Forums Feature Suggestions UTF-8 support

It would be really usefull to add support for UTF8, so most ppl would see correct characters even if remote user is using different keyboard maps.

Of course global change takes some time, but overall it is a good way.

Some of Linux clients support this already, and for mIRC this could be one feature to beat other Windows IRC clients.

This has been suggested before, and is on Khaled's to do list for the future - read this thread.

Obviously, these things take time, so remember "patience is a virtue"

Just an FYI, always a good idea to use the Search feature before posting to see if something similar has been posted before. For best results, expand to 'All Forums' and 'All Posts'.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Regards,

Why aren't threads bumped on this forum anyway?

Actually the petition got a lot of criticism from members of this board, but it would have been handy to have at least one Unicode thread bumped whenever people decided to post.

Oh, and the petition's alive and kicking... 136 signatures including myself.

- Probably because bumping is the most annoying thing ever. Yes, ever. What point would there be for an old thread about Unicode to be bumped everytime someone posted an inane addition to it like "I'd like to see this!"? Everyone - including Khaled - knows already that it's a useful feature and that people want to see it, so why make it keep bouncing back and wasting forum space?

Maybe their should be a sticky post with a list of the few things that Khaled has said will be in future versions, but post bumping is just plain annoying.



- The petition got criticism because it was pointless. Khaled's already said it will be added so why petition for something which you already know will be added?

The whole point of bumping is to put active threads first so that people won't have to start a new thread every time they want to ask about something, like now. You obviously have never used any other forums before.

Spare me the forum ego-trip, OK. At the time when I posted the petition, there had hardly been a mention of UTF-8, and using a petition like this is a valuable way of measuring how many people outside the board are actually interested. Well, would-be, if it weren't for people like you who seem to think that it's some kind of plot to offend Khaled personally.

- If something has been posted before then there's no need to make a new thread every time anyway. And yes I have used other forums before, how else do you think I know that bumping is the worst thing ever. Yes, ever.



- Yes, at the time you posted your petition there were only 3 or 4 posts about it, one of them being yours from about 12 minutes earlier. Then in that very thread Khaled pointed out that Unicode was on his 'todo list', so I have to wonder why you keep posting these semi-regular 'updates' of your petition as if it has any bearing on anything. And who said anything about offending Khaled? I'm talking about boring forum users with a meaningless petition.

He pointed out that it was on his todo-list in the same thread more than 20 hours later. What you're implying, then, is that I should have checked for future posts at the time of posting. Why do you even bother?

Huh? Read that line where I said that again. Notice the words "semi-regular 'updates'". I wasn't talking about your original post about it, I'm talking about how you keep telling us how many people have signed the petition. Just why you're even still running it boggles the mind.

Anyway I think that'll do for me on this thread. I don't want to bore users with pointless arguing about how you bore users with your pointless petition.

Oh Wow! Khaled better hurry and get it done, then .. that's OBVIOUSLY a majority of people that have signed it!

give us all a break and shut up about it.
[/rant]

As has been pointed out in previous threads it is pointless providing updates on this vote you participated in because it (UTF support) is already supposed to be on the drawing board. The fact that 136 people responded hardly makes the FOR motion a resounding success as there's probably millions of other mIRC users that either think it shouldn't be added, don't care much either way (undecided) or do want it but don't care for the politics or being a member of the loud minority claiming that a vote on the issue will fast-track implementation. That said, I do support the inclusion of UTF, not for myself because I won't benefit, but for others because alot of people will benefit from it. It is obviously not an easy or quick job to get the support right though otherwise it would probably be available by now.

General reply to all: As for the arguement about "bumping" until the arguement started I didn't even know what the hell it meant though as this has now come to light, I think the forum author should probably consider it though make it optional in the same way each user can choose between flat mode (my preference) and thread mode. Debating the merits of it here isn't going to get bumping added to the forum though, try emailing the author about it.

Dude, I'm not actually interested in opinions about it.

The petition is still up because it's not possible to take it down.

I'm tired of all this anti-petitionism now, so I'll be taking my leave of this discussion.

Oh, by the way, those above replies weren't directed at you, watchdog.

"The whole point of bumping is to put active threads first so that people won't have to start a new thread every time they want to ask about something, like now. "

Its easy enough to use our search feature to see if there are other threads on an issue and post to one of them rather than start a new one. So often, when ppl dont bother to do that, someone else takes the time and posts a link for them and explains how to use the search feature to get the best results.

i, and lots of others, take advantage of another feature to see active threads. either set the entire forum or each one individually to show active threads within the time frame you choose, be it 1 day, 2 days, a week, etc. If someone posts today on a thread thats a year old, its right there on the pages i set condensed to "show active in last day".

that said, its pretty annoying when someone goes to an old thread and posts the single word "bump" without any additions of value or further questions just to get it to show up in the set active time frame.

So why keep on about the petition?

PM

Unicode would be nice anytime. Seriously I don't understand why you wouldn't want to push that. There's a huge market for asian people and other nations. more money unwanted?

Because Khaled has already said it will be added at some point, so repeated pestering does nothing but take up space on the boards. There's no need to 'push' anything.

Its nearly been 1,5 years ago since he wrote this. I think we need a new statement on this from him

[2¢]
Since when does Khaled owe you (or anyone else, for that matter) an update on what he's already stated is planned for mirc "AT SOME POINT"? He's busy enough working on mirc as it is without having to take time to "update" every comment he's made just to please people that are too impatient to simply wait and let him add things as he sees fit. Give it a break and let him work instead of whining about "Its nearly been xx.x months/years (minutes?) since he wrote this and I need an update".
[/2¢]

Well it's not like he's just changed his mind and not bothered to tell anyone is it? 18 months isn't very long for a major change like UTF, and that's assuming it was on the top of his to-do list. Remember it's not just a case of switching a program to UTF, there's also an entire scripting language which needs support aswell. I think many people underestimate (or don't even consider) just how difficult that will be.

hmm
yes, that IS understandable, but...
it should have all been in UTF-8 from the very beginning. There would be no bashing about it today if it were done in UTF-8 nine years ago. However, Khaled must not have thought about it. People didn't care about I18N these days as they do now...
We all know that mIRC is the most popular IRC client on earth nowadays. THAT makes the point. Rounin probably doesn't even use mIRC. And the reason for him to be bashing is quite simple - he cannot use UTF-8 of what his IRC client is capable just because, say, 90% of other users won't understand it. And, say, 90% of those 90% are using mIRC. That is the reason. Currently, for most of the advanced users (those who know difference between mIRC and IRC), mIRC is a curse. It's not really good when one app controls too much of the market. We have that with MSIE, which interprets the standards in its own way, and now it looks like we have same stuff with mIRC. Why oh why do I have to depend on priorities in Khaled's to-do list? I'm not using mIRC, but i'm strongly tied with limitations of mIRC just because it's that popular! It's unfair! That's why I'm bashing about it. That's why people are bashing about it.

UTF-8 was created in late '92, mIRC v2.1a was released early '95, and who knows how long Khaled had been working to get up to 2.1a before that. It took 10 years for most programs to really turn towards UTF-8/16 I hardly think that you can fault mIRC for not supporting it before practically anything else did.


- MSIE and mIRC have a vitally important difference; mIRC obtained it's overwhelming majority of the IRC client market by being the best client for the users, Microsoft got the browser market for IE by slapping it in with their OS which already controlled the desktop computer market and then breaking compatability with other browsers. The same is still true today, and with that in mind if you or anyone else thinks of mIRC as a curse there's one simple thing that they can do to change that - make a better IRC client. mIRC isn't interpreting standards in it's own way here, it simply lacks support for something, if anything that could be considered a blessing for those that don't like mIRC, finally something that they can have in their clients that mIRC doesn't.


- I don't see why that is. If you want you can use UTF-8 and then if others complain you can tell them why, then if they think UTF-8 is worth having they can always change clients. If something is going to be done it's going to be done. I don't think Khaled is sitting there twiddling his thumbs wondering whether today he should put UTF-8 support into mIRC or otherwise just add a new icon to the toolbar. I don't think he lacks the basic logic it takes to see that UTF-8 is an important and useful feature to have in an IRC client, do you? Assuming you don't I hope you can understand why I don't see why people insist on 'bashing about it' as you call it, it's not going to get the job done any faster.

Of course I can! But it would be pointless. I fully understand that in 1995 developers did not really care about Unicode, neither did most of them know it existed. I'm not blaming Khaled for missing this point. That was too common back then. In fact it's still quite common now.


IE was the best browser back then... Actually, a lot of people don't distinguish mIRC and IRC. They think that's the same. And a lot of irc'ers don't really know there are alternatives. I'm not saying mIRC is a bad IRC client. It's a good one. Really. However, there's a lot of good IRC clients out there. And most of them don't suport Unicode. And most of them won't support it until mIRC supports it. That's why we're so insistive on that. We just want mIRC to be better at this point.


Yeah, you're right about that. What we actually wanted was to affect Khaled's priorities in his to-do list. I hope, we did. No flaming anymore. peace.