This is the leafChat IRC client for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.


End users
---------

This site holds the leafChat source code. If you just want to use leafChat,
please visit the main website instead:

http://www.leafdigital.com/software/leafchat/


Building
--------

To build this system you need the Java 6 SDK (or newer) and Apache Ant (as
supplied in most IDEs). You will also need to install some additional
dependencies. See build.xml for full information.

You can also run the system in an IDE such as Eclipse. This is quicker than
waiting two minutes for a complete rebuild and then installing or unpacking
the files, and also makes debugging easier.

To run in an IDE:

1) Make sure you've run leafChat (the normal end-user install) at least once.
2) Set up the project in your IDE. Add all the library jar files in lib/
   (and, on non-Mac platforms, the stub in mac/applejavaextensions) to the
   build path. This should make all the compiler errors go away.
3) Right-click on the source file leafchat.startup.IDEStartupHandler and
   choose 'Run as... Java application', or the equivalent in your IDE.
4) You will also need to set the Java runtime variable 'leafchat.installation',
   for example by using the following command line parameter on the Java launch:
   -Dleafchat.installation=/Applications/leafChat.app
   This must be set to the root directory of a normal leafChat client
   installation.

Running in an IDE skips some compile-time correctness checks that the build
script does and the launch process is not exactly compatible, so you should
also do 'proper' builds at least some of the time.


Bug reports
-----------

I guess we might as well use the GitHub issues system, for now at least.


Contacts
--------

Forum:

http://live.leafdigital.com/hazel/leafchat/
(I check this forum occasionally, but not reliably at present. Hopefully may
improve that in future.)

IRC:

irc.dal.net #leafChat
(I'm there most evenings around 23:00 UK time.)

Email:

You can get my address via http://www.leafdigital.com/ but please bear in
mind that (a) I'm often really bad at replying to email, and (b) my spam
filter is quite likely to eat your email. If you can catch me on IRC, that
might be preferable.

Twitter:

@leafdigital
(This is just my personal account, so don't follow it unless you want to
read the usual random crap. But if you send direct messages or replies I
should probably see them right away. Might be useful if you sent an email
and want to let me know so I can fish it out of my spam folder.)


License
-------

Released under GNU General Public License version 3. See LICENSE.

(This applies to all content that is created by me as part of this project,
but obviously excludes third-party libraries which have their own licenses.)


Credits
-------

All contents copyright 2012 Samuel Marshall, except:

- Third-party libraries in 'lib' folder
- Third-party content in 'mac' folder


Contributions
-------------

Contributions including bugfixes and enhancements are welcomed. You
must assign copyright in all contributions to me.

All code changes should follow the code guidelines (even though most of the
existing code does not).

Please contact me e.g. on the IRC if you would like to make a change (rather
than just a bugfix) or for anything complex. We'll need to agree how it
should work both from the UI point of view and in terms of the implementation.


Security issues
---------------

Here are some categories of serious security issue; I am not aware of any
existing issues that are as serious as these.

Assume the user VICTIM is running a standard leafChat install with default
settings and no custom scripts.

CRIT1: An attacker who is connected to the same IRC network as VICTIM can
  cause arbitrary software to be executed on VICTIM's computer without
  unlikely intervention from VICTIM; or, they can read arbitrary files from
  VICTIM's computer, or something similarly serious.

CRIT2: An attacker who convinces VICTIM to connect to a custom server (which
  is under the attacker's control) can cause arbitrary software to be executed
  on VICTIM's computer without unlikely intervention from VICTIM; or, they can
  read arbitrary files from VICTIM's computer, or something similarly serious.

CRIT3: An attacker who is connected to the same IRC network as VICTIM can
  obtain VICTIM's nickname password.

SERIOUS: An attacker with no special permissions on the IRC network can cause
  VICTIM's leafChat to crash or close or otherwise deny service.

Other security holes are generally less serious.  
There might be some possibilities I didn't think of.

If you are reporting any security issues that is as serious as these, please
report it to me privately (ideally via email + IRC/Twitter to make sure I get
it).

If possible, please give me at LEAST a fortnight to fix it before releasing
information publicly, and preferably a month or longer; it's just me
working on this software in my spare time, so cut me some slack. :)