Forums General Discussion future plans for mIRC

hi,

i see there havent been any updates or releases of mIRC for a while now. just wanted to find out are there any plants to release another version of mIRC? and whats happening to mIRC?

thanks...

As always future versions of mIRC are never pre-announced. However, mIRC is still in development, so one can assume there will be a new version in the future. It is also known from Khaled's website that he has been studying for a Master's degree, and this may well have been taking up all of, or most of, his time.

Regards,

people are getting bored of mIRC, a new version might change that. popularity of IRC in general has fallen.....

hope we see something new soon

who are these people you speak of? can you please supply a list of say 2000 with email addys who well support your assumption.

I don't think either that ppl lose interest in irc. I even say people become more and more interested in it and many new people find their way to irc.

If I bring up this subject in any of the 5+ help channels I join there's normally at least 5 people (usually more) that will say they're getting tired of waiting for a new version and the current features are becoming more and more boring (scripters especially).

Yeah, it's terrible for the scripters. At this rate people might have to start using mIRC for crazy things like chatting.

Yeah that's my point

Chatting?! That's insane. Who would want to do a thing like that. If people wanted to chat they'd just do it on AIM!!!111

Personally, I like seeing updates and new things being added, but I rather have them come slowly and be thought out and looked over for any possible bugs, rather than get an update, have something break or be vulnerable, and then after the damage is already done, have to update again when the fix is released.

I can tell you from the point of a scripting site owner that the rate of visits on my web site has dropped well over 40% in the last 4-5 months because of the lack of innovation and new mIRC version.

I know Khaled must be busy with some other stuff in his life, but the lack of news is killing the scripting community slowly. I, myself am trying to code some new stuff (extension DLLs) to help revive the scripting fervor of people by enabling new stuff, but without a new version of mIRC before the end of 2005, I don't think we'll revert to an increasing number in people interested in scripting as almost everything has been done already.

You can see the drop on most scripting channels and popular websites around.

And yet, here I am, scripting more and more.

I like mIRC the way it is. New features are good... if they're useful. But, I am perfectly happy with the way it is right now. Patience is a virtue, as they say.

From the number of newbies connecting all the time in channels I'm in, I'd say there is still enough new people joining IRC. Sure, we lose some people... but, most of those are probably the same people who use mIRC only for downloading... and, who really cares if they leave... they probably don't pay to use mIRC, anyhow. Many of the others aren't leaving because of mIRC, but because they have lives and can't be on chatting for hours at a time.

I would love new features/fixes, and don't think it is fine the way it is right now at all.

Have you ever worked with COM? I would just _love_ to be able to script COM events, but that isn't possible in mIRC scripting, without resorting to VBScript. But we are mIRC scripers, not VBScripters. $comval has severe efficiency issues, and there are many many many more useful things I could say but I'll spare you the details. I would _love_ to be able to parse binvars with $regsub. Imagine, you could parse an entire website in a single string (no chunks!) with a powerful tool such as $regex in one command, taking anything you need from it. I would _love_ it if $regsub's replacement string would evaluate dynamically with each substitution, and I'm sure that anyone who knows regsub would love this feature. I can tell you right now: that would be incredibly useful. I would _love_ to be able to use sockets and connect to secure sites, though that isn't possible. Anyway, no need for me to re-post all these feature suggestions, but you catch my drift.

Of course you're fine with the way it is, that's because there is still a lot of room for improvement, and there are still many scripting features you have not exhausted yet.

This is however different for people who have been scripting for a while (or as in the case of myself, those that devoured it in just over a year).

I've been where you are right now, that is being very excited with scripting, and doing it an aweful lot, thinking it's great.

However, nowadays I _never_ script anymore, aside from a post now and then here in the forums, which I don't really consider scripting.

I would like new things to be added, and I can't imagine any scripter saying otherwise. $v1 and $v2 only got introduced in the last mIRC version..and I can't even count anymore how many times I've used them.

The -k flag was only added to filter in 6.15, and got fixed in 6.16 so that it is now flawless, and I've used it tens of times.

Those two things are very very small additions to mIRC scripting, and look how many times they've been used so far. My point is that new additions can and will be useful, even the extremely small ones as I just noted.

I don't want it to stay the way it is. Me and probably the entire scripting scene _want_ new features. A few months ago I was on the verge of forgetting mIRC and I even put "Retired from mIRC Scripting" in my signature. Though the love is strong so I'm still here. At the current rate of development, it isn't going to last though.

I agree with what ClickHere said. It is very noticable that the interest on scripting sites has decreased severly. I mean, just take a look at what screenshots they accept these days on ms.org, and how little new ones there are seen, compared to the days where mIRC scripting was in its prime.

I did say useful features are good.

As for new features for scripters, yes, if you are scripting, new features make scripting more interesting as there are new things to do. If you're not a scripter, new scripting features mean little to you.

Anyhow, mIRC isn't a full programming language and I doubt it ever will be. (Yes, I know you know that). As such, there needs to be some point where new scripting abilities would need to stop or else it will become a full programming language. As it is, people already make many scripts that have absolutely nothing to do with IRC. I'm not saying it's wrong (I do so myself)... just that doing so bring mIRC scripting away from just scripting and into programming.

Basically, I wasn't saying that new features are bad. I was saying that mIRC is good enough as it is that there isn't a need to leave mIRC just because of slow updates. Patience in waiting on updates is good and is what I was getting at.

That's completely wrong. They should be excited as well, because they are the ones that download snippets/addons/full scripts, that depend on those scripting features. They are the ones that we help day in day out on these forums. (Ok we help other scripters as well, but you get the point.)

mIRC wouldn't be what it is today without its scripting feature. How you can say new scripting features don't benefit people who don't script is beyond me.

I'm sure the people who use an !imdb or !google bot were very glad, although indirectly, that socket support was added to mIRC scripting. They wouldn't be able to use such bot without it.

And $v1 helps the user who isn't scripting something? It's a faster method of doing what was already possible.

I admit that truly NEW features in scripts that can be used to make something that was not possible previously will affect non-scripters. But, if it was already possible to write a script to do something, then the new scripting feature isn't really going to make much difference to a non-scripter.

The $v1/$v2 example was obviously an example of a benefit to scripters, whilst the things I mentioned about COM and $regsub are obviously exampls of benefits to scripters that will also benefit non-scripters.

Don't see it as black and white. Of course, not _every_ new little feature will be of use to the non-scripters. Sometimes a new feature will only benefit non scripters, sometime it will benefit solely scripters, and quite often both.

Btw $v1 isn't faster in any way than $ifmatch was (aside from the 1 microsecond because the parser has to parse a few less bytes), the real benefit here is being able to use $v2, and perhaps the shorter notation for the old $ifmatch.

The whole reason I posted is because I don't agree that you use the argument "it's fine for me", and "patience is a virtue". It might be fine for you, like I explained, it isn't for others who have been scripting longer or have exhausted anything there is to be done in mIRC. Patience is a virtue, but you haven't been waiting as long as others.

I see no problem with giving an opinion here. I said only that *I* like it as it is... I didn't say anyone had to agree. It was just an opinion. And it was just a comment meant as response to the previous comments regarding new features being needed in order to prevent people from stopping using mIRC.

And, patience is always good regardless if you've waiting a week or a decade. Even if I've not needed to really wait on too much in mIRC for too long (nothing more than a year, anyhow, since I don't generally care about waiting on stuff that isn't available), there are MANY things I've had to wait on for more than 10 or 15 years. So, you can't really say that I don't know anything about what patience is just because I don't need to wait on much in mIRC.

I can see com being used to make things for non-scripters (at least for those who want access to data from, or some other method of controlling/using, other apps from mIRC). However, I can't see how $regsub specifically benefits a non-scripter. Obviously, it makes doing regex much easier, but I'm sure anything $regsub can do could also be done in some other way. It might not be as clean or as fast, but I'm sure it would be possible. As such, I just can't see that really benefiting the non-scripter who doesn't know if a script uses $regsub or some other method. At least, not unless it saves noticeable time for a script to run.

A couple of weeks ago, someone came to me on IRC, they had trouble parsing a website. The problem was the entire site was on 3 lines or so, and he couldn't parse it using variables obviously. Parsing with binvars on the spot doesnt help either, because the received data is chunked in parts. Parsing with binvars _could_ work if the entire site is first written to a file, and then read into a binvar, and parsed with $bfind. $bfind however only accepts wildcards, not a powerful tool as regex, and it involves a lot more coding, and isn't nearly as flexibly as $regsub is.

This person knows regex, but still came to me. I ended up giving him a code that uses COM to communicate with the DOM (document object model) to let IE do the parsing, so we can simply iterate through a collection.

If he could pass the string to a $regsub, he wouldn't have had to contact me, and I wouldn't have had to think for an hour how to solve this in a reasonable way.

Have you ever wanted to modify a file that contains thousands of lines of data? Maybe something similar to what that Bob57 guy had in his File I/O thread. There is no way using conventional methods, as they are all too slow. The code I wrote for him was atleast 30 lines, though If i could have passed a binvar to a regsub, it would have been 4 lines at most (I'm being generous here)

Do you remember I gave you the advice in that thread to use the file handling commands or filter instead of $read as that would be way too slow. Going by your logic of "Obviously, it makes doing regex much easier, but I'm sure anything $regsub can do could also be done in some other way. It might not be as clean or as fast, but I'm sure it would be possible.", then we should have never introduced the file handling commands, because we already have /write, $read /bwrite and /bread, right?

The "if we can do it in one way, why would we ever need an other" mentality. If $regex has no purpose whatsoever, then why does it exist in the first place? If it has a purpose for scripters, then it has a purpose for the people the scripters script for.

Take a look at this post. I look forward to seeing your scripted version not using regex/regsub, providing the same functionality. Good luck

Anyway, we both got our point accross and I'm ok with that, agreeing to disagree is fine for me.

I didn't say it had no purpose or that it wasn't better. Just that I figured just about anything done with $regsub could be done without it as well (even if it took somewhat longer... as long as it wasn't that much longer). If that's not true, then that's fine.

Even if mIRC scripting was to become a programming language I don't see why you'd have a problem with it. You're not forced to use every feature available to you, but people that need (want) them can.

mIRC isn't a programming language, or meant to be. For a programming language, there are various good ones out there that can be used to write standalone programs and/or DLLs that are meant to work with mIRC's scripting. I really don't see any need to make mIRC a programming language.

Oh well... I guess I'll bow out on this. No point in going back and forth over it.

I'm well aware that it's not a programming language, or meant to be.
By the way, a programming language does not have to be able to create standalone applications (look at the amount of interpreted languages available).
You still haven't given a reason as to why you would mind if it did become one, so, hypothetically:
it is. So what?

To no one in particular (sorry Riamus2 .. you were the last poster when I started this):

In my opinion (which probably don't count for much anyway), the more you add to mirc, the larger the download becomes, and, personally, I won't download a new version that suddenly becomes 40mb (or even 20mb) just to satisfy everyones desires for a "new and improved" or "full featured" mirc.
[/rant]

No feature suggestion that I've seen is going to make mIRC's size increase by 1000% but even if it did, 20mb is tiny in todays standards.

no SINGLE suggestion, maybe ..



Maybe to someone that has broadband available, but to someone on a dial-up connection it's not worth the wait to update something that works as it was designed (text chat) in the first place.

Bah... I never can avoid responding when asked to respond.

Heh... anyhow...

1) I know a programming language does not require the ability to make a standalone program. As I said, "and/or"... The point if you read a bit more closely what I said, is that there are already programming languages out there that will make standalone programs (no need for mIRC to do so) and there are already programming languages out there that can make DLLs to be used within mIRC to add all the extra features one could want (again, no need for mIRC to be able to do everything a DLL can do).

2) Why not make it a programming language? For it to become a full programming language, it really would need a LOT of work -- work that could be spent improving/updating/fixing other things. Also, there is no need (see above). And, if someone really wants to program, rather than script addons/etc to make mIRC/IRC better, then they are better off using a real programming language, anyhow. And, if they don't know how, then learn. If someone can learn mIRC, they can learn C++/VB as well. Those are a bit more complicated, but not so much as to make it too difficult to learn... especially with a programming/scripting background (even if that's only from using mIRC scripting). mIRC scripting is to improve mIRC/IRC. It can do a LOT more, and that's ok. But, that's not really what it is for.

And, I agree with CtrlAltDel... adding a lot of additional "IM" features just bloats mIRC. DLLs work just fine for adding such features. And, for those who absolutely have to have those features in IRC and can't be bothered to use DLLs, there are clients out that have those features. They're not as popular, but they have the features.

* Riamus tries to disappear again on this and all similar topics about "IM" features.

What do you care if it would take much work?

1. You said you are fine with the way mIRC is, so why does it ever need to update for you?

2. You said you are fine with waiting a long time, so what does it matter if it'll be a lot of work?

Btw I'm not debating whether mIRC should or should not become a programming language, we can keep that for another time. I just thought it was somewhat strange you would use those arguments, when just a few posts earlier you said the reverse.

3.

Who is talking about adding IM features to mIRC???

Can anyone please show me where exactly in this thread did we ever start talking about adding IM features to mIRC?!? No one in this entire thread is talking about adding IM features, so I don't understand how that point is relevant in regards to our discussion that we have been having. I'm not asking for webcam support here people, I'm asking for new scripting features.

@Ctrlaltdel: The current mirc.exe is 1.4 mb, and look at what a wide range of features there is for scripting. Do you honestly believe that for example adding secure socket support is going to bloat the mirc.exe? I think we are starting to talk about different things here. I have always been talking about _scripting_ features, not webcam/smiley whatever features.

Hm... I seem to have gotten my topics crossed (this and the one asking for webcam). Oops.

That's a very popular misconception. It's not really worth comparing mIRC to any programming language, especially ones with as many features as those you mentioned (things mIRC doesn't have: classes, types/structs, constants, data types, arrays and enumerations).

It is probably fair to say in Riamus2's defense because he is taking quite a beating here, that learning mIRC scripting will make things easier when learning another language.

There are basic concepts across all programming languages such as loops and validation that if learned in mIRC might make things a little easier when moving over.

Note that I'm saying it helps with the concepts in programming, not the syntaxes or methods that can vary across the many languages out there.

I believe my exact comment was " just to satisfy everyones desires for a "new and improved" or "full featured" mirc. "
I never said "exclusive to this thread" (or anything similar). My comment was meant to express my views and encompass all "requests" (some sounding more like demands) to "upgrade" or "modernize" mIRC, including (but not confined to) IM features that so many seem to think we need. If Khaled was to listen to everyone and add all of this "stuff" mIRC could very well approach 20mb or more. Don't get me wrong, some of the script editor ideas appeal to me (like syntax highlighting) ... but that's another thread also.
Personally, I'm willing to wait for Khaled to release his next version at his convenience, and find it rather humourous that people "demand" updates in a specified time period all the time (some of the comments are actually laughable).

You are the only one that has ever talked about "new and improved" or "full featured". Where does all of this suddenly come from? Did you also mistake this thread for the webcam one?

You are exagerating the issue, and I don't even see what it has to do with this thread. What is it always with the "bloated" argument. What is that based on? How on earth would you know how big mIRC.exe would become, or how much "slower" it would run if certain features were added. Please tell me, what is it based on? Don't say MSN. How could you know that webcam support (to give an example) is the reason MSN is big or runs slow? And why would you assume the feature would be implemented in the exact same way as it is in other clients which you seem to base your opinion on? (Note I'm not asking for webcam support in any way here or anything, I'm using it merely as an example to get my point accross, and because it is often refered to as something that would make mIRC "bloated")

Yes you mention that you mean if literally _everyone_ 's feature suggestion is implemented, but where exactly in this discussion does this argument fit in? Who's asking for that? I for one am definitely not asking for that. The things I did mention that I would love to see, were always backed up with an argument explaining why they would be good features, and even went as far as to give 2 practical examples illustrating this. I don't think anyone here is asking for every single request to be added in, therefore I wonder what exactly the purpose of that argument is. It seems to be "thrown" in the discussion just for the heck of it.

Where does this 20mb measure come from? Could you already predict how many bytes of code Khaled will be needing to write, or how many non native api's he would be depending on, or how many extra libraries he would be linking to because of new features?

Btw, I find the size argument to be the least significant of them all. I won't lose my sleep (and I cant imagine anyone either) if mIRC would turn out to be 5mb at some point, which would, looking at what is already available in mIRC, mean that there is atleast twice as many features as there are currently (this is purely a guess as I can't measure how much it would increase, I'm simply looking at how big it is right now and taking into account what it already provides, which is an aweful lot). If you are truely worried about a couple of megabytes, then ok, I think it is indeed troublesome then for you if mIRC were to ever grow to be as big. I just reckon the ratio of people who don't mind the size, compared against those who do mind, would be very big.

And who exactly has been "demanding" features? It's not wrong to say what you want, or would like to see added. That's not demanding anything. The thread starter only asked for what the future plans were regarding mIRC. I don't see anyone demanding new features here, just some people includying myself stating what they would like/love to see, and explaining their reasons behind it. You may have been faced with feature suggestions in the past that seemed demanding, though deal with it in those threads then, not here, as this has not yet been the case in this particular thread.

Disclaimer: If my posts seem as if they are flaming towards people, rest assured they are not intended that way. Unfortunately, that is one of the downsides of text based communication, and how someone interprets your post can vary severly, whereas in oral communication this is less likely to happen.

I seriously have to agree with pretty much every point FiberOPtics has made.

I mean, not all too long ago, I was attempting to parse a website, however they had a rather large table on a single line, and it did take me a while to figure out that was the problem, at first I thought maybe my code was goofed up somewhere, and then I attempted to $regex() just the end of the line/table, only to realise it got cut off.

Unfortunately, I had to do this in perl (I'm still pretty new to perl, mind you), because I just couldn't see an easy way around parsing through the webpage, without having to write it to a file, and then go through the file with $read, or binvars (still not too good with binvars either) so this is pretty unacceptable.

My first post in this thread was more of a joke, but, I don't mind waiting for new features (provided that wait doesn't start extending well over years), I'll still use mIRC in order to talk to friends, but it'd be absolutely great if more features (scripting or not) were added.

I'm on 56k as well, and to be honest, if mIRC got "bloated" up to 100MB, I'd still download it. Of course, as FiberOPtics pointed out, that'd be a hell of a lot more features than what mIRC currently offers.

Also, some people fail to recognize some things. In regards to "growing tired of waiting for updates," you have to figure, everything is going to get "old" sooner or later. Ever play a video game for a month/year/2years, and then decide it's a waste of time? Same thing applies to programs. Most people like to "move on" so that they don't feel like they are wasting their time. Updates do help *delay* this process.

I've been using mIRC for roughly 5 years now, I'll continue to use it for quite a while, as I'm one of the stubbourn people who don't like to move on. I'll still use it for scripting projects depending on what I need done, and I'll most certainly still use it to stay in touch with friends.

Exactly. I originally learned programming in Apple BASIC. I progressed through BASIC, GW-BASIC, Pascal, Orca/C, C++, ASM (minimally), and eventually picked up mIRC scripting. I know the differences between them. I also know the similarities between them. And, I maintain that if you can learn one language (even if it's just a scripting language), you can learn any other language. All languages I've seen have a lot to do with math and logic. If someone has the ability to deal with those things, they can learn any language. If they aren't good at those two things, then they probably can still learn, but it will be considerably more difficult. Note that there are other things involved, but those 2 are pretty core to any programming language. There may be some scripting languages that aren't mathematical/logical, but I doubt very many are that way.

WOW. have i been awayfrom here for A LONG time. as ive been scrolling reading this information in this thread i pondered the thought has mIRC scripting taught me or helped me in scripting, as was mentioned here. the answer is un equivically YES. i have since moved on from my chatting and mirc scripting days but i do drop in here from time to time, as it helps clear my head when im tryin to pnder new elements in other programming areas, i have since released several stand alone programs using a great deal of my mirc scripting knowledge. al be it they were written in C++ and VB.net.
The arguement here about mirc becoming or ever being a scripting language is really irrelevent at this point as i know several ppl like myself who started here. As for the main question of this topic, future plans for mIRC, well khaled himself only knows that. i will give that man a hands down congratulation on a job well done if he stopped coding mIRC and said hell with it right now, look at the years of work hes put into it for a mear 20 bucks per user registration fee lifetime!!! If you think hes getting rich doing it your crazy, especially the hours and hours of time it takes to perfect one single function sometimes. The rants should end about when and where and what new stuff is he gonna give me cause damn, look what mIRC has already given us all. its in no short order given me a career and a decent job.

*general reply to the last 5 or so posts*

Of course, it's fair to say that learning a script language like mIRC's helps towards learning a programming language, but a person being able to learn a scripting language does not guarantee they could also learn a programming language. It's like comparing driving a moped to driving a jumbo jet.

I wouldn't say there is THAT big of a difference.

Perhaps the difference between riding a bicycle and driving a motorcycle. You may not have the "object" programming knowledge from mIRC scripting, but you already know how loops work, how variables work (to a point), how to handle incoming and outgoing data, etc. The syntax will be different, and things will be more complex, but I still say that if you can use mIRC scripting or any other scripting that is programming-based (not something like HTML, which I suppose *could* be considered scripting or programming), then you can learn any programming language if you try.

Back when I learned Pascal and Orca/C and C++, my knowledge from programming in BASIC was very helpful in understanding how the other programming languages worked. I knew what I wanted when I started, because I knew how to do it in BASIC. So, I just needed to find/learn the correct syntax to accomplish it in the other languages. It wasn't that big of a step. Of course, then you do need to start learning the more advanced parts of the other languages that don't directly follow the "lower" language. But, once you are that far, you can accomplish the rest as well.