Older News

Charity appeal: Iraq crisis (April 1st 2003 - updated May 1st 2003) Thanks to all of the mIRC users who registered their copies of mIRC during the month of April to support our appeal, 100% of your registration has been donated to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for use in their Iraq crisis appeal. 1301 mIRC users registered, raising a total of $24,450.00. Many thanks to everyone who helped out! The appeal is over, however if you still have any questions about it please email Khaled or the Red Cross.

Discussion Forums & Mailing list back online (November 20^th 2002 - updated December 8^th 2002)

The Discussion Forums and Mailing List have been down while we recovered from the fire that destroyed our webserver. We're happy to announce most of the services are back online! To our regret all recent discussions on the forums are lost. Therefore we decided to start from scratch with a new version of the software. Check it out and create a login?

Charity appeal: Southern Africa food crisis (August 1st 2002 - updated September 2nd 2002) Thanks to all of the mIRC users who registered their copies of mIRC during the month of August to support our appeal, 100% of your registration has been donated to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for use in their Southern Africa food crisis appeal. 1873 mIRC users registered, raising a total of $32,160.00. Many thanks to everyone who helped out! The appeal is over, however if you still have any questions about it please email Khaled or the Red Cross.

mIRC v6.03 has been released! (August 16^th 2002)

With this new release we hope to address most, if not all, of the comments, requests and remarks we recieved over the past weeks. We tried to focus on fixing the few but annoying buggies found in the previous version, but of course added quite a few new features and functions.

The 'perform on connect' sorting mistake has been fixed, also the numeric 330 bug, the flickering menubar and toolbar, the ! on INPUT processing bug, the $read and a similar freeze bug with invalid filenames, a switchbar multi-line display bug, dcc ignore bug, a /timer bug, and a bug in the highlight feature are fixed. The $ticks has changed back to the old method because of a bug in Windows' high performance timer... *mumble*

Other fixes are the /load command that could trigger multiple on load events, a proxy authentication bug, the $asctime() bug, a small dcc server ignore bug, and an important memory bug in script parser, where mIRC checks if a script has been loaded/unloaded while a script is running.

mIRC now supports several IRCX events on any server that sends them, not just for IRCX servers, it will (again) try to rejoin a channel even if it was +i or +k, we improved the way mIRC determines what default web browser you use, rewrote the mark/copy routine, and added a $nick().idle property that returns the idle time for a person on a channel. You can also use this idle time feature in the nick color list dialog in the addressbook!

Contribute a translation (June 7^th 2002)

As you might have noticed we have a huge collection of translations of the English download and install instructions available. To our regret we are missing translations in Bengali, Cheyenne, Cherokee, Gaelic, Latin, Maori, Pali, Tibetan and quite a few other languages. You are invited to help us and other mIRC users by translating our basic installation helpfile to your language. Translations of this file will be placed on mIRC's website and spread by our 'helpdesk'.

mIRC v6.02 has been released! (June 6^th 2002)

With this new release we hope to address most, if not all, of the comments, requests and remarks we recieved after the release of version 6.01. Several changes are initiated by the multi-server features introduced in mIRC 6.0. You might want to check out how the 'perform on connect section' has been moved to the connect section, near the server settings, and allows you to specify a different set of commands for different networks, and how basic features as the /aop /avoice /protect and /ignore commands now allow you to specify a network name.

The multi-line switchbar options in the display dialog have been extended, mIRC no longer closes a channel window on reconnect to a server if you have keep channels open enabled, no longer attempts to rejoin a channel on reconnect if the channel was invite only or if it was locked and mIRC didn't have the key.

Changes scripters will like include the $ticks which does no longer wrap around every 49.7 days, custom dialogs that no longer require an ok or cancel button, and new events like on CONNECTFAIL that triggers when a connection attempt including its retries has failed.

Fancy new things have been added like the Alt+F1 key combination that hides all windows associated to a status window switchbar button 'in' that button. Try it and you'll see what I mean!

Several more or less annoying bugs have been fixed;

• A memory handling bug which may have caused mIRC to crash in situations where it wasn't able to allocate memory,
• a bug with mIRC not saving certain settings on exit, including /notify command line changes, as well as server settings, ignore thingies, etc,
• a tab key nick completion bug,
• a window tiling bug when a maximized window was closed while auto-tile/cascade was enabled,
• the on keydown/keyup events in custom @windows not handling some keys,
• editboxes that limited the amount of text that could be entered,
• the "* Disconnected" message not being displayed in channel window in some situations,
• a problem where mIRC was not using the system default for browser/email programs,
• a small problem where the nick in a channel/query window titlebar not being updated on a nick change if the "Show nick in channel/query titlebars" option was enabled,
• ...and lots of other things are improved or fine-tuned after user feedback, your feedback!

Scripting mIRC 6.x (Updated March 15^th 2002)

If you need some extra pointers with scripting for mIRC 6.x, using it's new features, lots of scripting help is available in the mIRC FAQ as well as through links on the mIRC Help page. Have fun!

mIRC v6.01 has been released! (February 10^th 2002)

With this new release we hope to address most, if not all, of the comments, requests and remarks we received after the release of version 6.0. We'd like to emphasize the new visual style dialog that allows you to set and change frame styles (borders, lines and bevels), switchbar buttons, and a new option to disable support for irc:// chat links.

Several more or less annoying bugs have been fixed; a socket bug which that very likely caused the crashes some of you have been reporting, a connection retry bug which may have resulted in wrong nicknames, channel prefixes and nick mode prefixes, etc. Other fixes are:

• an /ignore -u bug with multi-server support,
• Agent support,
• IRCX support for MS servers,
• the on NOSOUND event not triggering,
• the notify list that got lost if you used command line parameters,
• the password editbox,
• dcc send/get windows not showing "transfer incomplete",
• and lots of other things are improved or fine-tuned after user feedback....

mIRC v6.0 has been released! (February 3^rd 2002)

You'll notice lots of little and larger changes to smoothen your IRC experience. Lots of 16bit-specific code has been removed from mIRC's routines. 16 bit related memory issues, kludges and bugs are solved. The new multi-server feature required major internal changes to mIRC's code and forced improvement of code in many areas which has undoubtfully resulted in an even more stable mIRC! Working on this important new feature we focussed on keeping mIRC as it always has been; no-nonsense, robust, -working- :-) We tried to keep the changes to the scripting language etc, as clean as possible. Upgrading should be fairly painless. We really recommend you to download and try mIRC v6.0!

Changes, improvements and new features:
As usual the new MIRC offers heaps of changes and improvements. Lots of little and larger changes to smoothen your IRC experience. Since mIRC 6.0 is no longer available in a 16 bit issue all references to the old 32 and 16 bit distributions have been removed. Lots of 16bit-specific code has been removed from mIRC's routines. Lots of 16 bit related memory issues, problems, kludges and bugs are solved. All dialogs in mIRC should now use standard dialog fonts for the version of Windows you are using. When running XP, mIRC now uses your XP theme for dialogs, buttons, etc.

Various other changes include:

• The max cps fserve option now allows a dcc send to use up the full max cps if no other dccs are using the bandwidth.
• You can now create a second editbox on channel windows, via the channel window system menu, the right-click menu in the editbox, or the Alt+Q shortcut.
• mIRC will no longer rejoin an open channel window if you disconnect and then connect to a different network.
• Added WMA/OGG support to sounds dialog, /splay and /sound commands, and added several new new identifiers to support it. (Note: these new identifiers replace several old ones that are still supported -for now- but no longer documented.)
• Added 'Trusted Users' list to DCC Auto-get options dialog.
• Firewall support can now be enabled separately for server and dcc connections.
• When running under XP, mIRC now uses your XP theme for dialogs, buttons, etc.
• mIRC now processes incoming server messages rather strict, ignoring corrupted or malicious lines, and treats ctcp messages that use an invalid format as plain text.
• Added "Queue own messages" option to flood dialog, applying to your PRIVMSG and NOTICE messages.
• The connect retry options (including a new retry delay option) in the File/Options/Connect/Options dialog now have their own button.

1. Enable the 'new server window' checkbox in the connect dialog, select a server, and hit the 'connect to IRC Server' button,
2. Hold down shift key when selecting a server from the right mouse-click popup menu of the 'options' button in the toolbar (reread that ;),
3. Use the new /server -m command.

The new multi-server feature required major internal changes to mIRC's code and forced improvement of code in many areas which has undoubtfully resulted in an even more stable and robust mIRC! Working on this important new feature we focussed on keeping mIRC as it always has been; no-nonsense, robust, -working- :) We tried to keep the changes to the scripting language etc, as clean as possible. Upgrading should be fairly painless.
Still a multitude of ID's, identifiers and commands has been changed and added to support the new parallel connections. Everything in mIRC now has an unique id number; all windows, server connections, dcc sends/get/chats, etc....

One Million mIRC Fans on Release Announcement list! (December 3^rd 2001)

The announcement list that informs you of new releases of mIRC has reached a great milestone: it just received it's one millionth subscriber! The list has been growing steadily ever since it came into existence two years ago, see-sawing a bit on release dates, but getting ever closer to that magical 1,000,000 figure, so it's great that it finally made it! :-) Subscribing to the list is easy by the way, see the mailing lists page to find out how. If you subscribe we will send you an email as soon as a new mIRC version releases.

Charity appeal: Afghan refugee crisis (October 5th 2001 - updated December 19th 2001) The October appeal is over and has been a great success! Thanks to all of the mIRC users who registered their copies of mIRC during the month of October to support our Afghan Refugee appeal. 1347 mIRC users registered their copies of mIRC, raising a total of US$27,970.00! These monies have been donated to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to help with refugee issues in and around Afghanistan. The appeal is over, however if you still have any questions about it please email Khaled or the Red Cross.

mIRC v5.91 has been released! (June 15^th 2001)

A great new mIRC version has been released. We are absolutely sure you'll love it :-) In the past months we have been steadily working on new features and better code and we performed a lot of testing to solve the tiny buggies some of you found in the previous version. We really recommend you to download and try mIRC v5.91!

Changes, improvements and new features:
As usual the new MIRC offers heaps of changes and improvements. Lots of little and larger changes to smoothen your IRC experience. Although this version is merely a bugfix version, several functions and features have been added or improved.

Among the bugs you might have noticed is one that messed up the merging of popup menu's. In this new mIRC complete menu's from different scripts will merge properly. Also fixed are bugs in $eval(), $var() and small thingies in the 16 bit mIRC. A problem with the /whois on query option not working in single message window is solved. Overall there aren't many things you'll notice but all together enough to make your upgrade worth the trouble.

Scripters should note that $null has been completely removed as a value. This has some potential to break your scripts. When you use $null in a script, mIRC now converts it to an empty value, instead of the value "$null"!

Various other changes include:

• The flood protection has been improved with options to take your own ctcp's and 'whois on query' settings into account. You can even make Op status related commands (like /kick) to bypass the anti-flood queue.
• Since IRC networks don't provide a consistent method of telling an IRC client the name of the network it's connected to, mIRC now supports the numeric 005 NETWORK=name token. Hope that helps?
• When you have the "keep channel open" option enabled, mIRC now clears the nicklist if a channel window is open but not joined.
• A "Blink icons" option is added to the Display dialog. With this option the switchbar icons of channel/query windows will blink if there's a message/highlight or flash event.
• Notify no longer triggers on a nick change if nick has only changed case.
• A $+(n1,...,nN) identifier that combines parameters has been added.
• The notify options to show address and time are re-added.
• The Hash commands are extended to allow storage of binary variables.
• The variable types dispatch and unknown are added to $com(). These allow you to pass dispatch/unknown pointers as parameters in a $com() call, or to retrieve dispatch/unknown pointers from a $com() call, by reference.
• You can now pause and resume a timer with the /timer -pr switches.
• mIRC now waits 30 seconds before a re-connect attempt if the server says that you were throttled for connecting too fast.

mIRC v5.9 has been released! (April 26^th 2001)

As usual the new MIRC offers heaps of changes and improvements. Lots of little and larger changes to smoothen your IRC experience. We recommend you to download and try mIRC v5.9!

Changes, improvements and new features:
This version has far too many improvements, new features and functions to mention here in detail. If you have questions, may we invite you to the Discussion Forums on this website? This discussion platform offers great help with everything related to mIRC!

• Something you should really take a look at is the new and improved Address Book. It still offers an easy interface to addresses and related info of other IRC users but now also includes your notify list, Op, Voice, Ignore and Protect lists and a new feature to color all nicknames around that match a certain format. You wanted all ops blue? your friends green? target and enemy red? You got it!
• A smart "Keep channels open" option has been added to the IRC/Options dialog. It keeps channel windows open after you're kicked so you can read the last part of a conversation.
• Built-in ctcp flood protection for ctcp version, ping, finger, and time has been added. It will ignore (groups) of users for up to 10 seconds.
• In the display section you can now enable transparency support for desktop windows under Win 2000.
• The dcc send/get windows interface has been redesigned. You can now easier open folders and resend files straight from the dcc send dialog. Also a small error in the DCC Send/Get cps calculation was fixed and the maximum bandwidth use by outgoing DCC's is better limited now.
• Agent support no longer strips out high-ascii characters used in non-english languages.

We think most of you will be happy with the simple things like $input(), $read() instead of $read, and $style() for popups. Also $eval() is nice, and please note the parser change for [brackets]'s!

• The script editor editbox can now handle 64k of text in the 32bit mIRC.
• Things might get a little tricky when you try the new support for regular expressions (regex), COM objects and SendMessage() to communicate with mIRC. This really is something for the hefty scripter...

Discussion Forums (April 8^th 2001)

Today we added Discussion Forums to the mIRC website. We hope this offers a friendly place where you can discuss IRC, mIRC, and related topics. Also if you need help with mIRC, such as configuring options or using certain features, you can post your questions here. We will help you where we can, and for sure other mIRC users will jump in as well.

Happy Birthday, mIRC! :-) (February 28^th 2001)

Six years old today! Khaled started working on mIRC as a hobby for his own use in late 1994, and released the first public version of mIRC on 28th February 1995, thinking that other people might find it useful. With help from many users in the IRC community, mIRC grew and grew, and today mIRC has millions of users, chatting across IRC networks around the world! Who knew? :-)

Thanks to everyone who has helped mIRC along since it's inception. We hope that mIRC has, in some way, made the world a smaller, better place.

Contribute a translation (January 7^th 2001)

Do you speak Esperanto? Bengali? Cheyenne, Cherokee, Gaelic, Latin? Maori, Pali or Tibetan? You are invited to help us and other mIRC users by translating our basic installation helpfile to your language. Translations of this file will be placed on mIRC's website and spread by our 'helpdesk'. This way we hope to help people who can not easily read all our help in English. You would be amazed to know how many people this involves!

mIRC v5.82 has been released! (December 14^th 2000)

A new mIRC version has been released. The previous version performed very well during the past month. Still we thought several thingies needed a fix or update, leading to this new release. We really recommend you to download and try mIRC v5.82!

Changes, improvements and new features:
This version has far too many improvements, new features and functions to mention here in detail. I'll point to some of the simple ones here - the ones you might encounter right away:

• The 32bit mIRC will no longer work under Windows 3.1x with the Win32s 32-bit extentions. Since the 16 bit mIRC offers exactly the same as the 32 bit mIRC this makes no real difference to users of old Windows versions. Simply use the 16 bit mIRC. This change shaved 100k off the exe size and makes mIRC faster since no internal fixes are being used any more.
• The support of the irc://address.or.server and .chat file formats has improved a lot. It will use DDE again so if a mIRC is already running on your PC, it is used. If no mIRC is found via DDE, a new mIRC is opened. It pops up a confirmation dialog if mIRC is already running and connected to a server.
• By popular request the Names button is added back to the Channels Folder.
• Try the new Control+L key combination. It will enable a line that marks the last line in the scrollback buffer of a window that you most probable have read. The line is updated if mIRC isn't the active window. Control+L turns the line on/off if it's currently visible.
• Mousewheel support for microsoft mice is fixed. Some small thingy blocked its use in previous mIRC versions. A small bug in the DCC ignore settings dialog is fixed. Also the channel central, that was trying to set topic even if you didn't have ops, is fixed. You can open the channel central with the /channel command btw.

mIRC v5.81 has released! (November 9^th 2000)

A new mIRC version has released. The previous version performed very well during the past months. Still we thought several thingies needed a fix or update, leading to this new release. We really recommend you to download and try mIRC v5.81!

Improvements and new features:
This version has far too many improvements, new features and functions to mention here in detail. I'll point to some of the simple ones here - the ones you might encounter right away:

• Remember how mIRC now uses it's own internal beep sound for event beeps? By popular request the internal beep is now only played for event beeps. mIRC uses the default windows sound for errors etc. and a "pc speaker" option has been added overriding both of them. Happy?
• Another looong awaited feature is a built-in uninstaller. I wouldn't know why that is needed but next time you clean up your PC, mIRC is easily removed by the control panel add/remove dialog! It also removes all registry changes btw.
• An important change has been made to the socket connection routines. mIRC was binding the connect socket, even if it wasn't necessary. This may have prevented mIRC from connecting through a DSL or network environment.
• The Flood protection has been improved by sending a NOTICE instead of a PRIVMSG to the server every now and then. As you might know mIRC will wait for this notice to get back from the server before it resumes sending any queued lines.
• A small problem with the .chat files that unloaded all of your remotes has been fixed. More important is the complete integration of .chat file support into the mIRC executable. The mlink helper applications are no longer needed! mIRC will also set up the .cha and .chat associations in the registry.
• With mIRC 5.81 we're experimenting with support for URL's of the irc://irc.undernet.org:6667/mIRC format. This makes it very easy to add a link to your website leading to your favorite IRC channel! Give it a try? Please note however that this only seems to be working for MS Internet Exploder -not Netscape- we're still working on this :)
• The new /anick command no longer changes your current nickname, unless the alternate nick is the active one. /nick will try to prevent nick and altnick from becoming identical nicks.
• By popular request you can now either disable, or ignore all except certain known file types, or ignore only certain known (and often malicious) file types in the DCC Ignore feature.

• A small change in the Channel Central (use the /channel command) blocked the use of control characters in the topic editbox. This blocked the use of colors etc. Sorry.
• The /splay command will now accept long file names even if they're not enclosed in quotes and error messages are now also wrapped.
• A little bug that emerged if you double-clicked URL's under Windows ME is fixed.
• Another buggy in the Agent wasn't allowing you to turn agent on/off on a per channel/query window basis.

International Year for the Culture of Peace (September 7^th 2000)

Please visit the United Nations UNESCO website and sign the manifesto to declare your participation in the culture of peace. We hope that IRC, in helping people around the world to communicate, has contributed in some way towards this goal!

mIRC v5.8 has released! (September 5^th 2000)

A great new mIRC version has released. We are absolutely sure you'll love it :-) In the past months we have been steadily working on new features and better code and we performed a lot of testing to solve the tiny buggies some of you found in the previous version. We really recommend you to download and try mIRC v5.8!

Buggies fixed:
mIRC's new version fixes most, if not all, of the small but nevertheless annoying buggies found in the previous version 5.71. Some prominent ones are a bug in the Agent support that made Agents speak channel actions even if only private actions were enabled, a bug in the highlight feature which was matching against nicknames incorrectly in some cases, and a small bugger in the flood protection.

Improvements and new features:
This version has far too many improvements, new features and functions to mention here in detail. I'll point to some of the simple ones here - the ones you might encounter right away:

• mIRC now uses it's own internal beep sound for event beeps. To several users it was very annoying that some setting in windows messed up the most simple beeps in mIRC. This should be solved now.
• The URL's you can click on in mIRC now have their own right-click popup menu.
• The "No such nick/channel" message is now immediately shown in query windows. You won't be chatting into empty space anymore if somebody decided to leave without telling you.
• A new channel central dialog displays the ban, exept and invite lists a lot clearer. Also an Edit button has been added for on the fly editing of an address.
• mIRC now supports mp3 files through the /splay command. Several related events and identifiers are available. With the $mp3(filename) identifier you can look up all kinds of properties like title, artist, length, bitrate, sample mode, etc..

mIRC's new versions have far too many new features and functions to mention here in detail. I've shown a few here, in a nutshell. Do not forget to read the versions.txt if you want more information on all changes.

Half a million mIRC fans on news list! (August 9^th 2000)

The news list that informs you of future releases of mIRC reached a great milestone. Early this morning it hit half a million subscribers! Growing at a steady pace of 1 person per minute. Now we're talking statistics - this website attracts far over 100.000 visitors per day who download 35.000 copies of mIRC on average. Imagine all copies downloaded from other download sites around the world, and the stats get quite impressive ;-)

Distribution of mIRC (June 7^th 2000)

Can you help us? With more and more mIRC users the load on the FTP servers that distribute mIRC is raising. To spread this load we're looking for Internet Providers all over the world that can host our installation files. Are you interested to provide some bandwidth? Read about our upload service.

Over four hundred thousand on Release announcement list! (June 5^th 2000)

The mailing list that informs you of future releases of mIRC reached another milestone; four hundred thousand people have subscribed to the list already! Subscribing to the list is very easy btw; just fill in your email address and push the subscribe button on the mailinglist page.

mIRC v5.71 has released! (May 7^th 2000)

A great new mIRC version has released. We are absolutely sure you'll love it :-) In the past months we have been working on new features and better code and this new version 5.71 fixes most, if not all, of the small but nevertheless annoying buggies found in the previous version 5.7. We therefore really recommend you to download and try this new mIRC v5.71!

mIRC's new version 5.71 has far too many improvements and new features and functions to mention here in detail. I'll point to some of the simple ones here - these are the ones you might encounter right away:

• Support for dual monitor displays (in the 32bit mIRC) has been improved by a new option in the Display/Options/ dialog.
• The 32 bit mIRC now supports .JPG and .PNG image files next to the older bitmap support for backgrounds etc.
• To prevent you from getting flooded the CTCP Version requests are now queued by mIRC, and the replies are sent once every few seconds.
• When clicking the "Connect" button to connect to a server, you can now hold down the Control key to force mIRC to use the next server in the list. mIRC has lots of handy functions like this. They are explained in the help file. Some need a little practise, others will come to you by nature.
• Several things in the Channel window interface changed. The number of users in channel is now shown in the channel titlebar, you can now resize the nicknames listbox in channel windows, you can add color to the nicknames that are talking (the "Highlight nicknames" option) and to complete things you can now prefix nicknames with their mode on the channel (.@%+) by the "Show mode prefix" option in the IRC dialog. This allows quick insight in the users status.
• After manual support for the Microsoft Agent was added in version 5.7, built in support has now been added to mIRC in the options/Sounds/ dialog. You can easily enable agent events for channels, messages etc. without any scripting knowledge. It has never been easier to listen to IRC!
• An important change was made to the DCC "ignore file types" feature in DCC/Options/. It now works as an "ignore all except.." filter. This will prevent you from downloading unknown but malicious files from strangers. A simple ignore timer, allows you to turn off the ignore for a small period after which mIRC auto-activates it again.
• When using wildcards the highlight method now matches the wildcarded text against individual words separated by spaces, instead of against the whole line.

mIRC supports Microsoft® Agent (February 2^nd 2000)

mIRC now supports Microsoft Agent, through scripting, if you have it installed on your system. An agent is an animated character that can speak text and perform actions. With a little fiddling and tweaking you will be able to have this agent speak to you, warn you about things happening on IRC, or even read-up entire discussions to you!

mIRC v5.7 has released! (February 2^nd 2000)

mIRC's new version 5.7 fixes most, if not all, of the small but nevertheless annoying buggies found in the previous version 5.61. mIRC's new version 5.7 has far too many improvements and new features and functions to mention here in detail. I'll point to some of the simple ones here - these are the ones you might encounter right away:

• A new, fresher interface, cute buttons - brighter colors!
• Support for Microsoft Agent has been added to the 32 bit version of mIRC under Windows95 or greater. An agent is an animated character that can speak text and perform actions. With a little fiddling and tweaking you will be able to have this agent speak to you, warn you about things happening on IRC, or even read-up entire discussions to you! Also, if you have Speech Recognition software installed, mIRC can be made to listen to voice commands!
• A network listbox has been added to the connect dialog. You can now easily select a network and then quickly select the desired server within that group of servers. By default a selection of all random servers is shown. It is now also possible to specify a range in the Ports settings of an IRC server, eg. 6660-6669. This will spread the load on the IRC servers ports a lot more, thus giving faster access!
• The mIRC Installer now sets up support for .chat files in your registry file. Too many new users had difficulties in setting this up, we do it for you now :)
• You can now right-click on the alias, popup, remote and DCC toolbar buttons to pop up the new Quick Access menus. This will improve access to frequently used settings a lot.
• The channel central dialog (/channel) now uses a tabbed dialog to accomodate support for the new +e (ban exeption) and +I (invites) channel modes as found on IRCnet. With the new 'Display' tab in this dialog you can redirect or disable all sorts of channel event messages. This allows you to see the join, part, quit, mode and other messages exactly where you want them, or not at all!
• Yiihoooo - you can now completely disable the "ping? pong!" messages in the File/Options/IRC dialog.
• mIRC now allows you to select a font script for a font in the font dialog. This is needed to support arabic, cyrillic and chinese characters. People who speak these languages will understand how this works :)
• When you're DCC Sending a lot you might like the new option that sets the "max cps per user" in the File/Options/DCC/Fserve dialog. This allows you to limit the send speed used by a DCC Send to a user in a Fileserver, but is also applied to /dcc sends initiated in a remote script.
• We changed the Identd server behaviour back to how it worked before version 5.61. Not all IRC servers liked the (correctly implemented) new communication and considered you un-idented.
• Various other small changes have been made; you can automatically sort incoming files by nickname into folders, restart logfiles per day, week or month, and set a completely custom timestamp format for all messages, logs, etc.

• Really lots and lots of scripting things have been added. A bulkload of Identifiers, Dialog improvements and a lot more. Dear Scripters; READ the versions.txt included with the new mIRC for all info and crawl through the help file for the details. Watch out for the new %helper mode, it is easily confused with variables since % is also the %variable prefix! Enjoy the support for while loops that has been added. (This repeats a loop while some expression is true) Multiple while loops can be embedded. You can use /break to break out of the current loop. You can also use the /continue command to jump to the beginning of the loop. Have fun! Oh, and beware of old scripts; We finally removed support for the very old $parm and *N identifier format!

Two hundred thousand on Release announcement list! (January 16^th 2000)

The mailing list that informs you of future releases of mIRC reached a wonderful milestone. Two hundred thousand people have subscribed to the list already! Subscribing to the list is very easy; just fill in your email address and push the subscribe button in the box below.

Download of the Millennium? (January 15^th 2000)

ZDnet had nominated 50 shareware and freeware programs that impressed the world in the past years for the 'Download of the Millennium Award' and lots of you voted on mIRC for its steady going, ease of use, wowiethepowie, website and FAQ, goood chatting .....lots of fun, and of course to win that new PC ZDnet offers! The results are in; mIRC reached great 12th place!

Distribution of mIRC (December 7^th 1999)

Can you help us? With more and more mIRC users the load on the FTP servers that distribute mIRC is raising. To spread this load we're looking for Internet Providers all over the world that can host our installation files. Are you interested to provide some bandwidth? Read about our upload service...

Top Pick (December 3^rd 1999)

Cnet's Download.com website is under re-construction and also the "Top Pick" program has been updated. We love to see that mIRC continues to be one of their more popular downloads, with over two million copies served already! We are thankfull for the recognition mIRC gets from Cnet and all of you; mIRC's users; this is what keeps us going :-)

Translate our basic installation helpfile (November 24^th 1999)

With our translation project we try to help people who can not easily read all our information provided in English. You would be amazed to know how many people this involves! Over 20 translations are available already but we still need translations to Japanese, Frisian and Polish for instance.. You are invited to help us (and your friends) by translating the basic installation helpfile to your mother language.

Over hundred thousand on announcement list (November 3^rd 1999)

The mailing list that informs you of future releases of mIRC reached a wonderful milestone. Over hundred thousand people have subscribed to the list already! Subscribing to the list is very easy; just fill in your email address and push the subscribe button on the mailing lists page.

mIRC Release announcement list (August 26^th 1999)

It is now possible to get a notification by email as soon as a new mIRC version has released. Subscribing to the list is very easy; just fill in your email address below and we will make sure you will be among the first to know about every new mIRC version. We will update you on the new functions and features in mIRC and you will get a list of fast download addresses. We guarantee your email address will only be used for release announcements. Read more on the mailing lists page.

The search for E.T. (May 20^th 1999)

We invite you to join the mIRC SETI Team and to participate in a world-wide effort to find E.T! SETI@home is a scientific experiment that harnesses the power of hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected computers in the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. You can participate by running a program that automagically downloads and analyzes radio telescope data from the Arecibo Radio Telescope. There is a possibility that your computer will detect the faint murmur of a civilization beyond Earth. And the next step is to chat with them, through mIRC of course ;-)

mIRC v5.61 has released! (September 23^rd 1999)

Please read the details of all changes in the versions.txt file distributed with mIRC and available on the Web. To mention a few changes;

• The lock feature, with which you can disable functions in mIRC and limit its use to certain channels, is improved and a small problem in the lock dialog password routine is fixed. You can for instance use this feature to allow kids access to trusted IRC channels only. Or to disable the /run and /dll commands. Also lock 'error' messages for items locked in the lock dialog are now more informative, eg. when trying to join a locked out channel, etc.
• The support for IRCX servers has been improved. IRC is a constantly evolving medium and lots of changes to mIRC are made with every new version to keep in track with new IRC server code and network specific changes. Don't forget; we dont write or maintain the IRC Networks :) In this version we also improved the support for !#channels on IRCnet and listing channels on DALnet servers works a lot better now; the *wildcard* method mIRC was using before wasn't being recognized, so the entire channels list was being sent.
• You can now roll/unroll windows if you hold down the shift key when right-clicking on the window titlebar. This is a fancy way to clear up your desktop in an instance.
• Tooltips now pop up over incomplete switchbar button names.
• You can now use the Control+Q key combination to cycle through all open Query windows. And cycled windows are automatically minimized when you cycle out of them.
• You can now customize the time-stamp format to about anything that fits you.
• A right-click popup menu is added to DCC Send/Get windows for extra functions.
• The RAW event can now handle unknown NAMED events. You can use this to script with server events not yet defined internally in mIRC.
• A $lock(item) identifier is added. It returns $true or $false if an item is locked, where item can be: send, get, chat, fserve, run, dll, or channel. For the channel item, you can also use $lock(channel,N) where N returns the Nth channel in the list, or you can specify a channel name instead of N.
• You can now use the on INPUT in dcc chat/fserve windows to process your own typing.
• The $chat, $fserv, $send and $get identifiers are extended to $chat(nick,N), $fserv(nick,N) etc for nicks with mutliple dcc sessions open. The old format is still supported.
• You can now create tabs in custom dialogs.

mIRC 5.51 released (February 19^th 1999)

mIRC's new version 5.51 fixes most, if not all, of the small but nevertheless annoying buggies found in version 5.5 that brought lots of new options and features to IRC and recieved a very warm welcome by all of you. Thanks for all positive reactions!

During the past few weeks small and larger problems were reported. Very obvious was the bug in the /help command. Sorry, it seems we dont need help often enough and that buggie was missed in beta testing... The handling of hotlink nicknames (you can right-click on all nicknames of people present in your channels) had to be improved a little and a resources problem with the mouse pointer moving over clickable items had to be fixed. The flood control routines are made more independent and robust, and a tricky problem related to not ignoring users if you have a query window open with them is fixed. Also a nasty bug in the DCC Server which in certain cases was not removing leading \ and . chars from the filename that was sent is fixed. Apart from these and other less visible fixes several new thingies are introduced in this new mIRC.

By popular demand the 'Show Topics in channel' option is added back. A new 'Timestamp Logs' option is added that enforces timestamping in all log files. This feature for instance facilitates the funny mIRCStats channel statistics add-on program. Several improvements to the Identifiers used in scripting have been made, especially note the new $dialog features!

Last but not least, preparations have been made to facilitate the planned +c channelmode on DALnet as much as possible with the little information we have on this new mode.

It is very possible you never experienced any of the mentioned bugs as they (like most of the other ones mentioned in the versions.txt) only occur in very specific situations and/or under tricky scripting conditions. Nothing a normal chatter has anything to do with :-)

mIRC 5.5 released (January 8^th 1999)

Great news of course! After several months of hard work mIRC is available in a new version. We are absolutely sure you'll love it :-) In all these months we have been steadily working on new features, better code and we performed a lot of testing.

You'll notice lots of changes in the dialogs with options. mIRC now uses a treelist with options with the less important options more down in its branches. The old tabbed dialogs became too stuffed and confused new users too much. On first startup there is now only one small fill-in screen that matters for your first IRC experience. You can now click on virtually everything to open URL's, join channels or popup menu's associated to users on your channel.

• Revamped the Options dialog. It now uses a treelist which provides more space to add new features clearly and cleanly.
• You can now double-click directly on URLs in windows to open a web browser. If you're in a channel window and you move the mouse over text that is a nickname on that channel, you can double-click on it for the usual doubleclick behaviour, or right-click on it to open the nickname list popup menu. If you single-click on the nickname, the cursor in the listbox is scrolled to that nickname. You can also double-click on a channel name to join it.
• mIRC has new interface options that allows you to position the list of nicknames to the right or left, or to turn it off entirely.
• You can now sort channels in the /list window to sort them by channel name, number of users, or channel topics.
• A Control-F (find) function now allows you to search for any text in your status and channel windows.
• Several new popup menu's 'under' the toolbar buttons now give fast access to your most used IRC servers, and networks and offer smart functions for the channels folder, finger, chat, and notify toolbar buttons.
• You can now automagically trim log files. This keeps log files below the maximum size you specify. This might save a lot of disk space!

• Your own messages and notices are now time-stamped if you have time-stamping turned on in a window.
• If you have a /query window open with someone, private messages from them won't be ignored even if their address matches an ignore address.
• New options in the Windows dialog make the Editor dialog modeless ie. it opens as a Desktop window, allowing editing of scripts while chatting etc.

• Improved /timers allow more precisely measurement of the elapsed time. Also added is a /timer -c switch, makes mIRC "catch up" a timer by executing it more than once during one interval if the real-time interval isn't matching your requested interval. This happens often because timer messages can be delayed by a few milli-seconds each time they are triggered due to the OS being busy, and the number of milliseconds lost accumulates over time.
• Also added is support for DALnet's WATCH list. mIRC now uses this for it's notify feature when on DALnet servers >= 4.6.3 since it's far more efficient. All mIRC does is submit a list of nicknames to the server, and the server then notifies mIRC whenever a user comes on or off the network. On non-DALnet servers, mIRC still uses the old notify method which sends an ISON with your entire notify list every 40 seconds or so to get an update. This method ignores the address portion of your notify nickname if you specified one.

mIRC 5.41 released (July 24^th 1998)

Although mIRC's new version 5.41 is just a bugfix release over version 5.4, it is highly recommended that you get this upgrade. A bugfix version always solves a number of problems or addresses important issues with any brand new version of mIRC, so it is important to download it!

What is added/fixed in version 5.41?

• The 32bit mIRC now works fine under Windows 3.1 Win32s.
• $sdir identifier should now work correctly.
• Added $ulist() identifier to reference the remote users list.
• Fixed bug in DCC resume processing.
• The auto-arrange/tile bug has been solved.
• SOCKS firewall support for IRC server connections has been fixed.
• Fixed bug in /goto command when your script contains duplicate goto names.
• The behaviour of $calc() has been changed when evaluating identifiers.
• Fixed the /renwin custom window renaming bug.
• The disappearing DCC windows bug has been fixed.
• Fixed .wav sound files not playing correctly for some people.
• Improved handling of Long filenames in various commands.
• And many others...

mIRC 5.4 released (June 23^rd 1998)

Being mIRC's everyday user you will like the new option to load your own backgrounds to virtually all windows available in mIRC. Together with some sneaky sounds this allows you to create you own mIRC theme's! The highly appreciated Switchbar can now be displayed on whatever side of the mIRC window, just drag it as you like! Btw; a new method to display icons in tool- and switchbar fixes the disappearing toolbar problem some people have been experiencing.

Besides various cosmetical changes we spent a lot of time on improving commands and functions you'll use every day. You can now for instance easily exclude people from being ignored by the new features of the /ignore command. This allows you to ignore an entire provider besides your friends. A new option sets the built in Ident server to active only when you're connecting to the IRC server. This prevents this feature from being abused.

The DCC routines are improved -again-, thus giving you better file transfer speeds! mIRC now has Socks5 firewall support and an -experimental- method for DCC Send/Chat through a SOCKS5 firewall. When you're behind a firewall, give it a try? Oh, you can now initiate a DCC Chat or file transfer even when you, or the other person, is not connected to any IRC network! Just use the IP number of the machine you want to contact to.

mIRC now automatically supports serverside filtering of the channel list on DALnet, just like it always has been on Undernet. Also support for the new Efnet TS4 features has been added. And when you, accidentally, get disconnected from the IRC server you use, mIRC will automatically reconnect to the server (or another server on the same network) and rejoin all channels you were chatting on! With a little luch you wont loose anything of the ongoing conversation.

What else do you want? The installation program has been improved, the /whois command displays its result anywhere you like and is more tightly integrated into the address book, the DDE funtions are updated, the nick completion is extended,..... As I said; too much to mention it all!

Did we forget about the scripters? NO, dont worry :-) By popular request we added lots and lots of new commands, functions and parameters! Most of your requests have been implemented and a lot more are newly invented by our beta testers. Have fun scanning through the versions.txt and explore some new boundaries? Dont forget to read the helpfile though, to get fully informed with examples and nifty ideas!

Have fun, have lots of fun on IRC with this new MIRC!

Books about mIRC and IRC (June 16^th 1998)

Did you know how many books are written about mIRC and IRC already? Our bookstore contains quite a collection already. Maybe there is a book available that helps you to understand mIRC and IRC better?

Information on Trojans and Worms (June 3^rd 1998)

Users of IRC have recently experienced malicious scripts and programs that try to mess up their IRC experience. Among these scripts and programs are the dmsetup.exe and script.ini worm. The IRC Help website offers excellent information to clean and protect your mIRC from all known Trojans and Worms. In short: upgrade to mIRC 5.4 and do not accept files from people you dont know.

mIRC 5.31 released (January 4^th 1998)

Although mIRC's new version 5.31 is just a buggie fix release over version 5.3 it is highly recommended you get this upgrade. Most, if not all bugs are fixed in this version and new features are improved and/or better tuned to your expectations. The visible changes might look minimal (which is reflected in the small version number difference of 0.01) but this version might exactly solve the small but annoying buggies you experienced! :-)

The socket support and the improved /window control command (with which you can draw and fill all kinds of shapes and even handle bitmaps) that were introduced in version 5.3 are very well recieved. Lots and lots of scripters are already making fancy implementations with it.

What is fixed in version 5.31?

• We fixed the Alt-Gr keyboard bug. This was a real pain to all scandinavian, turkish, belgian and maybe even more users. It blocked the use of various characters.
• A bug in the random port selection routine is fixed which was resulting in DCCs freezing up if your IP address was incorrect.
• A DCC Get extensions bug (under Win3.1x) is fixed. This feature allows you to launch third party applications after a file transfer.
• The Dynamic Help menu display of .txt and .hlp files in mIRC's directory has changed a little. They are now separated into their own sub-menus.
• Small buggies in the $?="...", $readini, $count() and $address are fixed.
• If a user doesn't have a .wav or .mid dcc get directory association, mIRC now sets one up so downloaded .wav and .mid files go straight into the sounds directory so they can be used immediately with /sound and /splay.

Cnet recommends mIRC

Cnet reviewed 19 programs for online chatting and recommends mIRC as their favorite Internet Relay Chat client. In a thorough discussion of all aspects of online chatting, Cnet hands you all tools you need to make the best personal choice for your future internet chat journeys, and in several excellent reviews of the best known clients, 'covering the cream of the crop', they shift the haves from the have nots.

mIRC 5.3 released (December 13^th 1997)

A new mIRC version has released and is quickly spreading around the globe. The amount of new features, options and tricks implemented in this new version is virtually endless. I'll try to explain only some of them here. For the complete list please see the versions.txt file included in mIRC's distribution package. For more help on specific items please read the mIRC help file or the FAQ.

• Among the lots and lots of handy options are an auto-tile option, a quick color index dialog that pops up when Control-K is pressed (it can be turned off!), a very simple to use text search function, a minimize to Tray option, ..... and a lot more.
• The Notify list now queues sounds if several notify users have an associated sound. This makes sure you will hear all sounds connected to the precence of your friends on IRC, for instance when you join IRC.
• The built in flood protection is improved even further by the addition of internal ctcp version flood protection.
• Added nick completion with TAB key in a channel window editbox. Give it a try. Type a letter in some editbox and pressing TAB several times will cycle you through all nicknames starting with that letter!
• A fancy /flash command is added. It flashes the mIRC icon/window, eventually with the specified text in the titlebar, but only if mIRC is not the active window. You can use this to set up extra alerting warning things in your scripts. It can even trigger warning sounds!
• The ctcp event format changed a little to; ctcp level:matchtext:[*|#|?]:commands This allows you to differentiate more easily between channel and private ctcps.
• You can now specify the range of port numbers used by DCC in the DCC Options dialog. With this option you should be able to customize mIRC's DCC capabilities to work perfectly with firewalls and proxy software! (we will have details asap)
• With the extended "!nick filename" feature mIRC supports the auto send/get of .mp3 files. You still have to start a program like winAmp of course to play .mp3 files.

  For the more advanced scripters;
  

• Some of the new 'events' are: WAVEEND, DCCSERVER, OPEN, CLOSE, ....
• Several new file handling commands allow you to rename and copy files and make new directories on the fly. Also, several file handling commands like /write, /writeini, /remini, $read, and $readini now handle long filenames (enclosed in quotes) a lot better.
• Support for custom socket connections is added. You can now write scripts that directly communicate with other machines on the net, like mail servers or whatever. You can even write fancy Internet games, especially in combination with the
• Improved /window command with which you can now draw and fill all kinds of shapes and even handle bitmaps! Who dares me for a game of tic tac toe?

  Bugs that are fixed;
  

• The problem that caused mIRC to quit on startup on language specific Windows versions (Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese...) should finally be fixed now. We are very very sorry it took quite a while working on this new mIRC to fix the problem!
• The combination of settings that allowed some malicious script.ini file to spead like fire is solved. On upgrading mIRC it will even make sure to disable that script. If your directories for DCC Gets, Logs or Sounds are the main mIRC directory, mIRC will propose to make special directories and move suiting files to them.

mIRC 5.11 released (September 11^th 1997)

mIRC's new version 5.11 is mainly a fix for the small but annoying buggies in mIRC 5.1. We believe it is important to have fast fixes for problems in new versions, before we dive into a complete new beta cycle :-) That why this release follows the 5.1 version this quick. As far as we know all annoying bugs are fixed.

• The problem that messed up the /map command on various networks is fixed. We found the new IRCnet B-line feature that mIRC supported, interfered with the /map command. We still hope for a good implementation of the B-line in the near future as it was a great idea!,
• The parsing problems with multiple word descriptive phrases,
• Some other smallies....

• The problem that caused mIRC to quit on startup on language specific Windows versions (Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese...) still sees to harm some people in exotic situations. We're working on a new mIRC (of course) in which this will be fixed for sure!

mIRC 5.1 released (August 28^th 1997)

Now that summer is over we thought it was about time to release a new mIRC version. It took a little longer because we decided to enjoy the sun while she was there, and Khaled moved to a new place. (Make sure to send your fan-mail to his new address!)

Dont expect massive -visible- changes; A lot of work is put into fixing loose ends and rewriting and streamlining parts of code, to make mIRC faster and smarter. The new things you might like to check out are the new Address Book, Auto-cascade, Floating point numbers, mIRC DCC Server, support of IRCnet's Bounce lines, Enhanced /font command.... well, there are allmost 150 changes that will all benefit to you having a great time on IRC!

mIRC breaks download records

mIRC is reviewed and rewarded with 4 and a half stars on the CWS Apps and CWS IRC Apps page and continues to rank very high in the CWS Top Applications Lists.

mIRC 5.02 released (April 21^st 1997)

mIRC's new version 5.02 is mainly created to solve some small problems of version 5.0. As usual also some new features are introduced and old features and options are improved. Also mIRC's interface is restyled to fit better to modern Windows (Win95) look and feel. The Alias, Popups and Remote sections are all placed into one editor now. This offers a somewhat faster and more compact interface for you to construct your own script lines. Some small scripting examples are included in mIRC to show new users its ease of use.

A small misconception disabled the functionality of the !@#$%^.... keys for Scandinavian users. This is fixed now, sorry folks! The toolbar appearance is changed and toolbar button colors now appear correctly under different color setups. The switchbar appearance changed with the addition of mini-icons to the buttons. Scripts can now even add sub-menus to the channel, query, nicklist, and menubar popups!

What was new in version 5.0? (April 2^nd 1997)

The new mIRC offers full color configurability. In a simple color setup dialog you can modify all default colors to whatever you like. It is made a lot easier to ignore a DCC Chat/Send offer with a new 'Ignore' button in the DCC dialogs. This allows you to discard and ignore all incoming Chats/Sends from a user for 30 seconds. This will solve DCC flood attempts.

As usual various new events and identifiers are added. People creating scripts will love to explore the new possibilities :-) You'll also run into the major Remote enhancement that allows you to mix events, commands and aliases in one file. This offers superb possibilities to create and spread compact scripts that are very easy to setup. On top you can now easily load multiple files with alias, events and commands into mIRC!

You'll note that the parameter identifier syntax changed a little to facilitate even faster processing in the future. The string syntax is unificated to $N-M. In all aliases, popups and remotes this new syntax can be used. The old format is still supported but it is better to swap to the new syntax. Instead of *1 use $1-, instead of *3-5 use $3-5. Also change $parms to $1- and $parm1 and similar to $1

!nick filename - Support for the popular "!nick filename" wave/midi get requests is added. This allows you to easily request for a sound file you haven't got yet. By default the file request will be send in a private message to the other party and not to the entire channel. This saves precious network bandwidth. If mIRC recieves a soundfile request it will automagically open a DCC Send transfer to the requesting party.

You can already easily save a past conversation to file in any windows' System Menu (Access it by combining the ALT and - (minus) key) but now also a simple command will save (part of) the buffer. Use /savebuf [lines] {window} {filename} The number of lines you want to save (from the end and up) is easily set. Tru for instance:
/savebuf 10 #mIRC mirc.log

New Remote syntax - The remote dialog and script routines have been improved and extended. The format of definitions has changed to:
ctcp 1:PING:/command etc.
on 1:JOIN:#:/command etc.
raw 1:*:/command etc.
This allows all of these to be intermixed in a single script file. The remote dialog has been altered to cater for only 3 types of files: Users, Variables, and Scripts. You can load as many script files as you require. Events will trigger all script files as independent scripts. You can also define aliases in a script by using the "alias" prefix:
alias test /echo this is a test alias!

You can also enter initialization commands which are run when a script is *first* loaded by using on 1:LOAD:/command... and initialization commands which are run whenever mIRC is first run (and loads scripts automatically) by using on 1:START:/command... The START section also runs after the LOAD section when a script is first loaded. The above allows a whole script of ctcps, events, and raw and it's related aliases and initializations to be edited and distributed in one file. If a remote event calls an alias, that remote events script file is searched first for a matching alias and if no match is found, all other alias and script files are searched.

Automatic conversion - mIRC automatically splits your current remote.ini into separate files and translates the ctcp, event, and raw entries into the new format. To manually convert old files into the new format use the Convert option in the Remote editor and load them in as an .ini file because mIRC will need the header info eg. [commands] [events] [raw] to know how to translate them. The conversion program also changes #group names in scripts that now uses "on" and "off" instead of "start" and "disabled".

mIRC 4.72 released (January 9^th 1997)

The new version 4.72 offers fixes for the small amount but none the less annoying buggies in version 4.7. These buggies only affected users in very particular situations and most people never encountered them. Fixed are the 'Windows Colors' option, the problems with control codes in topics, some channel mode handling quirks, the use of long filenames with spaces in the /run command and the problems with listing invalid ban info. Also the use of custom identifiers has been made a lot more fail proof, and wont allow you to end up in recursive loops anymore :-)

Besides the fixes also some new features are introduced. The Switchbar is made more flexible by the new option to include DCC transfers, new routines speed up its use and improve the 'look and feel'. The popup menu's can now use variables as menu item names and several new identifiers are created and new events are available.

A massive amount of work done on this new version. If you're interested in the full list of changes, please read the versions.txt file included with mIRC, and study the mIRC help file.

mIRC 4.7 released (December 9^th 1996)

As any good program should, the new release of mIRC offers several new things that extend and improve its use. The new mIRC has better scripting capabilities, lots of new and even custom identifiers and other things to meet the wishes of the experienced users. Also the new mIRC users will benefit from this new release by the improved command handling, improved and fully automatic flood protection, full support for color, bold, underline and reverse text effects, new copy/paste routines, and lots more... You will also love the new Switchbar! It enables a whole new view on channel and query maintenance. Especially users on exotic winsocks will love the new tricks to retrieve your current IP Address and Local Host name. This will solve the DCC problems some people experienced and couldn't get solved, not even with help of the FAQ. Read more in section 6-8 of the new FAQ.

Scripters should check out the versions.txt file for changes and extentions to the command syntaxes. Especially check out the new ON MODE syntax and the addition of several user mask types for bans etc.

mIRC is rewarded with five cows and a 'Must Have' application in Scott Swedorski's TUCOWS.

mIRC 4.6 released (September 7^th 1996)

As any good program should, the new release of mIRC offers several new things that extend and improve its use. The new mIRC has better scripting capabilities and new options to meet the wishes of the experienced users. Also the new IRC and mIRC users will benefit from this new release by the improved command handling and the changes made to meet the network specific modifications recently introduced on Undernet, EFnet and DALnet.

In the previous release (version 4.52) no major bugs have turned up and we're happy it prooved to be a very stable release. The only problems found in 4.52 were scripting related and didnt affect people new or unexperienced to IRC at all. All of the known problems in 4.52 are fixed in this release. Bugfixes include the time-out bug that affected DCC Send/Get and Fserv windows, the ON SNOTICE bug that affected handy use of the +s mode badly and the problems with the variables section that wasn't saved properly under certain conditions. Also the problems specificly experienced by Netcom users in the DCC Get are fixed.

Now that the evolutions in the Undernet and EFnet IRC servers have stabilised a bit (?) we think all recent problems in the /list command are solved. Several clients, including mIRC, were badly surprised by the sudden changes in the communication between servers and clients but mIRC is now fully adapted to meet the new server routines and more problems are not to be expected. Also the new use of /part comments, offered on several networks, is fully supported now, as well as the re-introduced mode-less +channels.

New in this version is support for the 'Text Assist' Text to Speech package next to Monologue. Finally Creative Labs released their Text Assist DDE helper application and mIRC fully supports this program. mIRC's interface and toolbar now fit better to the Win95 look and the minimized DCC Send, Get, Chat, and Fserv windows now have different Icons. Several smaller convenient things are added as well; a new flood protection method, ways to load and save the items in the URL catcher, new events, and much much more....

mIRC 4.52 released (July 6^th 1996)

mIRC reincarnated as shareware! After working on mIRC for over 18 months Khaled decided to release this new version of mIRC as shareware. This will allow him to go on developing and supporting mIRC with the same spirit and enthousiasm as he did over the past. Your registration of mIRC will guarantee the existance of mIRC's www pages with help, news and hints and support further development of mIRC, its help files and the FAQ. :-)

It is impossible for me to point you to all changes in mIRC. They are as well as possible reflected in the new mIRC FAQ but for a full list of changes please read the versions.txt included with mIRC. As you might have noticed already, mIRC now comes in separate 16 and 32 bit issues. Also a setup program is included which allows you to install mIRC totally hassle free, in a directory of your choice. It creates backups of old versions, validates the self-extracting files to make sure they're not corrupted, and it adds icons to the program manager for you.

A totally new feature is found in the new mIRCLink proggy included in the mIRC distribution. It is a helper application that allows you to join channels from the World Wide Web by a single mouse click. Check the examples on the mIRC www pages and learn how to make your own mIRCLinks on your homepage! You can even link to entire networks!

mIRC now supports Drag-and-Drop of files onto channel windows, the channel names list, query/chat and notify windows. You can easily define the action mIRC should take with each filetype you drop, in the Drag-Drop tab in the File/Options/ dialog. Related is the new ON FILERCVD event that allows you to launch helper applications to view, play or show files you downloaded from IRC.

To facilitate users on relatively slow modem connections the list of channels is now saved to a file "channels.txt" in the mIRC directory. The channels list dialog now has "Apply" and "Get List" buttons. If "Get List" is pressed then a fresh list is read from the server, if "Apply" is pressed then the latest list you downloaded is used to search for channels etc. The list routines are also adapted to work properly on the new Undernet servers. Also in the future mIRC will stay on top of the Undernet protocol changes as good as possible.

On top of this all, finally the long expected scripting language is implemented. You can create if, elseif, else, loops and all kinds of smart and conditional command lines. Lots of identifiers are added to provide you with fast and smart ways to program your own actions on virtually all you can imagine. Also a Tools/Remote/Raw section is added that allows you to watch and process almost all server-client traffic in any way you want. You can overrule all mIRC's default behaviour on a very low level now. But use it with care ?