Hexchat has been discontinued
 

hi guys,

it seems Hexchat project is discontinued, the final release being 2.16.2:

https://hexchat.github.io/news/2.16.2.html

any ideas of a good GTK substitute? I suppose it will be dropped from Slackware at some point, similarly to Xchat which it replaced.

Maybe take a look at
https://github.com/SrainApp/srain
?

It's unlikely to be dropped from Slackware unless something with equal features is there to replace it (just like XMMS1 is still here but other OS use XMMS2 since maybe at least early 2010s). I haven't seen any similar IRC client... KVIRC (and maybe Konversation) is almost similar, since it has classic menus (File Edit View Help, etc.) which most older users prefer, but isn't as quick with IRC channel/server operators tools and doesn't let you arrange network/channel tabs/windows the way you want rather than forcing alphabetical order. Most/all the rest seem to clone google's horrible interface of getting rid of menus so you can't use them as fast and see/memorize keystrokes.