2. You can similarly make an on text event to test against $highlight($1-) and add the line it to a tracking window (or hash table) inline rather than retroactively. This is quite simple (one line) and cannot fail the way #1 can.
It can, this is the central point we're goin round in circles.
Let someone say "1" and check for $highlight($1-)... A suggested workarround: checking for $highlight($nick $1-) instead works, but only the half way 'round (Again, please have a look at
this old topic).
One may be able to escape the exemplary issue described there too, but the effort is
far off an "easy n short" script.
It's only because of these flaws of $highlight(text) - It's not meant to compare text in this way - that I was suggesting a separate identifier (to use in text/action events only, returning plain $true/$false).
The call for a "track highlights" window was indeed a separate one, many users use a simple scripted sollution for this - there are countless "on text $me aline to some custom window" scripts, missing all the subtleties of the inbuild highlight feature - making me assume many would welcome and use an inbuild window (at least more than use the track urls list). Now that you appearantly agreee that you cannot /findtext for highlights, ain't this close to what the OP asked for?