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The Lounge

In this guide, we will be setting up The Lounge for the first time and explaining its use.

Modern features brought to IRC. Push notifications, link previews, new message markers, and more bring IRC to the 21st century.
Always connected. Remains connected to IRC servers while you are offline.
Cross-platform. It doesn't matter what OS you use; it just works wherever Node.js runs.
Responsive interface. The client works smoothly on every desktop, smartphone and tablet.
Synchronized experience. Always resume where you left off no matter what device.

In private mode, The Lounge acts like a bouncer and a client combined in order to offer an experience similar to other modern chat applications outside the IRC world. Users can then access and resume their sessions without being disconnected from their channels. In public mode, it acts as an open chat available to anyone without registration.

Do NOT enable public mode on your The Lounge instance.

After your first log in using the credentials set during installation. You will be presented with the setup for your first IRC server connection.

Field	Value
Name	Ident Name
Server	IRC Server Address
Port (:)	IRC Server Port
IRC Password	IRC's Server password (Optional)
Use secure connection (TLS)	Checked
Only allow trusted certificates	Checked
Nick	IRC Nickname
Username	Username for IRC User
Real Name	Full name to display
Channels	Which IRC Channel will be joined
Authentication type	This will depend on the IRC Server Most will use SASL PLAIN

If you decide to try The Lounge with the default settings, you will be joined to Libera.Chat (fork/remnant of Freenode). If you are new to IRC, this may be an excellent place to start. You will get a private message from the Freenode bot; the left panel is your navigation which is helpful for private messages and Joining/Managing multiple IRC servers.

Add Themes

You can install new themes for The Lounge via SSH. Here’s an example using the Dracula theme:

export THELOUNGE_HOME="/home/<username>/.apps/thelounge/"; /home/<username>/.nvm-thelounge/versions/node/v20.12.1/bin/thelounge install thelounge-theme-dracula-official

Replace <username> with your actual username.
Replace thelounge-theme-dracula-official with the theme package name you want to install.

After installing, restart The Lounge for the new theme to appear in your settings. You can restart The Lounge on your UCP’s Apps tab.

If you require further assistance, you can open a support ticket here!

Feedback and suggestions regarding this article are welcome on our Discord server

The Lounge
Add Themes