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I've been using XChat often recently, mostly to get some help on some new projects I've been working on. After starring at a screen all day I welcome any little tip that makes things easier on my eyes. One little enhancement that I think would help is to have alternating color for each row in the chat window. After a quick search on "the Google" and a quick question on the XChat IRC, I found that there is no way to do this. I did, however, come up with something that helps...

XChat allows an image as the background for the chat Window. Luckily, if that image is small, XChat repeats it left to right and top to bottom. This makes it perfect for creating a multi-row background. All I had to do was create a square image (seen to the right) with the top section painted different color from the bottom. It's not perfect, but I think it helps. If you want to do the same thing you can simply right-click on the  image above and save it to your computer. Use the XChat Preferences screen to change the chat background image and your finished.