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westor Offline OP
Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
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Hello,

I wanna suggest to add into the mIRC in the "Help" menu an item to automatically the mIRC will update the servers.ini file to the latest from the website and an checkbox to say "Automatically update my serverlist on startup", i know that can be made with a script method!

- Thanks!


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Babel fish
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If this is done, I'd prefer it be a toggle, so it can be turned off, or at least the ability to check for an update and then make a decision as to whether to download and install it. Many people do not like outsiders being able to do automatic installing/updating on their computers. Personally, I suspect Khaled has enough to do to keep his site and files secure.

Last edited by Handle_With_Care; 23/10/11 10:03 PM.

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Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
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The problem with this is that many people change their servers.ini file and updating it automatically will lose all their changes. There really isn't any reason to update it from mIRC anyhow. It doesn't get updated often and when it does, it doesn't hurt to wait for the next release of mIRC (after servers.ini is updated), which will include it. There just isn't any reason anyone would need to get it immediately.


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Hoopy frood
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I would propose that user specific servers information be pulled OUT of servers.ini and stored within mirc.ini instead. That way the servers.ini file would be purely mIRC's own (default) data to do with what Khaled wants. The servers list would simply display the merging of these two ini files (servers.ini and user specific servers in mirc.ini).

Currently you can either select for mIRC to stomp on your existing server list, or opt out of updating the existing server list, leaving you with stale servers. If you want both an updated list and your own data to be kept around, you have to merge the files yourself, which is not pretty. It seems like there *is* a need to manage this better, even if it's not via the above proposal.

In any case, it could get a little more complicated when users delete or modify default servers (they would be copied over to the mirc.ini, or "hidden" instead of deleted), but having a read-only servers.ini file would make it much easier for users to update their server lists without worrying about deleting their own data.


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Fjord artisan
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Fjord artisan
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argv0,

Agree! two or more server?.ini files would be perfect. Not trivial work to merge them (my opinion only) but I would say well worth the effort involved.


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Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
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Agreed. Keeping users out of servers.ini would be preferable.


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Hoopy frood
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This has been on my to-do list for some time, ie. allowing users to update their servers list (by automatically downloading the latest version from the mIRC website) while keeping their favourite servers. It's tricky to implement in a way that will work for most (and especially non-technical) users.

Displaying a merge dialog that highlights differences between the old and new servers.ini and allows users to shift servers back and forth, deciding which to keep or update - this seems too complicated and time-consuming.

Allowing users to mark some servers as read-only sounds good. However it would depend on users pro-actively marking servers that they know they will want to keep in the future. If a user does not do that, and I suspect most non-technical users will not, then it does not help.

Another option would be to look at the [recent] and [success] sections in servers.ini during the update. These are currently limited to 20 servers for each section which could be sufficient to ensure a user's most recent or favourite servers are retained. This would not need any user interaction. Unfortunately, this option would not work if a user regularly uses the "Clear History" feature.

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Hoopy frood
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This looks like the thread being referenced in the 'favorites' update thread

https://forums.mirc.com/ubbthreads....fault-channel-favorites-stats#Post270047

Originally Posted by Khaled
[quote]We discussed a similar idea relating to the servers list some time ago and how this would not be practical.

The issue with updating the serverlist may not be so much any possible complexity in identifying the updates, but as the potential effect on new networks due to being advertized by name to everyone who installs the next version. For a brand new server being added to the serverlist during the current version, sure that can be auto-added to the serverlist, though that doesn't help a user who skipped versions or who hasn't done this for the 1st time.

However, as long as it's not been a super long time since the user began editing their servers.ini, there can be a solution which makes it easy to update the user's servers.ini to the newest server list, fairly quickly and simply, regardless of how much editing/adding/deleting they've done.

The comparison shouldn't need to be done between the newest Official servers.ini and the user's customized file they're now using, but rather it could be a comparison between the newest Official servers.ini on the 1 side, and on the other side could either be a stored local backup of the older Official servers.ini from the last time the installer did such a comparison, or if the backup isn't found it could ask the user which $version of servers.ini they wanted to compare the new list against, or if they didn't know, they could suggest an approximate year. The installer could even do....

/writeini servers.ini timestamp UpdatedByInstaller $date $version

...so a future installer could tell the user the answer.

--

The versions.txt section for v7.58 says the serverlist was re-vamped to switch network listings over to their SSL port, but other than things like that or a mass-adding, there would be few if any differences that might be brought to the user's attention.

For example, if the user had first installed v7.58 in 2019 and started customizing using that server list, then upgrading the client to v7.71 wouldn't need to ask the user about all the differences between their customized servers.ini and the 150+ items in the Official 7.71 servers.ini

Instead, the installer - or a script that can be run later - can either perform an interactive update with them, or just relegate the few changes to some kind of readme_later_whatsnew_772.txt, which could ask/show the very few differences between the pair of Official servers.ini from those 2 version spanning several years.

And if the script can identify that the new info has already been manually added to the servers.ini it doesn't need to even ask them for those. For this example, there's only a small list of such items between 7.58 and 7.71:

+ GameSurge got dropped from the list of 'important servers' so its entry is lower on the new list but otherwise didn't change any info, so unless the demotion of Gamesurge from the 'important servers' without any other change needs to be asked of the user, no mention needs to be made of this.

Also...

-- Freenode went kaput and is dropped
++ Libera.Chat is added to the list as an 'important server'
-+ The port# for the LinkNet entry got changed to the +SSL port
++ PrivChat is added
++ WixChat got added

This avoids bothering the user about servers they deleted from the list, or those they personally added. The exception might be that if the user had manually added a network like Libera which gets added during this timespan, they could be asked about things such as not having matching port(s) for a matching $servertarget, or a different $servertarget for something having the same GROUP string. It's not reliable to match only on the Group string since people may have manually added Libera.Chat as just GROUP=Libera, even though some issues are avoided bu having GROUP match $network.

The installer might even be able to offer a 3rd option 'freshen' or 'merge' setting for favorites/servers rather than the only alternatives being no-touch or wipeout-back-to-defaults.

--

Likewise with updating the Favorites List, once the user can identify the $version of channels.ini against which to compare the brand new channels.ini, the interaction with the user during update installs should be very brief or can just be relegated to that readme-later.txt

If they're upgrading from the old favorites list that didn't change for many years containing #windows95, then yes there's not a shortcut for that because there's no matching channel+network combos, since the old list mentioned no networks, while the new list has no entries where specific networks are not included.


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