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Recently, I've got a few questions about tabSRMMs source code, why there are 2 different repositories and similar things.

So, a few things to explain

Yes, there are 2 repositories. I consider "SVN":https://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/mimplugins/trunk/tabsrmm/ as the *master* repository - that's the most recent code base and I commit at least once a day. SVN code *might* be in bad shape every once in a while - it should compile, but it may contain completely non-working or unfinished features, serious bugs or other evil things :)

CVS is updated less often and I only sync it when the plugin is in a more or less stable state. The reason is that the CVS copy of tabSRMM is in Mirandas main repository and will be available in nightly builds whenever one gets released. Obviously, I don't want these builds to be in a unusable state and that's why CVS is updated less often.

At the moment, big changes are comitted to the SVN repository almost every day, because of the chat integration. The CVS will stay untouched until these things start to stabilize, so that a new Miranda nightly may contain an older (but more stable) tabSRMM.

Also, the SVN repository only contains up-to-date project files for Visual Studio +2005+ - all others are no longer maintained.

The progress is faster than I first expected it to be and many things are already working (it is basically already possible to use the merged plugin for all kind of chats within miranda) and a you can expect a first testing release within the next few days (maybe a week or so, max). This release will also contain a more or less finished version of the container skinning engine, including the ability to skin the window frame and title bar and a sample skin.

It is also pretty stable right now and doesn't crash (at least, it didn't so far for the last few days...)

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This is a small update to my "modified Sound Volume":http://miranda.or.at/miranda-general/test/ plugin which I posted a while ago.

h3{margin-left:1em;margin-top:1em}. What's new in this release?

* Added ICOLIB support for the 2nd mute button icon.

That's all.

"Download it":http://miranda.or.at/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/sndvol.zip

A few days ago I posted the idea of creating a unified message window for all kind of chats - normal IM sessions and group chats like IRC channels. Now, a few days later, the first part is done and the resulting plugin is already working. Overall, I'am quite satisfied with the result - the UNICODE DLL is less than 500 K (dynamically linked) which is quite good, given the fact, that it also includes the almost complete skinning engine, including frame skinning.

These 500 k still contain quite a lot of icon resources, because chat icons have not yet been outsourced to the icon pack DLL. My guess is, that a dynamically linked UNICODE build can be as small as 450k (that's quite some code saved compared to separated tabSRMM and CHAT plugins). I think, the size can be cut down even more, because there is still quite a lot of duplicated code, especially in the rich edit control and popup support.

The chat windows integrate nicely into tabSRMMs container system, although some features are not yet working (like notifications). Font + color configuration is already merged into one dialog box where you can setup all the fonts and colors needed by IM or group chat sessions. tabSRMM theme support is planned for group chat windows, of course.

Long time goals...

In the long run, I plan to create a message window control which can accept and handle almost any kind of message event - no matter whether it came from a normal instant message session or from a group chat session. The message window control should be able to adopt itself - for example, showing or hiding the nick list and/or the info panel when needed, modifiying the layout of the toolbar "on the fly" to reflect the current state of the session and more. The unified user interface will make it more user friendly, and the merged configuration will eliminate quite a lot of stuff which currently needs to be customized separately for both plugins, making this a quite time consuming and unintuitive process, especially for new users who may find it hard to understand, why they have to configure so much chat-window related stuff twice. Finally, I should say that the idea of creating a unified chat window is not new. We've already discussed that more than a year ago and even some code was written back then, but it never got anywhere near to be useful.

Hi,

Now, with IRC + chat being basically umaintained, I'm thinking again about an idea we had quite some time ago - to create the "ultimate" message window plugin which offers an unified user interface for all chat sessions in Miranda.

To achieve this, we would need to merge parts of chat.dll into tabSRMM. This would have the following advantages:

• unified user interface - chatrooms like IRC channels and/or MSN group chats could co-exist with normal chat sessions within the same container. For MSN group chats, this should make it possible to "morph" a 1:1 chat session into a multichat when someone joins - no need to switch to a new window - the current tab will just change its behaviour from a single chat session to a multichat room
• it would save some code. Such a merged tabsrmm+chat would be more effective than two independent plugins (a single plugin with, say, 500k size is better than 2 separate plugins with 250k each).
• it would guarantee that the chat.dll part will be maintained in the future (as long as I work on tabSRMM). So bugs could be fixed, and a few new features could be added (personally, I think that chat.dll is fairly complete and does not need much new features - IEView support might be one of the more important ones).
• better usability - unified icons in all chat sessions, synchronized hotkeys, the same "look and feel" for both normal and multi chat sessions.
• the flexibility of the tabSRMM container system would, of course, allow you to organize your chat sessions better than you currently can - you could put IRC channels in a different container or even sort them by IRC network and so on.

Of course, everything comes at a cost. A +disadvantage+ would be that tabSRMM will grow by, at least, 200k in size. But like I already said, it is better to have a single plugin with a size of 500k than 2 plugins with 250k each - each plugin adds additional overhead (especially when miranda starts) and merging the 2 plugins may also eliminate some code and resources (icons etc.).

So, what do you think. Comments are welcome. This is currently only a mental eperiment :) No code has yet been written.

On permalinks

Today, I changed the permalink structure for this blog which means that the old links to articles won't work any longer.

Previously, a permalink was made out of the data and the postname and had the format /YYYY/MM/DD/Postname (year/month/day/name of the post). That normally works fine, but I often edit certain posts (like the changelogs) and update the times tamp so that the post will reappear on the top of the blog. This will, of course, also change the permalink for that post (because the date changes) and this will then invalidate links - for example, any external link to that post or links in search engines.

Now, the permalinks have the form /category/postname which means that they will no longer change when I update a post and change its times tamp.

It also makes it easier for you to file bookmarks, because you can now assume that the link to any given article will never change again, even when it is promoted back to the front page by editing its posting timestamp.

h3{color:red;margin-left:1em}. This is a small warning for all people who are using (or building) CVS builds of Miranda and/or components.

Today (March, 8, 2006) a big chunk of changes was commited for clist_nicer+ The changes were made to get a UNICODE safe genmenu system (configureable menus and all related stuff).

It is planned to test these changes on clist_nicer+ first, and, once they are stable enough, transfer them into the core part of the contact list so that all contact list plugins (including clist_classic) will then get a configureable and unicode-safe menu system.

As of now, clist_nicer+ is highly unstable (there are quite a few bugs to fix and some of them can _*cause serious crashes*_ and/or may _*screw up your current menu configuration*_). So please don't use current CVS builds for a while and don't report bugs, because we know it is not stable :)

I'am releasing a new "general" version of tabSRMM, that is, an extra release, basically for all people who don't use nightlys.

The noteworthy changes, compared to the last version, are:

• a few small and one serious (possible crash/hangup) bug have been fixed.
• It now supports a basic method of skinning the container interior. A sample skin is included in the download archive. Please refer to "this":http://miranda.or.at/tabsrmm-articles/39/ article for more information on the skinning system, limitations and format. You also need to install a %{color:blue}imgdecoder.dll% when you want to use .png images for skinning. You can find a link on the download page here. Skins are unrelated to themes (.tabsrmm files) - a theme changes the look of the message history log, while a skin changes the look of certain user interface elements.
• A few UI improvements have been made - it is now easier to set the splitter in global mode, the toobar buttons can use both flat or normal mode and the message window can show xStatus icons if you want (refer to the "CHANGELOG":http://miranda.or.at/tabSRMM/tabsrmm-changelog/ for more info).
• Some small changes have been made "under the hood" and tabSRMM can now send nuges by hitting the _CTRL-n_ key OR selecting the %{color:blue}Send nudge% entry from the send menu (the menu, attached to the drop down button just right of the send button).

The files are also available from here, as the official File Listing is currently down and no ETA was given for its re-appearing.

Notes for installation

Both the ANSI and UNICODE version should work with the current stable Miranda build (0.4.0.3) as well as with nightlys. If you want to use the UNICODE version on Miranda-stable, you *MAY* need a new database plugin (tabSRMM will tell you this at startup, saying that it needs a database plugin 0.5.1.x or later). If you get this message at startup, use the included %{color:blue}dbx_3x.dll% and copy this file to your \plugins directory.

As always, you also need a tabsrmm_icons.dll copied to your plugins folder.

To see avatars, you also need the loadavatars plugin.

Ghazan has released a new alpha build - #48 - with quite a lot of changes and fixes.

"This":http://blog.miranda-im.org/2006/02/28/build-48-released-2/#comments is the original announcement on the development blog. Download locations and a complete CVS changelog are available from that page.

The noteworthy changes for clist_nicer+ can be found on this site in the clist_nicer+ section.

p<>. %{color:red}Attention:% If you find that client icons are now missing in clist_nicer+ - it is *NOT* a bug. Clist_nicer+ now needs the ==Fingerprint plugin== for client icon support and its own client icon code was removed.