Forums General Discussion Something LONG overdue!!

I know mIRC has been around for some time, however it has been seriously lacking two key things that has been availible for another plattform for over 10 years on the IRC programs they support. Audio & Video support! I know it's possible, but why has mIRC been holding back on this for so long? Am I the only one that wants this or even know it was possible?!??! Well for thoes of you out there that don't believe me, it is possible! However mIRC is still living in the stone age of IRC chats, dispite the improvments they have made. This is area has never been explored or even considered. My question is, why??

Simply put, IRC is a text chat protocol, mIRC is an IRC client, thus making mIRC a text chat client

In this era of audio and video! Why settle for just text? Do you still play text adventure games and not games like Halo, Doom, Sims, ect... and why don't you play text adventure games any longer?? Because they lack the feel of being really part of the game, the same goes for IRC. I also believe some people would like to actualy like to see or even hear the person they are talking to. And in certain instances it would be fun. And IRC is not JUST text envroment, I have on my platform the ability to do both video & audio, however mIRC just hasn't kept up with the times...

I don't know of any/many IRC clients that have audio/video support. If you're referring to MSN Messenger/AIM/Yahoo, then that's different.

This has been discussed a bazillion times, use the Search feature before posting. The feature suggestions forum has numerous threads suggesting video and audio support. We can't tell you why it hasn't been implemented, nor can we tell you when or if it will be

Regards,

I don't know of any/many IRC clients that have audio/video support. If you're referring to MSN Messenger/AIM/Yahoo, then that's different.

Well there are several that do support Audio and video and have been doing for over 10 years, I did do a search for such a windows based IRC program that supported video & audio, but I wasnt able to find any that had. The ones that I know that do are IRCle, which has been around sence the late 80's and Xirc. There are at least two IRC programs which I know of that support both video and audio and that there are possibly others out there as well.

And you are correct Yahoo, AIM, MSN messenger are different of course, but they originaly all three did start out the same way, just text, but they evolved. Why can't mIRC do the same?

Just my own thoughts on this issue... I don't really care if it's available or not...

I use IRC to chat with many people at once; not just a couple people. I would get annoyed really quickly if I had audio and video coming from everyone. Sure, you can make it only do audio/video for certain people, but that defeats the purpose if I *want* to talk to all the people in my channels. That's just my thoughts on it. I personally couldn't care less if it was added or not.

I wouldn't mind seeing these features added either, I'm just saying what I think the main reasons are that they're not added.

Audio/video chat hasn't been around (widely at least) for more than 10 years, and it's been available in conjunction with IRC (or rather it's supported sub-protocols) far less time than it has existed on the net in general. IRCle may have been first developed in the late 80's but it didn't develop support for DCC AUDIO and DCC VIDEO until much later.

There's no way for either me or you to know if support for either of these things has been seriously considered in mIRC or whether it is intended to be added. Yes, it is possible obviously. The question is whether it's practical and worthwhile to implement and, if so, precisely how to do it. There are numerous IRC clients that support audio and video communication initiated via IRC, however they use several differing methods, each with their own issues in regards to portability or availability across systems. So you see it's not simply a case of deciding to add support for audio or video via IRC. It's a question of which way to do it, or whether a new way should/must be made to do it. And if it does come to that, designing a streaming protocol or sub-protocol is certainly not something to head into lightly.

While I'm not against video or audio chatting being supported by mIRC, I think it's important to point out that text chatting isn't at all inferior or less useful than them. In fact many things are far easier to communicate as text.

You make some valid points hat the protocols for it should be standardized, that way everyone can do audio and video if they wanted to. I never said that IRC is inferior by any means, in some ways is far above yahoo chat rooms for example. However IRC is still considered to be old school. That is not nessaraly a bad thing here though. However, the adddition of audio and video support is still a step in the right direction. If it were available to you on mIRC would you make use of it? Maybe, maybe not. But you would still have the option to use it if you wanted to. If you dont use no big loss, but I think that some of us old school people would still like to have the option. Another point I did make a small mistake in the time line IRCle came out in 1995 not the 80's as I thought. However, it has been around for that time span, so on that point I am correct. However the video and audio over IRC may have been around slightly less time than 10 years, but it still the point is valid that it has been around for some time. Now on a point that was mentioned earlyer, that if you have the video chat and audio chat not everyone will be connecting to you to video or audio chat with you, anyone can choose to who they connect to and who they don't. The video and audio chat over IRC would be mainly for person to person chat, not mutiple chat, however audio multiple chat could still be a plus.

mIRC can't because IRC can't.

mIRC is and should be limited by the technology available on IRC because it is simply an IRC client. When you add communications features that circumvent the IRC protocol -- such as audio and video -- the program ceases to be an IRC client. Whilst some of you may claim that to be not such a bad thing, if we developed every single 'chat program' in the same direction, then they would all be the same. Maintaining mIRC as an IRC client will help to keep diversity in the software pool -- which, frankly, is a godsend in this day and age.

[I just know someone will bring up the subject of DCC though. I would submit that the addition of DCC file transfers -- which do not go through the IRC protocol -- may be seen as an exception as they are not a method of person-to-person chat communication.]

A program should be limited?? if we all had that kind of thinking we would be still with the horse and buggy! In this day of faster and faster computers will not slow down the servers. They make faster computers for a reasion so we can advance as a society. Being able to SEE others and HEAR others can bring us closer together. By adding features, like audeo or video does not diminish the way the program initial feel. If you want to just use it as a chat client then fine, nothing wrong with that, but why tell others that they can't do something different because of an outdated mode of thinking?? Just becasue you add a feature doesnt make it a clone of Yahoo, AIM, ect.. it just makes it more advanced than it already was!

Just remember this: Technology has come a long way... since this morning!

If you want video/audio, use a plugin DLL or else use IM.

As I've mentioned, I don't much care one way or the other, but I don't really see any need to add it and something tells me that it won't get added regardless how often people request it.

If you want to add audial/visual communication to mIRC, I recommend you first rewrite the IRC protocol. Then we can think about a client for this new protocol.

mIRC is an IRC client. IRC is text chat. Ergo, mIRC is a conduit for text chat.

If you really want to see/hear people, use a client designed to communicate via a protocol which actually supports such features, such as the myriad instant messaging programs available today. No point turning mIRC into an AIM/MSN clone. Of course, the alternative is to just visit your friends in real life...

Unless the nature of IRC expands, mIRC ought not to. Or you'd be wiring a filament lamp to a 12V cell by way of a high-density fibre-optic cable capable of carrying thousands of volts -- for no appropriate reason.

Well if we go by that way of thinking then stop asking for water to be filtered more so you can have clean water to drink. I know that seems a bit extream example, but the point is if the people ask for it it will eventualy be done. If we asked a programer to add something to help better the program, and they simply out refuse to do so, they go by the wayside as a out dated and useless program. Like I said before if you dont want to use it a feature, then don't. but for the rest of us, if we want a feature that we would like to see or use then if it can be done, why not do it then people wont have to ask for it again. Also as I said before adding features enhances a program not make it worse. If you know of a DLL or plugin that will do it then by all means make it availible or point where it can be found. Also not everyone wants to use regular IM chat programs, thats why IRC still exists. Just because you don't care doenst mean some one else doesn't.

Since you're going in circles, I might as well follow suit.

The issue here isn't adding a feature to mIRC. An IRC client's sole purpose is (arguably) to provide a user friendly interface to the functionality of a remote IRC server by way of the IRC protocol.

Therefore the issue is adding a feature to IRC.

Agreed, tomalak16.

As far as filtering water... I don't do that, so there! I actually prefer unfiltered water and refuse to drink bottled water unless necessary. Of course, I don't live in an area where the water is extremely bad tasting.

All you need to use video/audio is to have a program that can do so (most webcams come with a program). Then you send the IP information to the webcam app and go from there. Not difficult, but will use different commands depending on the app, which is why there is no single thing to download to do it at this time. Of course, some apps don't use IP and use some other method of connecting. You'd need to find out what is used by your app and send that info if it isn't IP. If you are extremely lucky, your app may allow a command line option where you can do something like /run webcam.exe 123.456.789.012

Of course, however you do it, you'd need the other person to have a webcam app open as well.

So you drink from your local stream? Good to hear.

As for the addition of video and audio to mIRC I couldn't really care less, but the idea of it requiring a change to the IRC protocol is nonsense. Note that DCC SEND/CHAT aren't actually in the IRC protocol, work just fine though. Noone ever said that the IRC server had to relay all the video and audio data from client to client.

Drinking water, regardless if it is filtered by mankind, is filtered by the ground when it's down where we get the water from. Tap water isn't from surface water, like streams. It's from groundwater, which is quite well filtered by the ground. The only difficulty being that well water can have various mineral tastes to it (iron being the main one) depending where you live. Or, if you're in a city with city water, they tend to put all kinds of chemicals in the water, which can make it bad if the city you're in does too much of that.

That said, if the stream is flowing and I happen to be in a remote area such as in the mountains (not next to a city or any factories or anything like that), then yes, I would be willing to drink the water from the stream.

True, and I predicted the topic of DCC in one of my earlier posts to this topic.

My point is that if you add too many features to an IRC client which have nothing to do with the IRC protocol or IRC itself at all, then you no longer have an IRC client. mIRC is an IRC client and always will be. So why try to make it into something else?

I would also submit that file transfers are different as they are not alternative methods of conversational communication.

- All you're doing here is pointing out that file transfers have far far less in common with IRC than audio/video chat, therefore meaning if you accept that as part of mIRC you should have no problem accepting something far more chat-relevant being added. DCC is a significant feature of IRC, and part of DCC is it's ability to stream audio/video content. mIRC supporting other IRC-centric chat-relevant features doesn't make it any less of an IRC client.

There's some bizarre link that people between audio/video chat and instant messengers. Limiting what mIRC can do because someone else happened to do it first makes no sense at all. Simply supporting similar features in mIRC's own way doesn't immediately mean that it's going to be infected with 'IM cooties'. I mean IMs also support text-chat, should we remove that from IRC aswell to further distance it from IM clients?

If this was a hot item for IRC users then a killer 'IRC' app would have taken over mIRC a long time ago.

I do. A real man takes chances LOL

Ok im a backwoods hick who found some comical humour in this comment.

Original Poster:

Lets leave mIRC alone. If you want audio/video support use something that has it. mIRC has come along way in the 10 years its been around and has proven to be a popular means of communicating with one another. Just because technology changes, doesn't mean mIRC has to. It is unique and to tell you the truth, i think video/audio support sucks.

If you want to talk to someone and hear their voice, use a damn phone. If you want to see someone, go over to their house or look at a picture and talk to them while on the phone.

If mIRC follows suit with other IM's or clients, that means its not unique, but another one of those programs. Nobody wants that. I sure as hell dont. Besides, sure use of protocol may vary but I do believe there are addons out there that work with mIRC at any of the popular IRC related script sites. (yes im lazy to type in the addy, cut me some slack i just got off a 20 hour shift at work)

Who said anything about a 'hot item'? I'm sure if mIRC removed DCC CHAT very few people would notice or honestly care even if they did. DCC CHAT is no less of an 'IM feature' than audio/video support, yet I don't remember anyone getting up in arms about mIRC's continuing support for it. Why not? Because people are used to it. Or to put it another way, why are people so against audio/video support? Because they're not used to it. For some people the very idea of something radically new in mIRC seems to turn their stomaches. And that kind of stagnating attitude doesn't help anyone. I bet if it were added 90% of the people against it would stop bitching within 6 months and suddenly claim they were never really against the idea.

I'm not saying it should be added, I'm saying that the only reason that anyone is giving against it can be summed up as "I think audio/video chat is icky" without any actual reasoning behind it.

DCC is not a significant feature of IRC. It is a secondary feature supported by most or all of the well-known graphical IRC clients. It is in no way built into the protocol. The CTCP message sent to the other client to initiate a transfer is an arbitrary string which could have been anything, had the authors of IRC clients decided so.

It's also not chat-relevant, which is why I'm categorising it differently from audio/visual communication.



IRC was there first :P

Or you could read my posts which explain that mIRC is an IRC client and therefore should provide features relevant to the IRC protocol.

Then should DCC CHAT and file transfers be removed aswell? Just because mIRC is an IRC client doesn't mean it's prohibited from doing anything at all beyond that. If that truly was the case then about a third of the scripting langauge should be removed as well. Like it or not, DCC is an accepted and well-established part of IRC, and part of what's possible and in use with DCC is audio and video chat. You don't have to use it if you don't want to, but I see no reason to prevent others who do want it from doing so.

How so?



Because you can already do so with other programs. There is no need to add features to mIRC that exist in other programs when it would simply serve to bloat the program to keep a minority happy.

<sarcasm>Should we also add an IRC client to Microsoft Word? Why should it not expand beyond its primary task, after all? How about an embedding graphics editing tool in Mozilla Thunderbird. You don't have to use it if you don't want to, but why stop those who want to from doing so?</sarcasm>

Audio and video are related to IRC since all three methods can be used to chat.
In your examples none of the things you're saying should be added to those programs are related at all.

Video can't be used to chat. Well, unless you use sign language...

My examples were extreme, admittedly.

- DCC audio and video streaming is supported in a number of other IRC clients. This isn't in and of itself a reason to support them in mIRC, but it makes the point that they can be used (and are being used by other clients) to complement IRC just as DCC CHAT and DCC SEND/GET do. This is what you seem to be missing, these things aren't irrelevant to IRC, they go hand in hand with it. That's why it's nothing like your other 'suggestions'.

Ok, video can't be used to chat, but it certainly helps.
Would you rather meet your friends or speak to them on the phone?

Agreed.

As far as implementing audio/video support, I would like to see it added if it's useful for many people. Personally I'm in the middle: if it gets added fine, if not also fine. What I do find somewhat weird is that people instantly make the comparision to an IM client if you add a characteristic that IM clients have.

So what if mIRC would have webcam support? For me it'll still be mIRC, richer than before. Don't want to use it? Fine. Think it's a great addition? Even better. There'll have to be a lot more serious and drastic changes to mIRC before it starts looking like an IM client. I don't think it matters much how many IM related features you add to mIRC. Because those features would be implemented in an "mIRC kind of way". mIRC has its own personal touch which is unique for mIRC. Adding webcam support won't make it look more like an IM client. It'll make it look exactly like mIRC was before but with an extra new feature.

I think many people are overlooking the fact that mIRC already comes with a LOT of non-IRC related stuff. As mentioned somewhere in this thread for example the scripting language. There are literally thousands of things that the scripting language allows you to do wich are not nearly related to IRC at all. Yet you don't hear anyone complaining to limit the scripting language. In fact, looking at feature suggestions, people always want more and more features for the scripting language. How popular is the "syntax highlighter" editor request? What does that have to do with IRC? Yet many, many many people would like to see that added.

mIRC stopped being "just an IRC client" years ago, so why use the "just an IRC client" as a counter argument for future features?

Come to think of it, we all know that many new mIRC users use mIRC strictly for file sharing. Heck, many old users still do it, and it is somewhat of a plague. Looking at it, adding webcam support for example could be an incentive for new people to start using mIRC... but this time not for file sharing, but for communicating with each other, which is all in all mIRC's prime raison d'être.

Anyway, wherever it goes in the future...we'll just have to wait and see. Not saying people's opinions are wrong, or right, though in the end what a bunch of people on this forum think probably doesn't have that great deal of an influence, considering only a minuscule of mIRC's entire user base are represented here.

Yes, I'd rather meet my friends or speak to them on the phone than live with bloated webcam interfaces in mIRC.. :P

FiberOPtics: I suppose you're right in that mIRC is more than an IRC client these days. Perhaps I'm just clinging hopelessly on to the past?

I love your signature

And yes, the "good old days" phenomena is quite common in many ways in life.

Heh, thanks.

Also ironic is that I wasn't even almost aware of mIRC's existence at a time when it was "just an IRC client". I guess I'm just a sucker for idealism, or whatever the heck it comes under.

I'm also all too familiar with the problem of overbundling applications -- MS Word is widely held up as the programmers' anti-christ (well, isn't everything MS :P) in terms of how to handle feature addition. But apparently I sorely underestimated the desire/use for this particular feature.

Perhaps I didn't voice my question very well. What I meant was would you rather just speak to your friends, or see and speak to them?

I'm afraid you'll never convince me that I want a/v for myself. I was arguing about its viability/level of appropriateness to be included in mIRC at all but it seems I was wrong on that count.

To anyone (and no one in particular):

I believe there was an IRC client that had A/V support that actually worked. Anyone seen pIRCh upgraded since 1998? Better yet, has anyone seen the original homepage lately? (answer to both is no). It was obviously not popular enough to garner enough interest to keep it upgraded and in circulation. <\rant>

not to anyone in paticular....

but, there has been at least one mirc addon that addressed this issue, though i've never tested it out myself. personaly i don't see the need to try and force a revalution per say on irc, if it's meant to be it will be. BOTTOM LINE!

- It's nothing to do with a revaluation of IRC, it's simply support for features of DCC that are complementary to IRC. It doesn't change what IRC is one bit. If it's meant to be, it won't just be. The code won't just fall out of the sky, someone has to develop and maintain and improve such a feature for it to be useful.

Yeah. I'm sure the development of pIRCh being stopped was solely down to it's support for a/v chat...

Honestly I don't have a clue why it was stopped, it could've been one of a thousand things, but in it's day it was one of the more popular Windows clients so I very much doubt it was anything at all to do with lack of support. Even if it was, and even if that lack of support was down to the quality of the program/features, it would've been because it's actual IRC experience wasn't good enough. No-one wouldn't use a client because it supported a/v chat if it's other features were up to scratch. There's also the very important note to make that this isn't 1998. There have been vast improvements in the quality and compression of audio and video, and that combined with the massive expansion of broadband means the number of people with connections that can actually handle real-time streaming a/v is about 100x greater than it was 7 years ago.

Actually, the development of pirch was stopped (according to the author) because of the lack of "shareware" payments to the author, and the lack of available scripts to enhance the "filesharing experience".
My point was that not even A/V support (which DID work, even without broadband) could get the cheap bas****s to send in their $10-$20 to keep the author updating his product.

wow, I didn't think he was all that interested in making scripting available... I did not use pIRCh myself (I tried it once, but I didn't inhale... HONEST!) . In fact I remeber making "PILs" was considered difficult and few pIRCh users knew how, (maybe documentation wasn't good?).
I know some who still use pIRCh and to them scripting (and mIRC's abilities) are of no interest to them as they do not see that as part of the "chatting" experiance.
There was also a network, ummm talkcity I think it was, that at one point blocked all users who did not use pIRCh... there was a big deal about that for a while and afterward many changed to mIRC or just quit using IRC entirely.

Honestly A/V was not a big deal to them, in fact I recall more conversations about them trading ICQ numbers (and problems they had with ICQ) than anything. In fact I don't remember them discussing A/V at all.

Until the win XP SP2, netmeeting was a good program for A/V as long as you didn't use the MS servers and made your connection by IP address (DCC basicly) now Bill wants you to pay for the software and connect over his servers... (Bill doesn't play well with others I guess).

My take on the whole thing is that A/V would not enhance chatting on IRC as using them would preclude talking in channel. More so that msg, query and DCC chat do now. On top of that the mIRC.exe would be well over twice as big as it is now and one thing that has always impressed me with mIRC is that even as more enhancements have been added, mIRC has not "bloated", remaining around 1mb download.

Lastly having the A/V added to mIRC would only contribute to lag (try maxing out your DCC sends and see what happens).

- Why is that? For one thing they wouldn't replace channels because it'd be a client-to-client connection. Also, as I mentioned earlier in the thread many things are just easier to communicate with text. If anything were going to replace (private) chatting over IRC directly it'd be DCC CHAT as it does the same thing without the need for the server. Yet nobody seems to take issue with DCC CHAT and, more to the point, it hasn't replaced chatting over IRC by any stretch of the imagination - it's simply provided an alternate way of communicating.


- Wow. Where can I pick up a crystal ball like yours? I assume that must be what you used to tell how A/V support would affect mIRC's file size...


- Not significantly. Any broadband connection could quite easily facilitate A/V streaming - a couple of connections at least would be possible. It's totally different from 'maxing out your DCC sends' as when you do that you're a) using many many connections and b) a file transfer will take as much bandwidth as it possibly can in order to send/receive the file as fast as possible, whereas an A/V stream would only use a fixed amount of bandwidth.

True, but the sad fact is very few things will part people from their money if they feel they don't need to. If A/V support did that it wouldn't just make it a good feature, it'd make it the Holy bloody Grail of software development. :tongue:

I have no idea what the ratio is broadband vs dialup, but you are making an assumption aren't you? Or is it your take that only people with broadband would benefit from this feature?

thats exactly what he is saying and that very well maybe true.?? in any case to elaborate on my last statement... i meant that if the developers saw fit to add it they would. (oh and yes, i always beleived that code just ploped out of nowhere. and you tell me it doesn't!!!!...man you busted my
bubble starbucks )


agreed on that one!

LOVELORD, you expecting Khaled who has been no doubt the most laziest, programmer ever to put sound and video, heckI have seen no changes to this program since 2001, only the fact that now they ask for money..

And I dont know any other program that exists for windows xp that looks like windows 3.1.. get with the times khaled and stop being lazy.

mirc doesnt look like win 3.1 prog...
mirc is done with DEFAULT Windows GUI, its up to WINDOWS how to SHOW it...

if you preffer childish colorfull baby program then use MSN, coz it fits YOU

You assume an awful lot. I wouldn't want audio nor video added to mIRC, for I feel it would lessen program as a strong 'scriptable' text chatting client. If you want audio & video programs there are plenty around, but none of those offers the strength in ability for the individual user to program the client to their needs.

Just because something 'could' happen, doesn't mean it should, nor will happen.

My personal desire would be to eliminate DCC altogether from IRC, for that's what has/is ruining what IRC was.

well, just because mirc isn't the way you would like it to be, doesn't make khaled or anyone else lazy!. he has held strong and haven't sold out how he believes mirc should be. and after all these years his way seems to be working, don't ya think?!

ok i'm all for development and progress and whatnot but, why would you want mirc to become a AIM, or yahoo type clone anyways??? thats how i perceive, how some are trying to convince us, on how mirc should go..???? they say no, however thats where we would be.. it's because mirc is the way it is now that makes it great! it's making users use their minds to come up with creative NEW ways to do the job. and thats what its all about imo....

Quote:

My personal desire would be to eliminate DCC altogether from IRC, for that's what has/is ruining what IRC was.

Oh please, that has to be the lamest line of garbage I've
read in a long, long time. What is ruining IRC is all the punk
packet kiddies who are nothing but a bunch of little hacker
wannabe's that have nothing better to do with their pathetic
little lives than to make other IRC lives miserable.
DCC has nothing to do with any ruination of IRC. Some people
may use it for illegal purposes, but so what, does that mean
everyone uses DCC the same way so it should be removed?
Of course not. I have to ask why you believe legitimate users
of DCC should be denied it only because a few misuse it? The
way I see it is, if DCC is ruining your personal IRC
experience, it's only because you're letting it. If that is the case
then just stay away from file sharing channels. If someone
asks for your assistance with file transfers, ignore them.
Maybe petition your network to ban file sharing channels?
Don't blame DCC for the way some use it. There
are still legitimate users of DCC and you can safely bet your
last dollar that if there is a way to abuse/misuse any
technology on this planet, there will be a line of people waiting
to do exactly that.

But it's not some users. It's a lot more than "some". And yes, the way many use DCC is ruining what IRC used to be.

Let's not digress into an unrelated discussion though

Regards,

hah, she introduced it, not me.

~ Edit ~

Quote:

And yes, the way many use DCC is ruining what IRC used to be.

Well, the addition of Audio/Video chat would ruin
what IRC used to be for me, and many others.

Well, the addition of Skins would ruin
what IRC used to be for me, and many others.

Well, the addition of Smileys would ruin
what IRC used to be for me, and many others.

Well, the addition of Avatars would ruin
what IRC used to be for me, and many others.

- Multi-server capability, a major change to the program was added in 2002.



- mIRC has been shareware since it's first release. Not very observant are you?



- The classic line of someone who's never actually had to use Windows 3.1. If you had you'd know full-well that mIRC looks nothing like it.

That 0 for 3 - if you're gonna insult someone you really should check if your three 'facts' to back it up are even remotely true. I guess you couldn't be bothered. Now who's lazy?

Actually the most up to date versions of Microsoft's common controls library look a lot fresher than any of mIRC's controls -- and that's ignoring the fact that many or most of them are proprietary anyway.

mIRC *could* use a facelift. I recognise that there are people who prefer terminal-style interfaces, and yet those who prefer a GUI to be, well, graphical. mIRC seems to be in between these days...

If I were to guess that he/she never paid it... Anyone care to take a wager?

Well, even if mIRC could be made to use newer Windows controls to make it look a little newer, I'd rather have Khaled add useful features than to take the same time just to make mIRC look pretty. I, for one, don't like all these "pretty" apps... they hurt my eyes.

My thoughts:
Do I like smileys? Sure. Are they important to have? No. Is it worth spending time making the chat window allow for graphics and text both? Not really.

Do I like avatars? Yeah. Are they important to have? Nope. Worth spending time to implement? No.

Do I like skins? Rarely. Are they important to have? No. Is it worth taking time to implement? No... if you absolutely need to have them, you can make skins using other utilities that could be made to work with mIRC.

Do I like audio/video chat? I don't much care one way or another. Is it important? Not usually. Is it worth adding? Perhaps.

There is a LOT of time for mIRC developement. OK, so I won't pretend to know more than the tiniest bit about Khaled and I'm sure he's a busy guy -- but he himself has stated that mIRC is his primary source of income. Is it really that gracious to reward those who have been supporting him for so long with only one or two releases a year? Often with minor bug fixes or small additions?

So when you talk about "worth spending time" -- well if you can run a DLL to quickly add smilies into a mIRC window, it ought to be no more than a week's work to actually implement it -- if that time was spent on mIRC. Now, I'm not saying I would like to see this feature specifically, but it's an example.

mIRC development seems to have ground almost to a halt, and its not just the cosmetics.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it" -- fine, but I myself have been persuaded by posters on this thread that the Internet is changing, as is software, and mIRC is 'falling behind' in terms of feature set. And the cosmetics.

Point taken, and yet mIRC is still the most widely used and liked IRC client. If it was that far behind the times, people would not still be using it so much. There are other clients with these types of features (you can use Trillian for most of them if you wanted, for one example). Yet, people prefer mIRC. That is pretty good support for showing that mIRC is better than all these other clients that add in all this eye candy instead of useful features, don't you think?

As far as updates, very few companies are going to guarantee you many new versions each year.

If Trillian focused on solely developing its IRC support to compete at mIRC's level, it would be a VERY tempting alternative.

As it is, the lack of scripting and other such goodies contribute more to its reduced stake in the market than the state of its graphical interface ever will.

As for updates -- most modern development programmes run far faster than mIRC. You can *certainly* expect more than a couple of updates per year -- especially if the application has not changed considerably for several versions.

(disclaimer - not trying to be an assault to the original poster)

I hate to say this (general comment) but if you want something LONG overdue, let's look at requests for an option and two (while easily scriptable) that far surpasses Video/Voice in requests over the years are:

1) Let us (without scripting) easily change the nickname brackets
2) Let us use colors in timestamps

Both of those have been requested many more times than V/V has been so if anything is "long overdue" it would be those. I wont argue people want V/V, but long overdue? Naaa, I think not. Hell, even the emoticon/gramlin/smilies have been suggested more than V/V has and Id even buy that as "long overdue".

I WONT argue YOUR want for them as many people do it these days; I use them myself, but would I want them in mirc? I dont think so. It goes back to the discussion of the IM client vs the IRC client ages ago and I pointed out (off of somebody else's pointing out) that mirc is NOT an IM client nor is an IM client an IRC client. I dont remember where I found it, but it was on microsoft's own website. Why is this important? Because they have an IM program not an IRC program which has video/voice. The big thing is people want mirc to evolve and Im all about that, but NOT at the expense of mirc turning into the next "Crayola Chat Interface" that YIM, AIM, and MSN are - you know, the colorful pretty looking (minus that damned ad stuff) IM programs that have become more and more popular over the years.

Bottom line is, would people use the feature? Sure. Is it a valid suggestion? Absolutely. Should it be in mirc? Im sorry but I have to disagree with you tho I appreciate your differing opinion on the matter and ultimately will leave it up to "Big K" to decide what to do.

you said it all pretty much in a nutshell landonsandor! can't argue with that....

Video and audio support is not necessary. In fact, it would ruin mirc/irc. There are other kinds of chat systems where one can chat via webcam or mic, irc was never intended for such purposes. It's as simple as that.

If that makes irc/mirc archaic, then so be it. There's really no point in trying to update the irc protocol to include features it was not designed for, it would probably be a haphazard patchwork and would most likely suck. So if you want the "cool" new features, use MSN/AIM/whatever, and leave the boring old irc for us as it is.

*general reply*

it is pointless to argue about this because at the end
it is still on khaled to decide not "us" :tongue:

Yes, I wasn't saying Trillian was a good alternative to mIRC. As far as I'm concerned, there is no alternative to mIRC. I just mentioned it as being the first one I could think of with all those things available to it.

Why do you automatically associate audio and video with IM clients? IM clients are not the only pieces of software that implement audio and video chats you know...

No they're not, they're just the most popular. It's the same thing with smilies... people see others asking for it and they say to themselves (we know this to be true from posts here), "I dont want mirc turning into MSN". Why do they say that? Because MSN (and the like) are "second generation" chat programs; they have a newer interface, features, protocal, etc and this new chatting option has the ability to use smilies (video and voice too). If you'll notice the trend in chatting, those that are NOT strictly IRC based clients tend to have all those other options people want. IF that's the case, then you have 2 choices: 1) IRC 2) IM and since IRC is not IM, they see it as a bad progression. Unfortunately, people see, video, voice and smilies as a thing MOSTLY associated with IM programs and dont want mirc to turn into another damned IM program.

Let's flip this the other way tho. Why DONT other people see a difference between IM and IRC? Because these days IMs are emulating IRC more and more by offering rooms to chat in. It makes it confusing where the line is drawn between IRC and IM. People see IM as the "2nd generation" IRC which it isnt but they feel that if it's the "natural progression", then they want mirc to have all the same features they're other "IRC" programs have

The answer is simple: this discussion is about mIRC having these new features like audio/video, not IRC. Knowing this, we'll change the question to: why don't people see a difference between an IM client like MSN Messenger and mIRC. The answer: they do, and adding video support isn't going to make mIRC look one bit more like MSN. Why? Because mIRC is designed in a totally different way than MSN is. The look, feel, usage etc. are totally different.

People are focusing on the wrong thing here: you people seem to be very worried about what mIRC will look like... what makes you think mIRC will look more like an IM client becuase it has video support?
If video support were incorporated in an mIRC kind of way, that is not flashy, robust, and generally the same way mIRC looks, would you be so against it?

Don't you think you look unique compared to your friends? And they all are unique, because of their full set of traits, characteristics, looks, behaviours? Yes, they all have a nose, legs, arms, a brain (well some do), yet you don't treat them as being all the same person, or feel that they are the same people, right?

Why is it so horrible if mIRC would have support for some features which can also be found in IM clients? It'll still be mIRC, just like you are still you, even if you gain a couple of pounds, or lose a couple of pounds.

Unless there are drastic changes in mIRC's GUI and way of handling (you undergo plastic surgery and come out looking and feeling like a girl instead of the boy that you were), and the functionality has totally shifted from the client that it is today, then it will always be mIRC and only mIRC, audio/video support or not. Only if IRC would be completely cut out of the picture, then mIRC would have lost it's original purpose of providing users with a client to connect to IRC servers.

Btw why are we even talking in this forum? We should all connect our mIRC to IRC and continue the conversation there!

As has been mentioned dozens of times in the thread already, the IRC protocol would not need to be changed one bit. The actual chats take place via DCC, not IRC. Whether mIRC supports it or not, video and audio chat is already taking place over DCC and has been for quite some time. For the users of those clients which do support it I don't think you'd find many/any who'd say it's "ruined" IRC - clearly it hasn't affected you that much, you don't seem to realise it's already available to many people.

So use one of those clients. ;p

I dont think it's really an appearance issue that's the problem as it is the feel. If mirc were to change the TITLE (not functionality) of the Notify List to Buddy list, it would all of a sudden give mirc a certain weird IM feel to the program that Im sure would leave a weird taste in some people's mouths (yes I know you cant please all the people all the time). I think some people would feel betrayed. I might be wrong, and that's quite alright; I dont have to be right.

Heh. I always hated the term "buddy list" ... friends list, okay... but not "buddy" list. It just sounds like some 13 year old title. It is rather interesting that most skins you find for various apps are also made by teens (usually younger teens), other than the "official" skins released by sites of course.

It's very Microsoft. Typical corporations trying to be hip whilst they leech all your hard-earned cash for crap.

I've already said before that I wouldn't be against A/V chat
being added as plugins, why couldn't that be done? SSL
was added that way. That way, if we don't want A/V chat,
there would be no trace of it in the GUI as long as the plugin
isn't installed. As far as mIRC still being mIRC, yes you're right,
but adding some of this stuff will just move it that much
closer to the "Crayola Chat Interface" clients that be, MSN,
YIM, AIM, as landonsandor so well put it. They all took these
steps, adding these features, one of them would add the
smileys, the rest would follow, one would add A/V, the rest
would follow, that's how they all came to appear basically
exactly the same. Yes mIRC will still be an IRC client if this
stuff is added, but it just takes it one step closer to the others.
Eventually it will be just the next house added on the street
of cookie cutter houses and that will be a great shame IMO.

I've already said before that I wouldn't be against A/V chat being added as plugins, why couldn't that be done? SSL was added that way. That way, if we don't want A/V chat, there would be no trace of it in the GUI as long as the plugin isn't installed.

Great idea that would prolly please most people cause 1) simple to install 2) if you dont install it, it's not in it

So mIRC shouldn't add features even if they're worthwhile simply because an IM has them aswell? "Let's stop mIRC from becoming better so it's not like IM clients" - what a backwards way of thinking.

Being opposed to a suggested feature is backward thinking?
My reasons for being opposed are irrelevant. I've said in other
threads on this subject that adding these things would not
cause me to move on to another client, well, adding the A/V
wouldn't, adding the smileys and avatars and stuff might lol.

I think what some people were saying was that adding such features would make mIRC worse, not better. :P

^ Interpretation rather than opinion.

Well their reasoning for it making mIRC worse is that IM's support this feature already, which is beside the point completely.

Let me ask you something: would you also like to see an RSS aggregator built into mIRC?

No hint of sarcasm here, I'm genuinely interested if you would or not. I'll respond accordingly when I know the answer

No. Because it has no relevance to mIRC, IRC, it's supported/accepted sub-protocols, or chat of any form.

Then I shan't bother making the point I planned to make as it would hence be meaningless.

well, how much more benefitial would v/v to mirc?? outside of being a novelty, would it actually help mirc or irc users (i don't know), would it hurt (i can't really say)... one this has become clear... the fact that some want v/v supported and some don't.. given that wouldn't it stand to reason to maybe introduce it as a plugin as mIRCManiac had suggested? then if the demand/usage increases then it could be considered to incorporate it in mirc.. imo opinion it would be a satisfactory call for everyone(fore and against)..