Begun working on technique v5.3 which is a full rewrite and will dramatically change the entire script. To start off the rewrite I deleted the old version including installed copy of mIRC, lots of the old script was dated and had many different levels of my programming knowledge. Thinking of what would be really cool to have as the frame work and begin there, I have come up with many new ideas.
When the new script is released it will remove any older version of technique, clear all settings, remove old files related to technique, and then setup new system. This only happens if you have an older version, new installs just do a refined setup. I am thinking of adding an option you can choose yes/no to refine your basic mIRC options, basically after years of using mIRC I have found some changes are needed and many new users never really dig deep into the options.
- OOP design main functions, object oriented programming which I first learned in PHP and later in Python, more universal. This makes code that can be deployed in multiple use cases so I won’t need to write more lines for specific things, less code, smarter code.
- Hash system is the first thing to be rewritten, active memory aka a database. When technique starts the hash table is reloaded and what all settings are kept in even in the old versions. I am writing this in OOP to do all the CRUD in a single alias, all changes are auto saved to external file, even the old version did this in the case of sudden closing or computer crashes. I expect more than one hash table system to be in use or virtually reloaded at times depending on performance or use case. Basically extending mIRC’s hash table system to include backup features.
- Stat system, a major new system is stats for just about anything mIRC can get info on will be saved into it’s own database. When you do anything the system will store stats, these can be configured. I have always wanted more info on things I do with my IRC sessions, some info I never thought was important but was later shown to me is interesting. Some examples, connection duration, servers with lowest pings, channels frequented/joins/kicked, network most used, data sent/received average/most/least, a lot of of stuff. This stat thing will be a data whore every mIRC event will have a function to analyze things. You can view this data whenever, some can be shown on opening mIRC, the view options will have some settings or levels on amount to show. The script will always collect your own data, this is your data saved on your own local device just for clarity I do not see it. There can be all sorts of useful things some of this data can provide a user, some of these pieces of data have functional uses too within the script. Say for instance you open technique it might ask you if you want to ‘Connect to Network’ (this being your usual network) press a key bind to perform action and even doing more. Things you do ‘often’ aka patterns it may ask if you want to do these again to help you do them faster etc.
- System directory with backup/imports, already have a system like this but it needs to be improved. Cool new feature is a version rollback in case I put a new version that breaks/bricks the script, it has happened with an update but I saw it immediately and replaced the script on the server.
- Dynamic remote popups, some are already dynamic but they will go another level, good ideas here.
- Dialogs, the script has been missing my old dialogs in the last few versions so expect new dialogs with settings.
- Panic mode, mIRC has some data that can be saved in log files and technique has it’s built in data. In the new version I will create a full on deletion of all data with a simple ‘are you sure’ prompt. You can choose in the settings how much you want to delete. Using this feature will disconnect any active connections, it may even close mIRC if needed.
- I have been going back and forth on arps bot or the arps system, arps has always been my little bot companion online. Now I want to expand it to be more of a system so my ideas will continually change until it’s coded again. I still will make it a dumb bot until improved through it’s own ‘mIRC learning’, or I hope I can pull off something cool. It has to be very general, broad in design. I already know some of it can be done from working on it in the past. Arps might come later in the script release as a full feature system, this is super all over the place right now.
This is the start, I expect the first 7 items in the list above to be in the first versions of the script. There have been quite a few changes to mIRC over the years and I am not using some of it’s newer features yet, most you won’t even notice unless you do scripting yourself.