Whether you are reading this because you aren't entirely sure what a "client" is in the context of SILC or because you can never remember the commands you need to get around in SILC, I hope I can be a little bit helpful.

You'll always access SILC through a terminal client,which means that you launch it by typing "silc" at a command line. Once you have launched SILC, you'll need to connect to a server and join or launch a channel on that server. Within SILC, all of your commands start with a slash: / . If you aren't used to reading command descriptions like those below, it helps to know that brackets define required variables. So when I say "/users [channel]" I mean that to use the users command to find out the names of the users in a channel called "#silc" you'll have to type "/users #silc".

All of the avaialable commands are broken down for you at silcnet.org, but the commands you'll use most often are:

/connect silc.interactivist.net

Connects you to the InterActivist SILC server. To use another server, specify another machine & domain. Do this first.

/list

Will return a list of the visible channels on the network you are on. Channels may be hidden, though. If some channel names start with # or @, don't be fooled. That is part of the name of the channel.

/users [channel]

Will show you the names of all the users in that channel. Names followed by a honey roll (@) are channel operators, which means that they have special privileges, they can kick people out or change the topic of the channel.

/join [channel]

Is the command you use to join a channel. You can join many channels. Your entry bar will tell you which channel you are speaking in at any moment. If you ask to /join a channel that does not exist, it will be created with you as the founder.

^x

That means control-x. That is how you switch between channels if you are in more than one channel.

/names

Will give you a list of the names of everyone in the channel you are in. This is pretty much the same as /users somechannel, if you are in "somechannel."

*** this is the fancy stuff ***

/me

Will attribute a comment to you in the third person. So /me laughs comes out as "* somebody laughs" assuming you are somebody. In a little SILC quirk, if you are in two channels with the same person, you won't be able to tell which channel they spoke in, the way you can with regular comments.

/goto 10:00

Will scroll back to comments made at 10:00 or the first comments after 10:00. You can only read scroll back that was entered while you were logged into the channel.

/msg [name] [message]

Will send a private message to the user named. When someone sends you a private message, your name is in asterisks:
*theirname* the text of the message
and when you send someone else a private message, you see it like this:
-> *soandso* the text of the message

You can use the tab key as a shortcut to start a msg command.

/query [name]

Will open a private channel between you and one other person. You get out of this with /unquery

/nick [name]

Changes your nickname to "newname" assuming no one else on your network is using that nickname.

/whois [name]

Will tell you who is logged in with that name, how long they have been idle and what channels they are in. Just plain /whois will give your own profile.

/invite [name]

Invites someone into the channel you are in. If a channel is invite only, /invite is the only way to allow a new person to join.

/CUMODE [channel] [-o|+o] [name]

Changes the user mode of the named user to or from "op" in the channel specified. You must be a channel operator yourself to use this command.
/cumode #silc +o robin
Will make robin a channel operator on #silc. To retract operator privileges, another operator may say:
/cumode #silc -o robin

Also, check out http://info.interactivist.net/silcdoc.txt