better explanations for some of them $aliases, e.g $regex,$regsub.

I disagree. I've read books that are 700+ pages on regex. There is no way that info should be included in mIRC's helpfile. mIRC's helpfile discusses mIRC, not PCRE.

maybe add links to tutorials, that are to big to go in mirc help then.....

actually adding links into a help site wouldnt be a bad idea for some of them ....... because there is a few good ones out there altho im sure khaled would then have to seak that sites apporval of being in there ... probably wouldnt be a big deal

The PerlRE and PCRE links (too lazy to look them up now, but they're elsewhere in this forum) are the two most official documents, as well as the most useful.

Yes, I'd also like to see them in the help file.

- Raccoon

The help file is just a quick refence, not an encyclopedia.

thats why i agreed with d3mon and said maybe add links instead.

The problem with links is, URLs change.

So does technology, what's your point?

Umm thats a stupid statement to make. When a URL changes we'll then have 500+ posts of "I clicked the 'get help with regex' link and now it says not found!!!" on the forum. When Intel releases a new processor we don't get "Will mIRC work with the new Intel processor?"

Your comment makes no sense to me at all.

The PerlDoc url isn't about to change for 10 years, you can rest assured. And when it does, Tjerk will be on top of it.

- Raccoon

Why won't it ever change? Perhaps they will redesign their site and reorganize file locations, you can't say they won't. And I'm sure Krejt will change it, however... when was mIRC 6.03 released? It wasn't released yesterday. It was released almost a year ago. This means for a year, people would have to deal with an outdated URL. I really don't see why people can't just search Google.

Ok, we'll go with your solution. Include the urls:

http://www.google.com/search?q=PerlRE
and
http://www.google.com/search?q=PCRE

Or do we have to worry about google getting bought out by AOL and/or changing ?q to something else?

Honestly, I don't think it's our position to worry about users complaining if an url no longer exists. You're making the assumption that it's GOING to happen, and that the complaints will outweigh the number of people who have been enlightened by the information rather than just giving up early on.

really i kinda like the idea of having some urls to further explain things in the helpfile ..... some ppl just like to read ya know? it could also give ppl who dont know what to search for more information at thier fingertips than having to load the actual mirc up with huge helpfiles. link them to common webpages in here or somewhere else. i dont think this is a realy huge issue if a webpage changes between updates. ofcourse it can..... is it gonna ... probably not

Well where should links be provided to? If you give someone the link to the PerlRE page or PCRE page they will likely be confused. The PerlRE page contains tons of information that is specific to perl, and the PCRE man page is more about the C API than the actual regex. So where exactly should links be provided to? The basic regex, that someone who doesn't have the knowledge to look up PCRE would need help with, can easily be found by searching google for "regex tutorial." Not to mention the fact that there is a $regex and $regsub tutorial on mircscripts.org

true but your singling out regex as the only basis for this ..... i mean as a whole for other aspects of mirc it would be nice to supply some additional links. Altho yes i do see your point too. Im only suggesting this cause i can see it would be alil more helpful to others rather than some of the breif mirc help file explanations ...... dont think im saying all are too breif ..... only some are

yes, for example: the link codemastr gave me for a $regex tutorial was really helpfull, but in mirc help file, it doesnt say anything about ^,+?,etc, so i think providing links to other tutorials will be good, as long as it doesnt waste too much of khaleds time checking the tutorials are worthy

pheonix: re your comments about $regex,$regsub being better explained, the help file clearly says:
Regular expressions are basically a grammar that can be used to perfom complicated pattern matching operations. You should already know how to use Regular expressions before using the identifiers below.

It is beyond the scope of this help file to explain how Regular Expressions work. There are many websites on the internet that introduce regular expressions and provide examples.

General reply:
- www.mirc.com includes a lot of links, perhaps add more there

- While i can see that adding some of those to the help file could be nice, i think it would cause more probs than anything else. Its an easy task to change a link on a website, and i can guarantee any outdated links in the help file would create a ton of whines here and in mIRC channels.

-it would be time consuming to check on all possible tutorials and monitor them for accuracy and content, and what if even one was changed to something that would be a prob? or if a site decided they didnt want to be included any more? easy to change on a website, but not if its out in the world on every copy of mIRC.

-wanna guess the number of "why didnt you include MY tutorial" "pleasepleeeeeassssssssssse add my tutorial to the next version!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

-i'd like to think that if someone has enuf sense to read mIRC's help file, FAQ and website, they are also aware of, and capable of, using a search engine. And of course this forum exists to provide help and references.