Implement the HexChat scripting API

[sney]

This is a feature suggestion.

I'm an IRC lifer and for most of the past 24 years I've used some version of X-Chat or its successor, HexChat. HexChat is super lightweight and portable. It also has a backwards compatible multi-language scripting API that people can use to extend it in a lot of different ways, such as message redirection to tabs, automating replies, integrating with ZNC or other bouncers, and so on. Some of these scripts can be found here: https://github.com/hexchat/hexchat-addons though this is not an exclusive source by a very long shot.

HexChat is also a dead project. It relies on gtk2. It's been in a "help wanted" state since at least 2017. Development officially ended earlier this year. People join #hexchat on libera a couple times a week to ask if a viable fork has appeared yet, but there is no sign of one.

Halloy, meanwhile, is a rising star.

If HexChat's perl, python, and/or lua scripts could be loaded and used in Halloy, I believe the vast majority of HexChat users would migrate in an instant. And Halloy would gain extensibility without having to invent a new API.

What do you think?

sney

API documentation: https://hexchat.readthedocs.io/en/latest/developers.html#scripting
Code: https://github.com/hexchat/hexchat/tree/master/plugins (sorted by language)