Forums Feature Suggestions Change in mIRC Topic Display Suggestion.

I am proposing a change in how mIRC displays it's topics. Using the mIRC titlebar is fine, as well as showing the change of topic in scroll whenever it happens... but sometimes, people simply don't read topics in channels if there's important information.

Also, sometimes, good information is just on hand that would be good to have as a constant reminder for various reasons.

I'm proposing that the mIRC topic (as an OPTION, not FORCED) can he displayed at all times at the top of channel windows. This comes with urls being able to be clicked or other channel names etc.

Also, if you click in it, maybe the ability to edit the topic in real time withot pulling up the whole dialog box if you happen to be an operator in said channel.

http://imgur.com/qzkk4ON <--- this is a lazy example of what I mean.

AdiIRC has this topic feature I mention, as shown here.. http://bit.ly/1VX7P8x

XChat even has this feature. http://bit.ly/1XrGJpE

I'm just saying, mIRC Could benefit from such a simple feature that can be toggled and given multiple options.

Multi-row, scrolling text. Colors. No colors. Just make it change automatically when someone edits the topic. Hideable. Etc. The works.

You say that AdiIRC and XChat have this feature, but how is mIRC's topic in titlebar any different from those features?

All 3 of them (including mIRC) show the title persistently somewhere at the top of the window. The placement is a little different, but the information is there. What would mIRC gain by moving it below the titlebar?

Well.. Mythos did mention what the difference is.
The topic in the titlebar is really shown but you can't click on any links or copy it.
Also he did mentioned he doesn't mean to ask this to be forced. It can be optional and off by default so anyone that doesnt want the display wouldnt even notice it.
I personally agree with Mythos's suggestion! If you're on an active channel and need to see the channel's topic you have to scroll up and then back down. Yes it's not a big deal if you think about it but having it on top of channels would make things more comfortable.

Your suggestion sounds fine to me, but let's not pretend that anything, anything will make people actually read topics..

I have my own reasons for this suggestion that likely doesn't apply to anyone here in particular. I play in some game rooms, where the topic being shown clearly and in full (which the title bar to mirc doesn't quite do, even if the text is scrolling) for people participating would be a huge thing of goodness.

But, yes, this might also make the topics in other channels where other people are 'what I missed it' due to chat scroll actually realize there's a topic.

And, like my suggestion said, completely optional. I don't want to force it on everyone. I just would like it for me and people I know who would appreciate it.

If you don't want to force this on anyone, and want it to be optional, this sounds exactly like something the scripting engine was built for.

This is scriptable. You can implement all the features you want there and distribute it to whomever you think would also want it.

XChat's implementation doesn't have clickable links either. The only difference is the scroll and copyability. Scrollability seems useful for long topics, but copyability doesn't seem generally useful (unless you want to copy a URL, but you should really just be clicking those anyway).

All of this is mitigated by the fact that if you do want to (a) scroll or (b) copy, you can always double click the channel window or type /channel to see the full topic. In other words, it's there if you want it. There's an extra step, but just like XChat's UI, you have to click the topic line to be able to scroll to the end of it as well, so this is already an intentional UI choice. Double clicking doesn't seem that intrusive to me.

And if you want fewer keystrokes than even X-Chat, you can bind an f-key to display the full topic in your window:



If you ever want to see the full topic, simply put that in your aliases (Alt+R -> Aliases) and press F9. Not only will it wrap the full topic in your active window, but it will also make links clickable, which is already a step ahead of X-Chat. Arguably this would be equivalent to a "hideable" feature of what is being suggested.

That could be like the feature I'm asking for, but it isn't the feature I'm asking for. I want it where I can potentially see the full topic at all times at the top of every channel window if I so wish it. Either multi-line or single line that scrolls.

Right now mIRC doesn't offer me any option except to 'view the topic' at any time I wish, which interrupts the flow of the chat of the channel.



I tried for a script of this first, but none of the results were close to what I was looking for/seems possible without the use of a .dll

DLLs are part of the scripting language, so I'm not sure why you would discount their usage. Fortunately, you don't need to actually write a DLL, since there are some (like mdx.dll or ultradock.dll) that can already do what you want. Here is an overly complex example that you could cut down to size.

That said, if you really don't want to use DLLs, there are @window solutions and the one above that are a little more awkward to use but still get the job done.



As illustrated above, mIRC gives you plenty of options, just maybe not in the exact form you're looking for, and not with zero work. But to say that you cannot view the topic any time you wish without interrupting the flow of the chat channel is disingenuous. My simple F9 keybinding listed above provides this functionality quite easily-- the only thing it doesn't give you is "always on top", but that doesn't seem to be a required part of the suggestion (since you even mention it should be hide-able). The alias provides a completely reasonable compromise solution. A script that used ultradock.dll or mdx could make it work more to your tastes. The functionality in mIRC's scripting engine is there to create what you are asking.

Can any of these DLLs actually dock stuff within an MDI child window? Because that's the only thing that would make sense for this case.

I am not much of an expert scripter so I wouldn't know where to begin to actually make this possible. There's a reason I'm asking for a suggestion.

Well, just to make sure: your feature suggestion stands in any case. mIRC's author, Khaled, decides whether he implements it or not. Even if it could be scripted easily, and at this point I think it's clear it cannot, it is still a valid suggestion.

That's true. I looked for help in scripting and nothing really quite met what I was trying to ask for. People pointed to dll's but none of the dlls pointed out really had a walkthrough saying 'do this for what you want'... since, once again, I'm not really a scripting expert.

That's why my suggestion is here. I hope it's taken into consideration.