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Jeroi Offline OP
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I am wondering since Windows is going for arm and revamping the hole desktop with metrointerface, there is going to be issues of mirc starting in normal desktop mode rather than a metrointerface app. Firefox is already develpoing new firefox for windows 8 and I was thinking there that my second most used program is Mirc. So is there any plans of making mircs support the new Windows 8 metrointerface?

Last edited by Jeroi; 21/01/12 01:19 AM.
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1) This will most likely require quite some work.
2) I know it's probably too early to predict but I still have doubts about how popular that UI is going to be.
3) mIRCs design has always been very conservative, ignoring most new trends when they provide no real/better fuctionality

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Fjord artisan
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I'll just say personally I like how mIRC looks and it's looks haven't changed in the 6 years I've used it. So we'll see if changes any time soon. I can also say personally I'll be disabling the metro ui as soon as I install win 8, what ever amount of hacking it takes which was only a registry entry on the preview copy.


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Hoopy frood
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I'll also be disabling it completely. It looks like garbage. And I'm certain there will be compatibility with existing apps. Microsoft would be stupid to make a new OS that doesn't work with current applications. So mIRC really shouldn't *have* to update. It may not look like that interface, but it should work fine. If Microsoft decides to make something incompatible, then Windows 8 will be considered to be just as bad as Windows ME.


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Yes it has still the old dekstop, if program runs on desktop the windows 8 will switch automatically to legacy desktop. How ever metroapps are run in metrointerface and vice versa, the start button is goner now and it switces from desktop to metro and vice versa.

To mee finally I like where windows is going. I have always taught that dekstop is useless and I dont ever even see my desktop as multiple programs are used in full res and I switch them thrue start panel.

I really like the new desing of removing completle the dekstop and start panel and use full desktop as e start panel when all the windows are as upgrading tiles where you see changes immitiatly. Mirc could be one of these programs.

How ever the downside of metro is imo the downbar gone. As when app is fullscreen, do they provide some other mean to open some other program quickly?

I do like the new ui for windows but it seems to be the first step to right direction in ages. Maybe the gui is perfect at Windows 10 or so but still I think that Windows has not used the dekstop to the max yet and this is really a step to right direction. If program handling is perfected on this interface then Windows 8-> will be killer osses in future.

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Hoopy frood
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mIRC still hasn't even added jump list integration from Windows 7, or any vista features besides replacing MS Agents with builtin text to speech. That should give you an idea.

Note that even MS has said not all programs are meant for metro, and, specifically, it's not meant for heavily involved programs. Metro is really about simple programs that perform simple mostly stateless or self contained tasks. Remember that MS "shuts down" (it actually does something similar to what iOS does when switching apps) your application in metro when you switch to another one. Web browsing, checking email, these are all stateless. But IRC requires a direct active TCP connection at all times... this flies in the face of Metro because the application cannot ever be "turned off". There might be a way to get around this in windows, but it would probably be an ugly hack. You might see IRC as a casual kind of application that fits as a metro app, but IRC doesn't really work in these kinds of application models, and mIRC is a lot more involved than any standard IRC client.


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Originally Posted By: argv0
mIRC still hasn't even added jump list integration from Windows 7, or any vista features besides replacing MS Agents with builtin text to speech. That should give you an idea.

Note that even MS has said not all programs are meant for metro, and, specifically, it's not meant for heavily involved programs. Metro is really about simple programs that perform simple mostly stateless or self contained tasks. Remember that MS "shuts down" (it actually does something similar to what iOS does when switching apps) your application in metro when you switch to another one. Web browsing, checking email, these are all stateless. But IRC requires a direct active TCP connection at all times... this flies in the face of Metro because the application cannot ever be "turned off". There might be a way to get around this in windows, but it would probably be an ugly hack. You might see IRC as a casual kind of application that fits as a metro app, but IRC doesn't really work in these kinds of application models, and mIRC is a lot more involved than any standard IRC client.

Well, IRC is a simple enough concept that you would have no issues making a Metro app for it. And there is no issue with having applications running in the background, that's just what the Metro music app does for example.

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Originally Posted By: heksesang
And there is no issue with having applications running in the background, that's just what the Metro music app does for example.


Music is very different from persistent TCP connections. WinRT has special opt-in APIs that allow specific tasks to be run in the background. These are old API concepts, you can look to iOS as an example of this. iOS has "multi-tasking" as well, and lets you run music in the background, but you can forget about running TCP connections. Metro is likely to be the same way:

Originally Posted By: Microsoft
"For Windows 8, we started off with a rule that would apply to the large majority of Metro style apps: if an app is not on screen, and the screen is not on, it should not impact your battery life," - [url=http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/02/07/improving-power-efficiency-for-applications.aspx]MS on Metro apps


The link in the quote above outlines the specific background tasks that are allowed:

Playing music, Downloading a file from or uploading it to a website, Keeping live tiles alive with fresh content, Printing, Receiving a VoIP call, Receiving an instant message, Receiving an email, Sharing content (like uploading photos to Facebook), Synchronizing content with a tethered device (like syncing photos)

Note that all of these things are not persistent (don't be fooled by "Receiving an instant message", that is likely just using Windows Live over HTTP). You will likely be allowed a burst of TCP. There's a white paper referenced in the article that documents the details, it seems as though there is a bandwidth cap on apps depending on where they are located in the tiles.

IRC connectivity goes against everything the above quote stands for, because it requires the same amount of CPU/resources whether the app is in the foreground or background; you cannot scale back resources when it is in "standby" mode. And we're still just talking about connecting to servers, not the thousands of other features mIRC has which allows it to do a whole host of things that would break Metro (or have Metro break mIRC, technically).

Originally Posted By: heksesang
Well, IRC is a simple enough concept that you would have no issues making a Metro app for it.


Yes, IRC itself is simple. I said this. mIRC is not just an IRC client, though. This is the distinction. mIRC is not a simple client for IRC, it's a very complex one that would require a whole boatload of special integration to work as a metro app. Even if you could just get a socket to stay connected when an app is backgrounded, you would still not be able to easily access the scripting engine, a very core part of the client. Timers wouldn't work, events wouldn't work, DLLs wouldn't work. Things would break in tremendously weird ways.

For mIRC to work properly as a metro app it would have to be simplified and downsized significantly to fit in-- not only in terms of UI, but functionality. You'd end up with a product that is basically not mIRC. And what's the point of having an mIRC for Metro that is nothing like mIRC for the desktop? It might as well be any other IRC client, and I'm sure someone will make one eventually. Given how overloaded Khaled is just maintaining mIRC for desktop, it would take years before you'd see a properly functioning metro version of mIRC (with or without its core functionality)... so there will definitely be competitors by then.

I guess my point is; if it's really simple to make an IRC client for Metro (and it probably is), then you should make it; you will probably make a lot of money if you do. And don't worry, if you don't, someone else will.


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All channels within the main window are shown in old format on the top bar (Windows Vista/7)
Take a look here

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Hoopy frood
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That's not the Metro interface. That's just the Windows 8 desktop window interface. There is no way to make MDI windows use the new UI, because MDI windows are effectively deprecated.


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you'd have 2 major problems with this idea of mirc in metro

1. app would be severely reduced in functionality comparing to win32 desktop app
2. User Interface would be totally crippled and ugly


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