Forums Feature Suggestions DDE and VB.NET in regards to MIRC + MySQL Support

Not sure if this belongs in this post if it doesnt sorry.

Instead of using dialogs I use vb 6 to and DDE to create menus for mirc. And also alot of other features for my script.

with the coming of VB.NET DDE is no longer something we can use to link into mIRC. Are there any other plans to be able to have bi directional communication between mirc and a .net application. ( Simple Code not complex .NET C Code )

Also is there any future plans on extending the IAL to use a MySQL DB for the advanced scripters.

Thanks.

I doubt there are any plans to make the IAL use a MySQL db because that would be completely illogical. Why exactly should it use a MySQL db? How many mIRC users have MySQL installed (just you would be my guess)? Making it use MySQL would do four things:
1.) Force users to install an application that is not the easiest to run/manage/install.
2.) Make mIRC slower since reading from a database (which, to communicate with MySQL requires a socket) is always going to be slower than reading directly from memory.
3.) It will increase the mirc.exe filesize by forcing mIRC to link with libmysqlclient
4.) Force mIRC to become opensource since MySQL is a GPLed program and it is illegal to link a GPLed library to a propriatary software package.

The answer to mysql is completly logical. I do link to mysql as my script is focused on tracking infected users, spammers and mass inviters. Tracking them and having them all logged in a database which has web front ends to them. Works like a charm and Im quite happy to have the link to mysql using a external executable. Hasnt slowed down mirc in anyway.

however the primary question is the dde and vb.net which is a pain since vb.net has dropped all support for dde. A dirty way of working around that is have vb.net write a file which vb6 picks up and sends the commands to mirc.

Not a nice way to do it but works.

It may be logical for *your script* but that doesn't mean it is logical for *mirc*. mIRC doesn't track infected users so it wouldn't need such things. You are however free to track JOIN/PART/who raws/QUIT/etc. and capture the IAL stuff yourself and send it to a mysql table.

As for the VB.NET stuff, I have no idea, I don't really play around with VB too much.

I agree, such an addition is useless for mIRC. it's a chat program, not a program to be used in such.. odd odd ways

I disagree on the fact that coupling mirc to a an sql database is using it in an 'odd way', though there's some perfectly valid reasons for not doing it.
I'd love to see something _LIKE_ SQL-Lite, whcih is a very trimmed down relational database and has started to be itegrated into php - but it would be of little value to many scripters.

Its perfectly logical if your scripts try to provide an IRC service, such as an anti-spambot service that listed X numebr of attacks from N addresses.

However, to overcome this we have access to things like myODBC and COM objects - which bridge the gap between mirc and a database (wheter local or remote).

Furthermore, if your interesting in writing a dedicated service, your better off writing the business logic side of things (the remote server) in a sturdier language (again, php, jsp, etc).
Then simply use sockets to access the server data.

If mirc were to change its aim from a 'text based IRC client' to a 'general text based communication client WHICH targets IRC' and started to provide some basic socket wrapper functions specific to protocols(languages?) like RSS, SOAP, and general XML functions, perhaps this would make this style of database + client integration a lot easier.
However, I think thats more a job for us scripters than for the mirc development team...

I can see many reasons to use a MySQL style DB system. For instance. I keep logs of everyone that joins channels that I OP in for various purposes such as If someone is acting up I can refer to the log to see what ISP's he/she uses so I can get a better idea of how to ban said person. It also helps when I need to recognize people.
I usually import these files into access and sort by idents to get something similar to
http://zushiba.lardpirates.com/misc/Jeb.html
If this were integratable into mIRC I could see it being a expansion to the already good logging features.

EDIT: Just thought how very cool it would be to use a SQL style query to grab the most recent idents and ban them using the results such as Top 3 like idents etc.