When you first start SDF:IRC all the default settings will be set. This means if you log into any networks you won't using your own nick name.

First thing to do is click the “Alter Settings”(you can also use Edit→Edit Prefs from the menus) link on the welcome page when it first appears. ⇓

Clicking this link will open up the settings page, as shown below. ⇓

In the nick(s) field a comma separated list of nicknames can be provided. As on busy networks or with common nicknames, the first choice may be used, or during connection problems you may get logged in twice for a short time. It is recommended to have at least nick names in the list.

The User and Real Name fields are for extra information only, user names should be 11 characters long, it can be longer, but the IRC server you connect to will most likely shorten it. The Real Name doesn't have to be your real name, in fact for the sake of privacy it may not be a good idea to provide this.

Once these have been filled in, click “Ok.”

Once the above is done, you're ready to connect. This can be done in one of several ways. The simplest is to double click the Blitzed item under Other Servers on the left, this will cause the client to auto-connect to the Blitzed IRC Network and join a chat channel called #sdfirc, this chat room is for SDF:IRC related chat and support.

If you know the server URL and port you want to connect to you can select in the menu, File→Connect or use the ”Connect to a Server” link on the welcome tab. ⇓

Enter the server host name into Host, the port into port and if there is a password needed, enter that too. If you want the client to try more than one host and/or port, you can provide a comma separated list, it'll try each one in turn until it gets a connection.

If you installed SDF:IRC you can open IRC URLs in the client. IRC URLs look like:

irc://hostname:port/channelname