              Makes utalk convert all characters to 7-bit US-ASCII before displaying them; useful
              if you don't have an iso-8859-1 capable terminal.

       -8, --eight-bit
              Makes utalk show iso-8859-1 encoded characters on the screen, as they are received.

ARGUMENTS

       user@host[#tty]
              Specifies the user to ring.  The "user@host" part can be  replaced  with  an  alias
              name  defined  in your ~/.utalkrc.  If you specify the tty, utalk will ask the talk
              daemon to ring the user on that particular tty.  The username can be prefixed by  a
              '!', which utalk will strip.

       !port@host
              Specifies the port number to connect to, and the host.  Useful to answer to a utalk
              -a.

DESCRIPTION

       utalk is a text-based chat program in the vein of talk and  YTalk,  which  uses  a  better
       protocol  built  over  UDP  for  communication.   Because it does not require that network
       packets arrive in sequence to be able to display them, utalk can be used  over  unreliable
       links where a TCP/IP connection such as a telnet or a talk would be too slow to be usable.

       Additionally,  utalk  supports full editing of previously typed text, scrollback, keyboard
       bindings, and aliases.

       utalk is incompatible with any other talk programs, as  it  uses  a  completely  different
       protocol.  Unfortunately, the text "respond with:  talk" is hard-coded in the talk daemon,
       and cannot be set by the client.

       To avoid confusion, utalk's talk requests send the username prefixed  with  a  '!',  which
       must be understood as ``respond with utalk''.

DISPLAY

       As in talk and YTalk, the utalk screen is divided in a number of separate scrolling areas,
       one for yourself and one for each other connected client (currently limited to one).

       At any time, one of these windows is active.  Each scrolling area has a status line at the
       top, with the name of the client and the following flags:

       [m]    This flag is always present on the top window: it's "my" window.

       [*]    This  flag  means  that  the  window is active and in read-write mode.  This is the
              normal mode for your own window;  in this mode, you can type and edit, and when you
              move your cursor and/or scroll back all other connected clients see the cursor move
              too.

       [R]    This flag means that the window is active and in read-only mode.  This is the  only
              way  another  window  than  yours can be active (i.e you can't type text in someone
              else's window); setting your own window in read-only  mode  lets  you  scroll  back
              through what you typed without all other clients seeing your do it.

       [n]    Means that the window is not yet connected; the user hasn't responded yet.

       [c]    Means that the window is connected.

       [b]    Means that the window is connected, but no data (even control data that utalk sends
              periodically) has been received for a while, so the connection might be  broken  or
              the  client  on  the  other  side  might  have crashed.  utalk will not interrupt a
              connection because of this, it's up to you to stop it after a while if  it  doesn't
              come back.

EDITING

       utalk's  editing  keys  can be configured to emulate either vi or emacs, in a limited way.
       By default, utalk is in emacs mode.

       utalk keeps a table of bindings for each of three modes: emacs mode, vi command mode,  and
       vi  insert  mode.   These  tables  are  initialized  to suitable defaults, and you can add
       bindings with the bind command in your ~/.utalkrc file.

       The following is a list of all key commands and their default bindings in emacs  mode,  vi
       command mode, and vi insert mode respectively.

       self-insert (printable chars) (unbound) (printable chars)
              The  keypress  gets  inserted  at the current cursor position, and the cursor moves
              forward one step.

       insert-in-place (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
              The keypress gets inserted at the current cursor position, and the cursor does  not
              move.

       quote-char (^Q) (unbound) (^V)
              Insert the following key literally.

       tab (^I) (unbound) (^I)
              Moves the cursor to the next tab stop.

       new-line (^M, ^J) (^M, ^J) (^M, ^J)
              Moves  the  cursor  to  the  first position on the next line, possibly creating the
              line.

       delete (^D) (x) (unbound)
              Deletes the character under the cursor.

       delete-end-of-line (^K) (D, d$) (unbound)
              Deletes from the cursor to the end of the line.

       delete-beginning-of-line (unbound) (d0, d^) (unbound)
              Deletes from the beginning of the line to the cursor.

       delete-line (^U) (dd) (^U)
              Deletes the current line.

       delete-word (ESC d) (dw, dW) (unbound)
              Deletes to the beginning of the next word.

       delete-end-of-word (unbound) (de) (unbound)
              Deletes to the end of the current word.

       backspace (^H, DEL) (X) (^H, DEL)
              Moves back the cursor one position, erasing the character in that position.

       backspace-word (^W) (unbound) (^W)
              Backspaces over one word.

       backward (^B, ESC [D) (h, [D) (unbound)
              Moves backward one position.

       forward (^F, ESC [C) (l, [C) (unbound)
              Moves forward one position.

       backward-word (ESC b) (b, B) (unbound)
              Moves backward one word.

       forward-word (ESC f) (w, W) (unbound)
              Moves forward one word.

       end-of-word (unbound) (e) (unbound)
              Moves to the end of the current word.

       beginning-of-line (^A) (0, ^) (unbound)
              Moves to the beginning of the current line.

       end-of-line (^E) ($) (unbound)
              Moves to the end of the current line.

       nop (unbound) (ESC) (unbound)
              Does nothing.

       beep (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
              Beeps the terminal (does not send a beep across to the other clients).

       up (^P, ESC [A) (k, [A) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor up one line.

       down (^N, ESC [B) (j, [B) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor down one line.

       up-page (ESC v) (^B) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor up one page if the screen is in read/write mode, and scrolls up by
              one page if it is in read-only mode.

       down-page (^V) (^F) (unbound)
              Moves  the  cursor  down  one page if the screen is in read/write mode, and scrolls
              down by one page if it is in read-only mode.

       up-half-page (unbound) (^U) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor up half a page if the screen is in read/write mode, and scrolls up
              by half a page if it is in read-only mode.

       down-half-page (unbound) (^D) (unbound)
              Moves  the cursor down half a page if the screen is in read/write mode, and scrolls
              down by half a page if it is in read-only mode.

       top-of-screen (unbound) (H) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the first line of the current visible screen.

       middle-of-screen (unbound) (M) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the middle of the screen.

       bottom-of-screen (unbound) (L) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the last line of the current visible screen.

       top-or-up-page (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the top of the screen if it's not there, or scrolls up  by  one
              page if it is.

       bottom-or-down-page (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
              Moves  the cursor to the bottom of the screen if it's not there, or scrolls down by
              one page if it is.

       vi-goto-line (unbound) (G) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the line number entered as a prefix, if any; otherwise moves to
              the last line of the buffer.

       redisplay (^L) (^L) (^L)
              Redraws the screen.

       resynch (^R) (^R) (^R)
              Requests immediate transmission of all missing packets.

       next-window (^X b, ^X o, ^G) (g) (unbound)
              Cycles  the  active  window  between your window in read/write mode, your window in
              read-only mode, and each of the other windows.

       set-topic (^T) (^T) (unbound)
              Prompts the user for a ``topic'', which will be displayed at the top of the  screen
              for all users.

       vi-insert-mode (unbound) (i, R) (unbound)
              Sets vi insert mode.

       vi-command-mode (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
              Sets vi command mode.

       emacs-mode (unbound) (unbound) (unbound)
              Sets emacs mode.

       quit (^X c) (ZZ) (unbound)
              Quits utalk.

       vi-escape (unbound) (unbound) (ESC)
              Sets vi command mode and moves the cursor one position to the left.

       vi-add (unbound) (a) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor one position to the right and sets vi insert mode.

       vi-add-at-end-of-line (unbound) (A) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the end of the current line and sets vi insert mode.

       vi-insert-at-beginning-of-line (unbound) (I) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line and sets vi insert mode.

       vi-open (unbound) (o) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next line and sets vi insert mode.

       vi-open-above (unbound) (O) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous line and sets vi insert mode.

       vi-replace-char (unbound) (r) (unbound)
              Replaces the char under the cursor with the following key.

       vi-find-char (unbound) (f) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the next occurrence of the following key on the same line.

       vi-reverse-find-char (unbound) (F) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to the previous occurrence of the following key on the same line.

       vi-till-char (unbound) (t) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to one position before the next occurrence of the following key on
              the same line.

       vi-reverse-till-char (unbound) (T) (unbound)
              Moves the cursor to one position after the previous occurrence of the following key
              on the same line.

       vi-repeat-find (unbound) (;) (unbound)
              Repeats the previous find or till command.

       vi-reverse-repeat-find (unbound) (,) (unbound)
              Repeats the previous find or till command, reversing the direction.

       vi-delete-find-char (unbound) (df) (unbound)
              Deletes  all characters between the current position and the next occurrence of the
              following key on the same line, both included.

       vi-delete-reverse-find-char (unbound) (dF) (unbound)
              Deletes all characters between the current position and the previous occurrence  of
              the following key on the same line, both included.

       vi-delete-till-char (unbound) (dt) (unbound)
              Deletes  all characters between the current position and the next occurrence of the
              following key on the same line, not including the latter.

       vi-delete-reverse-till-char (unbound) (dF) (unbound)
              Deletes all characters between the current position and the previous occurrence  of
              the following key on the same line, not including the latter.

       vi-flip-case (unbound) (~) (unbound)
              Flip the case of the character under the cursor.

CONFIGURATION

       You  can specify a number of settings for utalk in a configuration file called .utalkrc in
       your home directory.

       Valid commands are:

           emacs-mode
           vi-mode
           bind key function
           bind! key function
           alias alias value
           set setting on|off

       Settings are:

       beep   Makes utalk let beeps through or silence them.

       word-wrap, wordwrap, ww
              Turns word-wrap on or off (only at the end of the last line in the buffer).

       eight-bit, eightbit, eb
              Lets eight-bit iso-latin-1 characters through or maps them to US-ASCII.

       meta-esc, metaesc, me
              Maps keys with the high bit set to ESC followed by key, or lets them through  (only
              affects emacs-mode).

       "toggle" and "se" are synonyms for "set".
       "bindkey" and "bindkey!" are synonyms for "bind" and "bind!", respectively.

       In settings, "on" and "off" arguments are optional, "on" is assumed by default, unless the
       setting's name is prefixed with "no".

       Bindings apply to the current mode; to change bindings in vi mode, put a "vi-mode"  first,
       then your "bind"s and "bind!"s.  In emacs mode, "bind" and "bind!" are synonymous.

       In  a  binding,  the key must be a character or sequence of characters, not separated with
       any spaces.  The following sequences are recognized to specify characters:

           ^char, C-char     --   Control-char
           M-char            --   Meta-char
           \e                --   ESC
           \t                --   Tab
           \r                --   Carriage return (^M)
           \n                --   Newline (^J)
           \xhex code        --   Ascii code given in hex
           \char             --   That char, taken literally

       Note that you shouldn't bind functions to M-key combinations in emacs mode;  use  ESC  key
       combinations instead, and turn meta-esc on if you want to use your Meta key like in emacs.

       You can make aliases for addresses of people to ring, in either of 3 forms:

       alias aliasname@ username@
                   Replaces  aliasname@host with username@host for every host. The '@' at the end
                   of username@ is not required.

       alias @aliashost @realhost
                   Replaces user@aliashost with user@realhost for every  user.  The  '@'  at  the
                   beginning of @realhost is not required.

       alias aliasname user@host
                   Replaces aliasname with user@host.

COPYING

       utalk  is  free  software.  You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the GNU General
       Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.  See  the  file  LICENSE  for
       details.

SEE ALSO

       talk(1), ytalk(1), mesg(1)

FILES

       ~/.utalkrc           configuration file

BUGS

       This  is  a  beta  version of utalk, so some bugs are to be expected...  please report any
       bugs to the author.

       There is no way to insert (rather than overwrite) text.  This will be hard to fix,  as  it
       is  a  requirement  of  utalk  and  the  SRDP  protocol  that  the  whole protocol must be
       commutative.

       There is no way (as of yet...) to do n-way utalk sessions.

       The vi and emacs emulations are relatively primitive.

AUTHOR

       utalk was written by Roger Espel Llima <roger.espel.llima@pobox.com>.