A hexchat-like activity overview for ERC channels. This an alternative view for the erc-track module. It displays all the same information erc-track puts in the mode line, but can be relegated to a single frame dedicated to IRC.

1. Follow the guide at https://melpa.org/#/getting-started to add the MELPA package repository
2. Run M-x package-list-packages and select/install the erc-status-sidebar package

1. Fetch the erc-status-sidebar.el repository

   git clone https://github.com/drewbarbs/erc-status-sidebar.git

2. Load it in your emacs init file

   (add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/erc-status-sidebar")
   (require 'erc-status-sidebar)

To open the ERC status sidebar in the current frame use M-x erc-status-sidebar-open (or erc-status-sidebar-toggle). Ensure the erc-track module is active (a member of erc-modules). This is the default setting for ERC.

To close the sidebar on the current frame use M-x erc-status-sidebar-close (or erc-status-sidebar-toggle). Provide a prefix argument to close the sidebar on all frames.

To kill the sidebar buffer and close the sidebar on all frames, use M-x erc-status-sidebar-kill.

To specify a list message types that do not update the status sidebar (e.g. JOIN and PART messages), update the "Erc Track Exclude Types" custom setting: M-x customize-group <RET> erc-track.

Sometimes (very often in Emacs 26.1), the switch-to-buffer-other-window function used by erc-status-sidebar to display chat buffers will split an existing ERC window like this:

The intent of this package is to provide a hexchat-like experience for ERC users, and hexchat only has the equivalent of one chat window, so this is undesirable.

To direct Emacs to use an existing ERC window (rather than creating a new one) add something like the following to your emacs init file:

(defun my/erc-window-reuse-condition (buf-name action)
  (with-current-buffer buf-name
    (if (eq major-mode 'erc-mode)
        ;; Don't override an explicit action
        (not action))))

(add-to-list 'display-buffer-alist
             '(my/erc-window-reuse-condition .
               ;; NOTE: display-buffer-reuse-mode-window only
               ;; available in Emacs 26+
               (display-buffer-reuse-mode-window
                (inhibit-same-window . t)
                (inhibit-switch-frame . t)
                (mode . erc-mode))))

If using Emacs < 26, you can copy an implementation of display-buffer-reuse-mode-window (called display-buffer-reuse-major-mode-window) from https://stackoverflow.com/a/28311686/756104

Credit to sidebar.el and outline-toc.el, from which all the sidebar window management ideas were lifted.

GNU General Public License v3