Snak

Snak
Original author(s)Kent Sorensen
Initial release3 March 1997 (1997-03-03)
Stable release5.3.4 (March 11, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-03-11)[1]) [±]
Operating systemClassic Mac OS, Mac OS X
Platformx86
TypeIRC client
LicenseProprietary

Snak (Danish for "chat") was a shareware Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client written by Kent Sorensen for the Macintosh platform.[2][3][4] Snak was distributed as shareware and could be freely used and evaluated for 30 days at no charge.[3] After the 30-day evaluation period has ended, the program would quit after 15 minutes of use, and a registration key had to be purchased. Versions up to 4.12 run on both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X while version 5 and newer only support Mac OS X. The program is Intel Only as of version 5.3.4. The program is not fully compatible with current macOS versions[5] and is no longer supported, with the developer stating that he is unable to create new versions due to the deprecation of the Carbon libraries.[6] On October 10, 2018, Snak was made freeware with a license key published on the project's web site.[7]

Features

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Snak supports an unlimited number of connections and channels,[8] private chats, as well as full DCC support for file transfers and chat. It can be scripted with AppleScript and the ircII scripting language.[9] Snak features an Actions list which makes it easy to automate responses to many common events on IRC.[10]

Snak includes the ability for multiple panels to share the windows. A panel can contain a channel, a dialog with another user, a list, or information about a DCC file transfer. This results in an effective use of the screen space and improves the ability to follow multiple channels. A panel can be moved from one window to another by dragging the title bar or the panel tab.

Although limited support UTF-8 support has been included since version 5.1.5 (released 2006-09-23), as of December 30, 2014, full UTF-8 support is still lacking (promised for "the next major version").[11]

Reception

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Jason Parker, Assistant editor for Download.com, wrote for CNET Reviews on May 26, 2005, "If you want a great IRC chat client for Mac, Snak is hands-down the best in the category."[12]

References

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  1. ^ "Snak - IRC for Mac". Retrieved 11 March 2012.
  2. ^ Charalabidis, Alex (15 December 1999). "IRCing On The Macintosh: Snak". The Book of IRC: The Ultimate Guide to Internet Relay Chat (1st ed.). San Francisco, California: No Starch Press. pp. 64 – 66. ISBN 1-886411-29-8. Snak is another very new Mac client that has rapidly become one of the leading choices, especially for people who find Ircle's four or more windows cluttered or confusing.
  3. ^ a b Mutton, Paul (27 July 2004). "IRC from Mac OS X: Snak". IRC Hacks (1st ed.). Sebastopol, California: O'Reilly Media. pp. 13–14. ISBN 0-596-00687-X. One of the friendliest and three of the more popular, and more powerful, IRC clients available for OS X are presented here: Conversation, X-Chat Aqua, Snak, and IRCle. (p. 11)
  4. ^ Steinberg, Gene (21 March 2000). Mac OS 9: The Complete Reference. Osborne Complete Reference Series. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. pp. 856. ISBN 0-07-212506-3. Two IRC clients stand out on the Mac: ircle 3.0.4 and Snak 3.1.
  5. ^ "Snak home page". Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Works well on 10.10 and older, problems with sleep and contextual menus on newer macOS versions
  6. ^ "Snak home page". Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Unfortunately Snak is no longer supported and it is not possible to create new versions.
  7. ^ "Snak homepage". Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Oct 10 2018. As Snak is no longer fully compatible with the current macOS, and updating it is impossible I can't in good conscience accept payment. Please use the provided email and license key as your registration information. Thank you very much for using Snak.
  8. ^ "Snak: Description". Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
  9. ^ "Snak: Manual: Scripting". Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
  10. ^ "Snak: Manual: Actions". Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
  11. ^ "Snak - IRC for Mac - Version History". Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  12. ^ Parker, Jason. "Instant messengers for PC and Mac". Killer Downloads. CNET.com. Archived from the original on 28 November 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2009. If you want a great IRC chat client for Mac, Snak is hands-down the best in the category.