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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 3,012
Hoopy frood
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OP
Hoopy frood
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 3,012 |
Hey all, As many know, the new 6.1 has the ability to store and load visual "themes" for mirc. This includes the 16 assigned colors, as well as the pallettes assigned to each number. What I am recommending is two things. One is the addition of an "Extended" tab. Now, this might not even have to be associated with the colors dialog, and can be its own seperate tab in the options dialog, but I feel it would be a nice addition. This is to have an editable selection for nickname brackets, mask brackets, join/part/quit messages, modes, etc. Something like if you have a dialog:
+-Visual Themes----------------------------+
| |
| +---------------------------+ |
|Nick Theme: |<%MODE%%NICK%> | |
| +---------------------------+ |
| +---------------------------+ |
| Join Msg: | * JOIN: %NICK% (%MASK%) | |
| +---------------------------+ |
| +---------------------------+ |
| Part Msg: | * Part: %NICK% (%MASK%) | |
| +---------------------------+ |
| +---------------------------+ |
| QUIT Msg: | * QUIT: %NICK% (%MASK%) (%| |
| +---------------------------+ |
|\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/|
................. Blah ...................
|\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/|
+------------------------------------------+
(Gotta love my ascii art) From there, you can edit the style of your messages, and replace values with constants like %NICk%, %CHAN%, %MASK%, and so on. You even could just provide the alternative at altring the original string outpussing with the "JOIN: %s (%s) %" message where we alter the general appearace (not so customized). My second idea is to make the highlight colors for switchbar icons tied into the color theme. Im not sure if im the only one, but I change the event, Message, and Highlight colors for the switchbar icons to match my theme. Such as if my theme consists of oranges and grays, i may make the message highlight color orange, or likewise if my theme is greens. I make the switchbar highlight color green. Just an idea. Now that I am mentioning it, also tying in the switchbar colors with themes hints the idea of having a background association too. Where not only can u set the colors and hues, but also set the default image for status window, channels, queries, and other windows/toolbars.
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Colors |
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Scheme: |
| +----------------------+--+ +----------+ +----------+ |
| | mIRC Modern |\/| | New | | Delete | |
| +----------------------+--+ +----------+ +----------+ |
| |
| Appearance: |
| +-----------------------------------++--------------+ |
| | Action Text Notice Text || Listbox Text | |
| | Ctcp Text Notify Text || Gray Text | |
| | Highlight Text Other Text || Title Text | |
| | ... ... || | |
| | ... ... || | |
| | ... ... || | |
| | ... || | |
| | ... || | |
| +--------------------------+--------++--------------+ |
| | Editbox Text | Inactive | |
| +--------------------------+------------------------+ |
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
| |A|S|C|I|I|.|.|.| +----------+ |
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Reset | |
| |.|.|.|R|U|L|E|S| +----------+ |
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
| Backgrounds: +-----------------------------------+ |
| Status Window |C:\Program Files\mIRC\img\status.pn| |
| +-----------------------------------+ |
| Channel Window |C:\Program Files\mIRC\img\chan.png | |
| +-----------------------------------+ |
| Query Window |C:\Program Files\mIRC\img\query.png| |
| +-----------------------------------+ |
| Switchbar Image |C:\Program Files\mIRC\img\sbar.bmp | |
| +-----------------------------------+ |
|\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\____/|
|\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\_____/\____/|
| +----------+ +----------+ +----------+ |
| | OK | | Cancel | | Help | |
| +----------+ +----------+ +----------+ |
+-------------------------------------------------------+
(Another fine ascii image if i do say so myself.) Anyways, just some ideas >:D
-KingTomato
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,812
Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,812 |
Drugs are bad, mmkay.
_____
I like the idea, but it would be well outside the scope of simply adding to the color theme.
As far as event formatting goes, this would be along the lines of resource editing (external resource files) ala translations. One big file containing every event and raw numeric, along with the appropriate display text.
I would like to see expanded switchbar coloring, outside the current event/message/hilight/none limitations, allowing all 16 colors to be used between any collection of scripted events (eg.. someone gets kicked, a specific bot speaks, chanops are lost, etc). I know the switchbar can only contain one color at a time, so some sort of event level must be added to the switchbar of a window (eg.. $window().switchlvl) or something like the Nick Color list added. I know this is off track from your suggestion, but related none the less.
I can also see where background settings might all fit together into one /background -s <scheme name> (except that -s is already used).
I'm not sure how all of these things would best fit together, or if they should fit together under one umbrella theme pacakge. I think added abilities to customize the interface should be added, but leave it to Theme Scripts to tie them all together.
- Raccoon
Last edited by Raccoon; 04/09/03 02:38 AM.
Well. At least I won lunch.
Good philosophy, see good in bad, I like!
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 3,012
Hoopy frood
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OP
Hoopy frood
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 3,012 |
Thanks for the support--I think...
-KingTomato
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 210
Fjord artisan
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Fjord artisan
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 210 |
I suppose it's a good idea. Obviously people like theme systems, and enjoy customizing mIRC's appearance. And a scripted theme system has many disadvantages to a native mIRC one. The major one is speed. Your halting nearly every single event to redisplay it's text, The little old mIRC parser is always chugging away, sweating bullets to make your screen look pretty. This *does* slow down other scripts and mIRC in general. Even using a DLL to assist, you witness slow down. Another advantage that a native mIRC theme system would have is that it wouldn't override the users display preferences in the options dialog, like all scripted theme systems do. This is not due to bad scripting, this due to the absence of certain mIRC features that would allow 100% integration.
Simply put, this is obviously something a lot of people would like, and is obviously better as part of mIRC than as a script.
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 43
Ameglian cow
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Ameglian cow
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 43 |
I would like to be able to highlight the titlebar icons to, it could be added to the /flash command.
/flash -c [window] [color] [text]
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Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 742
Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 742 |
o_0 too much free time...
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 2,985
Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 2,985 |
Kingtomato, I fully support your suggestion cos I made it at least four times on the old forum and still really want it added, along with full transparency of channel windows X Chat style.
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 2,809
Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 2,809 |
I personally wouldn't use it, but I'm sure it would be popular. But I will say, if it is added, it should have scripting support.
/theme joinmsg *** JOIN: %chan% %nick% %mask%
That way, something like an MTS theme (which will likely still provide more customization than what you're suggesting) could easily tap into the built in theme stuff rather than having it still do it via a script.
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 3,012
Hoopy frood
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OP
Hoopy frood
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 3,012 |
You're absolutly right about a scripted theme system providing more enhancements, but at the same time any kind of intergrated support would be a step in the right direction imo. I mean, maybe start with simple additions like what i suggested, then move on to more complex methods that have more control, and evolve it as people see fit.
Granted it wouldnt be the best theme system mirc has ever seen, but it wouldnt be the worst. It also would provide people with little to no experience in scriping the ability to custimize more settings in mirc.
-KingTomato
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