mIRC is just a chat programme...This chant is force-fed to us every day of the week by those that apparently think that mIRC V4.7 is still a going concern, the same people that lack the imagination to think of new ideas for mIRC (one of the primary reasons for the existance of these message boards I thought) and the same people that seem to get a high from belittling those that come up with new ideas.
Yet I, for one, look forward to each new version hand-crafted by Khaled simply because it will be a creation of both bug-fixes and new ideas jointly thought of by him and those who make suggestions here. It amazes me that the same people who knock every new idea with
mIRC is just a chat programme seem to spend their IRC time just idling (yes I have been to most of the #mIRC channels around the world and there's never alot of activity)... Oh but idling is part of chat... No more than sharing the odd file (mIRC is not a filesharing programme), adding more support for different sound file types (mIRC is not a jukebox), adding support for DCC Video Chat (mIRC is not a telly), adding more $identifiers (mIRC is not a room robot), adding more colours (mIRC is not a christmas tree), adding emoticons (mIRC is not a family photograph), I could go on forever here if I had the benefit of access to the old forum.
The fact is, mIRC is a chat programme that is under continual development and the possibility of new ideas from it's users should be explored instead of put down all the time by the precupernican obscurantists here that think IRC is a dim dark world of B&W text chat and not a thing else.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying all new ideas MUST be included, I'm saying that they should be given thought, prioritised and implemented over time, as time permits and according to the ability of mIRC's current structure to allow the idea to be included.
I for one would like to see DCC Video Chat, since there are clients that apparently do already support this.
But the IRCd's would have to then support it! Bull! IRCd's do not support DCC, they only support the initialisation of a DCC session. You can even log off IRC and DCC to another user the same way as you can with MS Netmeeting. I've been using Netmeeting on and off for years without a Micro$oft .NET passport just by entering the IP address of the other user. I am sure mIRC has the same capabilities with it's current level of DCC support.
Then there's the emoticons. Okay, this is far from necessary but alot of people want it. There's a furphy going around that it will lag you and increase bandwidth usage. What a load of rubbish. Emoticons would simply be mIRC converting :-) to
locally. There'd be no additional information sent via IRC to achieve this so where will it lag or chew bandwidth?
Then there's additional colour support. 16 colours is enough and too much to some, however alot of people want more. I think 256 would be nice to have. Computers are very powerful these days so why not? And to those that say
But all IRC programmes would also have to support it I say to hell with the other programmes. mIRC is the most popular programme and it should lead the way rather than lag behind waiting for others to ummm and arrr about it all.
You can customise colours in mIRC... Yes you can but you still only get 16 concurrent colour choices. If you don't like colour then turn it off instead of sulking about the repeated requests.
*Watchdog pauses for a brief fart...
Moving on... What would mIRC be without it's current support of DCC send/get, DCC Chat, DCC Server, Fserver, support for all the oddball functions that are peculiar to certain IRCd's such as CR's UOP level, Microsoft Exchange's IRCX, support for sounds, support for .dll files, support for colours, support for user-made scripts including bots (yes mIRC is perfectly adequate as a bot if you are able to host it yourself), support for multi-server/network connections, the most comprehensive user-configuration of the GUI (more than any other programme) - all this and much more is what makes mIRC the most popular chat programme out there.
Those who constantly say
mIRC is just a chat programme seem to have a complex against improvement and advancement. It's a case of "I'm not clever enough to think of this so it's not a good idea" Like it or not, mIRC is going to be a 2MB download one day - OH NOOO !!!!! NOT 2MB THAT WOULD KILL MY CONNECTION - like, get real, you think nothing of downloading 5MB MP3 files yet a song goes for 3 1/2 minutes while mIRC can go forever.
I say let the continued advancement of mIRC move forward. If you don't like an idea then that's okay, say so but give a good reason for it as well instead of this childish cry of
mIRC is just a chat programme. if you believe that IRC is a B&W affair and should remain untainted by the good ideas and intentions of others then perhaps you should get off the net for a while and get out into the real world and enjoy life instead of getting a bad back and RSI whilst facing your delusional world of make-believe.
mIRC is a chat programme, but an increasingly ever-improving, diverse and technically advanced one.
