Notifications and attention

Omairc separates visual unread state from events that need attention. Use unread marks to resume reading, the inbox to walk important events, highlights to add keywords, and mutes to suppress attention without dropping chat.

Know each signal

Signal	Purpose	Cleared or consumed by
Unread count and New messages mark	Live chat that arrived while a conversation was not selected, or while its open window was unfocused	Reading/selecting in the GUI; transcript position follows the preference
Mention badge	Your nick or a configured highlight in an unmuted conversation	GUI attention flow
Session inbox	Background mentions and highlights (including inside direct messages), invites, monitored-nick online edges, and self-kicks	Activating its row, dismissing it with Delete, or selecting the matching sidebar conversation
Desktop notification	Immediate out-of-window attention	Clicking it raises Omairc and opens or creates the matching conversation
CLI unread cursor	Agent/terminal polling	omairc read --unread; independent of every GUI signal

Open the inbox with Ctrl+Shift+A. Move with Up/Down, then press Enter to activate a row or Delete to dismiss it without opening its conversation. Open conversations at unread controls whether switching to a different conversation lands at its New messages marker instead of the bottom; it does not change what counts as unread. Use /pref unread on or the Preferences toggle. The current release defaults this preference on.

Replay and restored local logs are muted backlog. They do not increment unread or mention badges and do not create notifications or inbox rows.

Add highlight words

Highlights are whole-word matches stored per network:

/highlight release
/highlights
/unhighlight release

A hit behaves like a nick mention: it gets a transcript wash and, unless muted, contributes attention and notification behavior. Choose specific words; common words create a noisy inbox.

Mute without losing messages

Run these in the conversation you want to change, or provide a target:

/mute
/mute #busy-channel
/muted
/unmute #busy-channel

Muted chat still arrives and remains readable. Mentions and highlights in it do not notify, increment, or badge, and Alt+A skips them. Opening a muted conversation does not unmute it. Muting is per network and conversation key; closing or clearing that network drops the flag.

Watch a nick with MONITOR

If the server advertises IRC MONITOR, use:

/monitor alice
/monitored
/unmonitor alice

The list persists per network and is resubscribed after server feature discovery. Real online/offline edges appear in Status. An online edge can enter the inbox and follows the mention notification path while the window is unfocused. Initial reconnect hydration is deliberately quiet, and the server may impose a watch-list limit. MONITOR is server presence, not proof that a person is active or reading.

Desktop and platform boundaries

Desktop notifications are implemented on Linux through the freedesktop notification service, on macOS through UserNotifications, and on Windows through native toast notifications. Linux delivery requires an available session D-Bus notification service and can no-op when the session address is unusable. macOS asks for user authorization. On Windows, Omairc registers a Start Menu shortcut for toast delivery so clicking a toast can reopen the window; if that shortcut cannot be written, Windows toasts do not appear. The terminal client notifies on Linux and macOS only. Omarchy live-theme watching and portal text scaling are Linux-only.

Notifications are generated only while the window is unfocused for mentions and direct messages; mutes suppress them. Your desktop can additionally block notifications through its own permission, focus, or do-not-disturb settings. Topics, notification bodies, and Status remain plain text.

Reduce unwanted attention

1. Mute high-volume conversations instead of ignoring their senders when you still need the chat.
2. Remove broad highlight words.
3. Review /monitored and remove stale watches.
4. Remember that /ignore primarily drops direct messages, notices, and invites from that nick; channel text remains visible.
5. Test with the window unfocused and a genuinely live line—not replay.

If a notification or badge still behaves unexpectedly, use the ordered checks in Troubleshooting. See History and bouncers for replay boundaries.