Download and install (in their default install paths):
Download the HexChat source code and extract it to somewhere. You will work in the extracted hexchat folder from now.
Create a folder for GTK+, referred to as YourDepsPath from now (C:\gtk-build\gtk by default). Specify the absolute path to YourDepsPath in win32\hexchat.props with the YourDepsPath property. Download:
Extract them to win32 and x64 in YourDepsPath.
See also
If you would like to build GTK+ yourself, read this guide.
You can skip this step, but then you won’t be able to generate the installer. Download:
You can use other paths, but then you must update the related properties in win32\hexchat.props accordingly.
Open PowerShell as administrator and run:
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser
Open win32\hexchat.sln, right click on the release/installer (or release/copy if you skipped the language interfaces) project and set it as the startup project. Now you can compile from under the Build menu to your taste.
If everything went fine, the resulting binaries will be found in hexchat-build\Win32 and/or hexchat-build\x64. It was easy, wasn’t it?
First of all, you have to install the build dependencies. Package names differ across distros, so be creative and check your configure output if you get an error.
Most package-managers can get the dependencies for you:
HexChat has its source code hosted using Git, so you have to install Git as well. When it’s ready, you can start the actual compilation, which is basically:
git clone https://github.com/hexchat/hexchat.git
cd hexchat
./autogen.sh
make
sudo make install
This will compile with defaults. See ./configure --help for more info
about flags.
The theme manager isn’t built by default on Unix. To do so get hexchat’s source as mentioned above and install MonoDevelop with your package manager of choice then run this:
./configure --with-theme-manager
make && sudo make install
HexChat can be installed via Homebrew. The Homebrew method is fairly simple and is automatically configured to support Python and Perl so that scripts can be loaded from ~/.config/hexchat/addons. First install Homebrew, then do the following:
brew install hexchat --with-python
# or to build directly from git:
# brew install --HEAD hexchat --with-python
# then launch it
/usr/local/bin/hexchat
JHBuild is the alternative method. It uses the quartz backend as well as a more native theme. It can be more hands on and complex than the automated Homebrew method.
Note
Some of these builds may fail and require dropping to a shell to fix them. Most are trivial but the packages are always changing so you are on your own.
Once everything is set up we can build hexchat:
git clone https://github.com/hexchat/hexchat.git && cd hexchat
./autogen.sh --prefix=$JHBUILD_PREFIX
make && make install
hexchat
If you want to make the HexChat.app bundle it will take some more work.
cd osx && ./makebundle.sh