Forums Bug Reports mIRC v7.1 languages and codepages

This sucks, because scandinavian ppl cant go any #äö channels if you have enable UTF-8. And if you disable UTF-8, you can go #äö channels, but if you write words contain äö-letters, mIRC show those like chinese!

You can use and read text in any channel including those as long as the channel was created as UTF8. Some networks allow that, some do not. Even if the network allows it, you have to create a new channel with the UTF8 name and move everyone to that channel. All major IRC clients support Unicode, so that is the better option as long as the network supports the channel name. Just get everyone to stop using the outdated codepages. If you really don't like that option, mIRC 6.35 works fine.

Also, this isn't a bug.

a bigger problem is that a channel in upper and lower cases are treated as two different channels. the channel #åäö, #åäÖ, #åÄÖ, #ÅÄÖ etc are all different channels.

This maybe doesn't mean much to a big part of the mIRC users, but imagen if #mIRC and #mirc and #MIRC was three different channels, it would be rather anoyong.

As pointed out by Riamus, this is not a bug. Disable UTF-8 if you don't want to use it. mIRC does not handle codepages anymore, because they are obsoleted by Unicode. If you want to still use codepages, you need to use an older version of mIRC.

It is still a problem when upper and lower case letters are treated as different characters.

That isn't something mIRC has any control of. Sure, mIRC could automatically change your characters to all lowercase so that you don't have to think about it, but if someone makes a channel with uppercase, you wouldn't be able to join it. If it's such a problem, then tell anyone who makes a channel to use only lowercase.

Again, non unicode encodings are not supported by mIRC. If it's a problem for you, your solution is to:

- join another channel,
- have the users move over to a unicode version of the channel,
- use mIRC 6.35

At least one of those suggestions is doable.

Out of curiosity, how many of the users in the channel you're trying to join are on clients that are NOT mIRC? My guess would be that the majority are on pre-7.x versions of the client.

But if we again take the channel #mirc as example, how would the owner of that channel feel if someone else registered the channel #mIRC, #miRC, #mirC. #Mirc, #MIrc, #MIRc, #mIRc, #MirC, #mIrC, #MiRc and #MIRC?

Doesn't it make sense that all spellings of a channelname goes to the same channel with the same users in it?

That is entirely up to the ircd and network and not mIRC. mIRC cannot force networks to allow or disallow different naming schemes. Even websites are often "duplicated" by slightly changing a common address and using it to get hits on a completely different site. The channel (or site) owner may not appreciate it, but there is little that can be done other than to register those channels (or hosts) yourself and redirect people to the main location. mIRC's job isn't to police channel names. As it is, you can already have something like #mïRC or even m1RC. Whether the difference is capitalization or different accents on the characters or numbers used for some characters, it's possible to "duplicate" a channel. Capitalization isn't really some special thing that allows people to do that. It's just the one way where someone could accidentally do it.

A-Z and a-z are already treated as the same on both websites and channels. That isn't something mIRC manages, but is done on the ircd/network side. It's also up to them to choose whether or not to treat unicode characters case-insensitively (where capital and lowercase are treated the same) in channel names. If you want to try and push that issue so it gets changed, I'd suggest bringing this up to the various ircd developers.

Well, the point is, to my knowledge no ircd (atleast not dalnet and undernet), support upper and lower cases for none a-z chars. Implementing something into mIRC that is not supported by the major networks is not very smart. It can maybe push the developers into action and add the support, but it is not a small change of the ircd and will take time. Until then we are left with this problem. And if someone register the channel #Ö with the networks channel registration service, and later the network decide that #ö and #Ö is the same channel, it will cause yet another problem where one user loose a channel in favor of another.

This just wasn't smart to ad until the major networks fully supported utf-8.

You still haven't answered my question:

That doesn't matter, since it is the new mIRC that cause the problem. I got no idea what chat clients other use, I my guess would be the same as your. The problem comes by adding a feature that effect the network in such a big way as this do. I got no problem at all with channel text beeing in utf-8, even tho i suspect it would cause problem for mIRC itself when they click a #channelname and it leads to wrong channel.

To me there is several bigger problems.

- channels in upper and lower cases are not treated as same channel.
- when above is fixed, there is a problem merging those channels into one channel again, this cause a headache, because even if the oldest channel owner get to keep the channel, it will make some users upset.
- several different channel names for the same channel depending how you mix upper and lower cases in channel names.

another possible problem would be for networks that allow utf-8 nicknames (undernet doesn't) this would mean that the name Björn and BJÖRN are two different nicknames, so messages to an upper and lower cased name would end up at different users.

I know we can tell all users to disable utf-8 in mIRC until the network supports utf-8, but still, enabling it by default have caused a problem and wasn't the smartest thing to do until all major networks fully supported utf fully.

Where do you download an older version of mIRC?

Here.

Edit: the link to older versions on that page seems to be dead though unless it's just me!

The download link for mIRC 6.35 on that page works for me.

I understand your point, but please consider that mIRC was not the first IRC client to support UTF-8... in fact, it was one of the last major clients to do so. This problem really has nothing to do with mIRC.

Working for me now too. The mIRC website and forums in general have been up and down for me today.

See, that's the point right there. The ircds are the ones who control that. Not mIRC. Someone can just as easily create two channels with different capitalization in other clients. It has nothing to do with mIRC and again, it isn't mIRC's job to force that issue. If it did and other clients let people name the channels whatever they wanted, then no one using mIRC could enter the channels made by the other clients.

And, like what has been mentioned, mIRC is definitely not the first to add UTF8 support.

What it comes down to is that Unicode is here and it's here to stay. It has been around for around a decade. Ircds have had plenty of time to add support and haven't bothered. That isn't mIRC's fault. mIRC and other clients can't just sit around stagnant for decades just because ircds are lazy. So, because it's here to stay, it would be smart for anyone who has such concerns about capitalization to name their channels with all lowercase (as that will be how most people try joining the channels anyhow). And if they don't want someone to create a channel with a similar name, they will need to create it themselves. Once again, this is not mIRC's job. It is up to the ircds to support or not support those kinds of channels and up to the channel owner(s) to handle the situation in a way that makes the most sense for their situation.

So you refused to answer my question? I'll take that as: all of the users are pre-7.x versions of mIRC.

"The new mIRC" is not "causing" the problem. If every user was on "the new mIRC", there would be no problem.

AFAIK, mIRC 6.x is one of the few IRC clients to not use UTF-8 by default.

He did answer it here: