I was just doing a little snooping.
mIRC impliments the notify function by sending an ISON commands to the server every 30 seconds containing all the names in the notify list, then parsing the response. Not the most efficient process, but it is functional.
Sending WHOIS commands for every user in the list every 30 seconds would allow the mIRC to keep updated away info, but it would be inefficient to send that automatic whois messages, fill servers with junk messages.
A manual refresh button would probably be more efficient and would still work.
Best way to impliment such a feature would be to have it run server side. Server would keep a list of who's watching each user. Shouldn't be pretty easy to impliment, would function like a channel containing all the users watching a user with a specific name, and the only messages would be about the online status and away info of that user.
Another way to do this server side would be to add away info to ISON responses, not very efficient, but it would be easy to do, and work reasonable well with mIRC.
I did find something else that should be fixed, though: By default, mIRC displays away messages in the server window; should be displayed in the current window where the person sending the message will see it.
Only problem with sending private messages to a list of users is that it doesn't send the recipient list to the recipients. Client does not know who the other recipients are. Something else that should be corrected, server side.
I think adding both these features to IRC would be a good idea. Would give IRC all the same features of instant messengers plus the added feature of supporting channels. (I don't know why this wasn't done a long time ago, didn't anyone see how popular these features were?) Having a superior set of features to IM would be a good thing.
As far as purdy fonts and smiley pictures, that can all be done on the client. There's IRC clients that already do that. (I wouldn't want to do that to mIRC though.)
