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### 2.2 Special Features

ERC has some features that distinguish it from some IRC clients.

- multiple channels and multiple servers

  Every channel is put in a separate buffer. Several IRC servers may be connected to at the same time.

- private message separation

  Private conversations are treated as channels, and are put into separate buffers in Emacs. We call these “query buffers”.

- highlighting

  Some occurrences of words can be highlighted, which makes it easier to track different kinds of conversations.

- notification

  ERC can notify you that certain users are online.

- channel tracking

  Channels can be hidden and conversation continue in the background. You are notified when something is said in such a channel that is not currently visible. This makes it easy to get Real Work done while still maintaining an IRC presence.

- nick completion

  ERC can complete words upon hitting `TAB`, which eases the writing of nicknames in messages.

- history

  Past actions are kept in history rings for future use. To navigate a history ring, hit `M-p` to go backwards and `M-n` to go forwards.

- multiple languages

  Different channels and servers may have different language encodings.

  multiple languages. Please contact the Emacs developers if you are interested in helping with the translation effort.

- user scripting

  Users can load scripts (e.g., auto greeting scripts) when ERC starts up.

  It is also possible to make custom IRC commands, if you know a little Emacs Lisp. Just make an Emacs Lisp function and call it `erc-cmd-NEWCOMMAND`, where `NEWCOMMAND` is the name of the new command in capital letters.

- auto reconnect

  If the connection goes away at some point, ERC will try to reconnect automatically. If it fails to reconnect, and you want to try to manually reestablish the connection at some later point, switch to an ERC buffer and run the `/RECONNECT` command.

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