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#139632 17/01/06 05:22 AM
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clowno Offline OP
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I feel that Automatic Scrolling may be anxiety-inducing, and also suspect that it may contribute to the addicting nature of chat.

For one thing, it is irritating to have the text move while you are reading it. For another, there can be the constant scroll, scroll, scroll, so that one feels as if one is on a production line, that one has to keep up or be left behind.

What I am therefore essentially requesting is any method by which AutoScroll could be disabled. Possible implementations:

*A Scroll button: mIRC holds on to the incoming scroll until you click "Scroll"

*A scroll/don't scroll toggle.

If any of this does not make sense, I would be happy to explain.

BTW, I know that you can scroll up with the mousewheel(and set your default # of wheel scroll lines to 1), but then you lose the last line.

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Hoopy frood
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Quote:

I feel that Automatic Scrolling may be anxiety-inducing, and also suspect that it may contribute to the addicting nature of chat.

OK I admit that at first I thought you were kidding.

It is quite possible to adapt to chatting in a busy channel where the text is scrolling, in some cases quite fast, track one thread among many and do it all without losing too much hair.

you mentioned scrolling back, in fact this is a good solution as you can back up a tad to catch up. I don't see how having an internal device in mIRC to do this when it would be the same amount of effort to jump back to the active conversation with the scroll bar as to push a button/icon or type a command.

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clowno Offline OP
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1. Not everyone is the same.

2. I have adapted. But there are tradeoffs, as it seems there are in anything. I discover these when I stop to observe my body, posture, breathing, etc. I am so limited that I don't realize how limited I am.

3. Scrolling back would be fine except you lose the last line. Also I think it would be nice if auto-scroll was off by default so people didn't have to figure out workarounds. So they didn't have to take time to think about it.

4. Other chat programs have this feature. Google keywords like "autoscroll" or "autoscroll toggle"

BTW, Ctrl-PgUp scrolls up one line.

Last edited by clowno; 19/01/06 03:38 AM.
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Hoopy frood
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If mIRC auto-scrolling causes you anxiety to the point where your breathing and blood pressure are affected, or you get the feeling that you have "to keep up or be left behind" I think you're taking chatting -and life- way too seriously.

I agree that disabling auto-scroll would reduce "the addicting nature of chat", in the same way that putting a peice of cardboard in front of your TV would reduce the addictive nature of television. Make something inconvenient to use properly and it's bound to reduce it's 'addictiveness'.

We're talking about chatting which is, in essence, a conversation. A conversation typically doesn't get very far unless you know what the other person has just said. It's no good reading and responding to what someone said 10 minutes ago if they've said a dozen other things since then. It'll simply be impossible for them to follow the conversation.

If this is all coming about from you having a slow conversation in a busy channel with a lot of faster moving conversations in between, well that's why IRC has private messages and the ability for anyone to create a new channel. This way you and those you're chatting with can take your conversation somewhere more suited to your conversational tastes.

Whatever Khaled may decide about adding an option for this, it certainly shouldn't be the default. Yes, that way those few who want it don't have to think about it, instead the overwhelming majority of users do. Not exactly logical is it?


Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
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clowno Offline OP
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I agree. It shouldn't be the default. I've no idea why I typed that.

I wouldn't rely on this to "cure" my "addiction". It would only be one of the measures that I am investigating. PossiblyI need to look to the "root of the problem." I intend to.

The problem is that I (often? sometimes?) get sucked into the chat, such that its as if I don't even have a body. I guess it's just me, but the barrage overwhelms me. And this might not help. It was a thought....

I'd also like to see Time Management options (like pop-up reminders and auto-shutdown((with warning)) after a specified period), but I guess I can script those easily enough.

What I would really like is for the proposed "Scroll" button to turn green (not flashing) when there are new lines in the buffer.

Thanks for your thoughts.

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Hoopy frood
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Quote:
What I would really like is for the proposed "Scroll" button to turn green (not flashing) when there are new lines in the buffer.


lol?


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Fjord artisan
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It seems to me that using your time wisely is a choice you must make yourself, not implement fairly useless (imo) features into the programs you seem to spend 'too' much time using.

Time management responsibilities are entirely in your hands, if you do have the will to close mirc when you have been online for too long, or to manage your time better then this is maybe something you should work on for yourself, as im sure mirc is not the only place such skills would come in handy to do.

I really am failing to see a practical purpose for turning off autoscroll, can you not just press the up arrow once (or hit ctrl+pageup) to stop it moving? Further more as an indication of further conversation you will notice that when you are not at the bottom of the buffer the position of the tab in the scroll bar moves up.

There is also a 'line' feature in mirc used to mark the last place where you looked into that window, which can be jumped back too. If you find this of any use.

If you wish to script such a time management system yourself, it seems almost like defeating the purpose. Why? because if you can not come to such a decision on when enough is enough, then such notifications (if not already painfully obvious from the timestamps) are just going to become an annoyance, or you will end up clicking out of the popup instinctively and ignoring it anyway...

On a final note, reducing the addictive nature of something is never in the best interests of a product, you want people to use your product more not less. Again, just hit ctrl+pageup and the text will cease to scroll.

Last edited by Om3n; 29/01/06 07:37 AM.

"Allen is having a small problem and needs help adjusting his attitude" - Flutterby
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clowno Offline OP
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I deleted mIRC and have moved on. I am no longer requesting this feature, and will not be checking for further responses. Thank you.

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Hoopy frood
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Quote:
I have deleted mIRC...


That would effectively stop the text from scrolling.

-genius_at_work

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Hoopy frood
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clowns

(shiver) crazy

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Hoopy frood
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LOL i herby nominate you for the best quote of the week award!

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Hoopy frood
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I'll second that nomination

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Hoopy frood
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You could simply script a little something that will buffer anything said in a channel, and only relay those messages at a pace that you feel comfortable with. It's a quick fix that will work effectively.

To give you some tips, you could use a hidden window with the same channel name as the one you want to buffer, accompanied by its $cid. Then it's a matter of adding incoming lines to the end of the hidden window (a simple /aline), and using a /timer to systematically copy a message from the hidden window to the channel window on an interval that you prefer. For this you use $line to read from the hidden win, and /echo to echo to the channel window.


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Fjord artisan
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I apologise if my post came across wrong, i should probably leave the 'amatuer psych.'.... 'at home' so to speak.


"Allen is having a small problem and needs help adjusting his attitude" - Flutterby

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