Many features in ABiSoft’s IRC client Baxter are not readily apparent. Here’s a list of some neat ones I’m sure you’ll find useful.

Tab Tips

• Although when you first start Baxter all channels and private chats come up as tabs, you can easily „tear them off“ into separate windows one at a time by dragging tabs out of the window. You can also oblierate tabs altogether by simply dragging the server view away from the tab view, taking all the other tabs with it. Every time you log on to a different server you’ll have to do this, but once tabs are separate windows, they stay separate. To put them back into tabs, use the „Add to Tab View“ menu item in the Baxter menu, or hit Alt-T.
• Reordering tabs is a snap. Hold down Shift, then click and drag the tabs to the left or right.
• The colors of the tabs — and even whether or not they’re translucent — is configurable in preferences. Look under GUI | Tabs.
• Tabs turn a different color when they’re not active, but if someone in the channel they represent says something that contains your nick, or one of the highlight words you set up in preferences is written, the tab will light up. Select General | Highlight and add some words.

Useful Commands

• Next time you’re on IRC try /uptime or /cuptime. The commands echo your computer’s uptime to the current channel or private chat, in black and white and color, respectively.
• /run, /rrun, and /system all can be used to run applications. /system runs the application in the background and should be used to launch a GUI application. /run and /rrun run the application and wait for it to complete before sending it’s output to the current channel. /run simply prints the output, but no one else sees it. /rrun (the extra r is for remote) sends the output to the channel. Try typing /rrun fortune sometime.
• Baxter ships with a simple tic-tac-toe add-on. Type /ttt nick to request a game with them.
• Type /notify to get a notify list.

Aliases make IRC a whole lot simpler. More information about aliases is available online.
Baxter is skinnable! Download Baxters skins individually or as a batch. Feel free to create your own.