Forums Feature Suggestions Status Bar

about 2/8" (2.5cm) on 1600x1200 (and more like 20 pixels >:D)

I noticed you mentioned "thought based interfaces", and I thought I'd just post this:
Its not 100 years off, its actually probably more like 20 (if the field gets attention). I have old sci fi magazines from *1970* that advertise mini EEG (or is it EKG, i can't remember) machines for $10.

You might think monitoring electrical brain activity and actual thoughts are miles apart - well, yes and no. You'd probably never be able to dictate to your PC from your mind. The most you could probably get is something like a 3D mouse (i think its possible coz you can learn to move an arm in 3D space, and yes, nasa did research on controlling stuff with nerve impulses too)

Two articles slightly related:
http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/weekly/aa101600a.htm
http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/weekly/aa070300a.htm

People are being treated for ADD via their TV - how wonderful. The way its applied here is kinda a lil off tilt, for what you'd need to control a PC with your mind. But, its possible. There's also proven research into giving blind people sight via sending electrical impulses on the optic nerve - if these two get combined, you'd have a damn scary VR world. If you want articles about the seeing thing, use google, i saw it on tv. TV tells me everything!

Learning to think your way around a computer is no harder than learning to walk. Trouble is, after 18 years of life i still fall over


PS
Why a statusbar? Why oh why a status bar? I think we should include one, rename it, and put a marketing spin on it - "The Ritz Bar" or something

My monitor is 21 inches. That's 53cm in real measurement. Or actually 50 cm because none of the CRT manufacturers bother to comply with the Trade Practices Act and actually quote the viewable area as the screen size.

That really isn't so much an argument as a justification of why you do something one certain way, which is fine.


I respect that people have different methods of doing things within mIRC, and will never at any time suggest that people should do it any other way.

To a comment watchdog made, about repeating information already shown in other parts of the gui.
Yes, but what if mIRC suddenly became a "smart application".
Consider this. You turn the "status bar" on, and instantly, all the "repeatable" information dissapears from the titlebar, and gets put into the status bar. Still allowing for the end user to see what happens in the titlebar when they minimise the window.

Back to megazerox's comment about these sorts of status bars being scriptable.

Yes, they can be scripted, but it usually involves using (what I consider) 3rd party hacks to allow mIRC to do this. To be quite frank, I can't believe mIRC has gone so long without this particular feature. Personally, I distrust dll's that modify the appearance of mIRC. I think they "kludge" up and are very ineffiecient at doing what they do. They can be done better, and in my opinion, they could only be achieved properly if Khaled implemented the ability to do so.

The photoshopped image is just an example of the sort of thing that we should be able to create/access within mIRC.

I would also like to point out, that typing a command is far less effeciant (in terms of energy output) than moving a mouse, double clicking, and so forth.

The whole point about scripting, and hacking (which this is to a certain degree), is about improving the software to suit your needs, or to modify an application to do something it can already do, but make it 100x better.


I should also point out, that if you can't see how an idea works, without thinking about it for 5 or so minutes, and "explore" how it would work, then don't post replies until you have. Some of you seem to have just sat there and gone, "eww, that looks really gross, I hate it" or, "omfg, what a waste of space that is" or, "it's not optional, kill it".

Use a little common sense.

I can do it without a hack. It would be either a dormant dialogue or a picture window. Picture window could look much better, and could have a theme.

In fact, this is such a good idea that I am considering putting something like it in my script, due for release twenty-two days from now. It wouldn't be a "status bar" as anyone here has described it though.

Edit: By the way, I loathe MDX, and will burn my hard drive if any files beginning with the letters "MDX" ever show up on it. If it were possible, I would make my Norton Antivirus treat MDX.dll like a virus.

Ok then, please make me a statusbar with all the features I described, and that looks EXACTLY like a WindowsXP statusbar, and when I say EXACTLY, I mean regardless of what WindowsXP theme I have set, whether a builtin theme, or a 3rd party theme. If you can do that, then I'll agree, this feature is not needed, but without the use of a dll to at the very least obtain the information about the current theme, it is not possible, so your claims are not valid.

you do have a point.. i agree.