I think there should be options as to how you want the nicklist sorted.

Current Way
Old Way
Reverse Old Way
Reverse Current Way
Last spoke
Order it appeared it when received from the raw numeric.
Protect/Op/Voice/Ignore
And so on.

Maybe a reverse could be it's own separate check box. So you could reverse any number of the above. Even last spoke so it's the never spoke on the top basically.

Ahhh yes, the "Last Spoke" would be just great in a room like #Kampung with anything upto 1800 people (more than most IRC networks have as a global count). I actually don't mind it the way it is now. Having said that the old way was okay too. Though I used to use Pirch alot years ago and it put the ASCII prefixed names at the top like mIRC does now so for me it's just a matter of getting used to what I once saw all the time.

Yeah I agree, I like the old way much better, but I'm sure some people will like the new way better. Making it an option will satisfy everyone.

as the new post by krejt said they couldnt get the nicks to sort correctly based on how the new compiler libraries worked quote from krejt:

Khaled is now using Visual C++ .NET 7.0 to compile mIRC. This also means nicknames are sorted a bit different, nicks beginning with certain non-alphabetic characters eg. _ ' etc. are being placed above normal nicks. This appears to be the standard sorting method in Windows, which Visual C++ abides by consistently. It now applies to the whole of mIRC.

i would assume since thats changed there isnt the ability to change the sorting order back to the old method

Well, I'm pretty sure Windows will let you create your own sorting function and call that when you need sorting to take place. Yes, if you use the builtin sorting method, thats what will happen, but you can always redefine how sorting is done.

ironically the ability to sort nicks as ppl have wanted was a feature suggestion ..... instead we all got a forced change in the way it has been ordered for over 8 yrs? and no way yet to configure it.

ironic this was a priority on khaleds list. glad im sticking with 6.03 for the meantime. ill keep my stabs at trying to use 6.1 to a minimum as it is on my pc ... i just dont like it there! lol, glad to see im not alone in that.

Normal/Reverse checkbox to reverse any of the below.

Keep sorted within Op/Voice/Half-Op/Regular/So on status checkbox.
Meaning if it is sorted by last joined. The last joined Op would be at the top. And the last joined regular would be at the top of the regulars's list. And reverse would basically reverse it so it's first joined and so on.

Sort by last joined.
Sort by last spoke (text plus action).
Sort by Protect/Op/Voice/Ignore.
Sort by old method.
Sort by new method.

Great idea

Yea, you can definitely use your own sorting method, and mIRC does. What I don't get is the "that seems to be the standard sorting..." part. It isn't. mIRC is doing the sorting for the nicklist, and it's very easy to confirm.

A) Listboxes don't sort in the order @, %, + the way mIRC does. mIRC puts the most powerful nicks at the top. A Windows-sorted listbox doesn't know anything about that.

B)
/window -sl @listbox
/aline @listbox +stuff
/aline @listbox @stuff
/aline @listbox _stuff
/aline @listbox %stuff

This will show the real "default sorting" that Windows uses. And as you can see, it isn't the same as the nicklist.

Yeah I didn't think of that, you're 100% right. Windows isn't going to sort based on +ohv, so mIRC must be doing that. In which case, why was this ever changed at all?

I like the new search order

because I'm in channels where alot of people use tags (for online games and the likes) you get to see those first instead of last...

so I like the new way better...

Ok but, on channels I go to people commonly do, for example:
[a]codemastr
to mean away. Now I have a list where all the people who are away are right at the top.

I really don't know why it was changed. Right off the top of my head, I'd guess that all that was really changed is the comparison is done lowercase instead of uppercase. If you glance at an ascii value table, you'll see that A < _ < a, so if you were to convert everything to lowercase, you'd get the current behavior. I think. Who knows what mIRC is really doing.

I agree with the sort option feature I find the new sort method extremly strange and totally prefer the old method.