I cannot figure out how /cnick highlights a message as well as a nick .

e.g. '/cnick grasshopper 5' will highlight grasshopper in the nicklist.
In the address book I enable nick colours, and edit the settings to 'Message and ListBox' but the message is never hilighted.

Top dollars will be paid to anybody who can help

That setting means that it looks for the nick in the message, not that it highlights the message.

Using your example, if I said: Hi grasshopper
then grasshopper's nikc is highlighted in the message, not the whole messag

That makes sense. Thanks RusselB