I have thought of a small addition that I think would be quite useful, lets say you have 2 server connections active, and on the 2nd connection you use /server to connect to a different server, I'd like to see -q to be able to specify a quit message. As you're quitting, it should be possible to display a quit message?

Edit: Of course if there is such feature, it'd certainly help me outif someone could tell me.

Cheers,

Andrew

Ah, I get it. You want to have:

/quit $1- | /server <new server>.

To become.

/server -q $1-.

I like it.

Edit: But uh, how and where do you declare the quit message and new server?

Well basically you can use switches before or after the -jn switches, when you quit from a server to connect to another you just get: Quit user exited or something, I'd just like to specify a quit message when disconnecting from that server.

Well supposing you use:

/server irc.test.co.uk -j #Test -q Will be back soon gone to see my pals on irc.test.co.uk.

/server irc.test.co.uk -q Be back in a little while

Ah okay, /server <Server> [switches] -q optional quit message before connecting to the new 1.

I like it!

Yes, spot on that's what I'd like to see.

I'm not sure what the benefit is over using "quit msg | server ..."?

Well granted it does the same thing and as shown on two occasions it is simple to do, but it means having to type out two seperate commands.

How is this switch any more justified than any other switch that joins together two existing commands?

Perhaps we should have:
part -m bye => msg #channel bye | part #channel
fwrite -c fp TEXT => fwrite fp TEXT | fclose fp
join -p #channel => join #channel | part #channel

Well I guess I found your solution.

/quit $2- | /server -m $1

Make an alias, put in if statements checking for $1 and $2, etc.

I supposed it would be the same thng as the ban -k switch. Simply "speeds up" the process (not many characters different). As you guys have seen, I dont post much these days, but I can see the usefulness AS WELL AS the "un-need" for it. I say sure, add it in

ban -k is justified because it's highly common to kick with a ban. In fact, you're far more likely to kick when banning than not. Notice that for this reason /kick doesn't have a -b switch, because kicks don't always come with bans, but the large majority of bans come with kicks.

Quitting a server with a message to connect to another one, however, is a use case that I think probably applies to... 5% of cases? Maybe I'm overexaggerating.

The point here is that if mIRC were to have a switch to execute some vaguely relevant command for every other command, we would have hundreds of switches littering every command-- and then, when mIRC has a *valid* reason to add a switch, the letter code that best suits it would be taken, complicating the interface.

Maybe in the future, /server -q will stand for "quiet" and hide the *** Notices and MOTD? I think that would be a better meaning for "-q", personally. (this is not a suggestion)

Not really, I'm sure there's more than 5% who would like to be able quit and actually have a quit message without using the above in 2 commands.



Well, there 52 switches (a-z A-Z) that can be used, and even then I doubt all 52 will be used, it's a possibility but not likely.



And -q was an example, could be anything.

"52" is an extremely inflated number, because for any one feature there is only a handful of switches that reasonably describe the functionality, not to mention the fact that upper case letters should be avoided wherever possible since mIRC is case insensitive just about everywhere else.

you wouldn't use "-r" to express a "quit message" in /server the same way you wouldn't use "-z" in /ban to express "kick user". The fact that there are many choices doesn't mean they're valid ones.

In this case, the only possibilities would really be -q (/quit) or -m (quit message).. and oh wait, mIRC already uses -m (and incorrectly). It's simply a bad choice to make mIRC messier than it already is.

As far as my statistic goes-- I'll stick to my number and you stick to yours- realize, however, how uncommon the use case of switching your active server is to begin with.

Sure, people switch servers occasionally, but it would happen maybe once a session. The far more likely scenario is that users setup their server connections on start and leave them until they close mIRC. If anything a user will *add* a connection (with -m) rather than replace it-- and of those few users who replace a connection, there is an even smaller amount of people who actually care about their quit messages. So no, I think 5% is pretty accurate for a guesstimation.

And for those people:



is really not such an inconvenience.

There are many commands in mIRC where switches are used, and you'd think they'd be the most obvious switches to use. Not sure if it's because the "common" switches had already been used and Khaled threw in any old switch, I'm not saying all of them have no relevance but some have none.

Have you ever used a switch in any command without reading the help file or forgetting the switch and used something else because you thought that'd be the most obvious. I know I have.

Well for me, I hardly ever have more than one connection open at any time and I am constantly switching servers.

Like I said and I've seen it is easy to do, and even with all the rest in the /server command such as port password nick ident etc and I guess I'll have to stick to that.

Sorry if I sounded rude I didn't mean to sound it.

This is exactly my point. Switches should be intuitive and relevant otherwise they create a mess both in the help file and in trying to use them. Given that statement, where does a feature like this stand?

Well off hand without going back through all the commands it's hard to say but there was a few, there was one I tried cause I thought it'd be the obvious choice can't remember which one now though.

It's probably just me but I don't see any relevance with the -g switch in icons in /did it's probably because i,c, and o was taken and without looking in version history. I'll keep looking and get back to ya.

The -n switch for minimizing windows. Using n for minutes in time format.

Actually I thought /ban -k was an excellent example of uneccesarily combining commands. Banning and kicking worked just fine without it but it was added. Honestly I couldn't see myself using this -q switch, but it's available and it fits so why not?

That's probably right. Again, adding -q will only cause more of these problems in the future. At least, however, -i, -c and -o make more sense for their current purpose than for setting an icon. Imagine what would happen if the icon behaviour was added first.. -g would be for "inserting lines"? Wouldn't get any more unintuitive than that.

We have the same problem here.. bringing back my previous example, how is -q any more suited for "quit message" than for "quiet", which already has precedent with echo -q, raw -q, etc...

But in the end, it's not really about which letter is used for the switch, but about the fact that it's really not common enough a use case to really deserve a letter at all-- in my opinion, anyway.

Personally, I don't think additional switches should be added just to avoid typing one extra command. There really isn't a good enough reason to justify it. Simply put, if you can't type one extra command or make the alias that does it for you, you're just being lazy.

As far as the choice of letter for the switches... I think it would be better to have the switch make sense, but it isn't imperative. As far as -m in /server, it could be because it was added for multiserver functionality. And -n to minimize isn't that unusual. I can't think of specific locations, but I'm pretty sure I've seen other apps use "n" to Minimize the app from a Window menu (the underlined letter that you can hit from within the menu). That's the same for Maximize. So those aren't really the best examples... not that it really matters. You can't cover every possible switch using just the best letter because you'll often have multiple commands/switches that would be best with the same letter. It's ideal, but not always possible. And, as was mentioned, -q was an example and wasn't meant to be the only choice or the best choice for the switch.

EDIT: Ok, you can actually use "n" and "x" in IE if you right click on the titlebar. This is also probably true in most Windows apps. I tested it in IE and Windows Explorer. So it's commonly used for Minimize and Maximize.

I agree, I think the discussion of the actual letter itself detracts a little from my actual point about justification for the switch in general. I don't really care which letter is used, it's just a small point to consider aside from the real issue which you described (more eloquently than me).