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I've done some work on *clist_nicer+* the last few days to fix a few problems and enhance a few things.

*The embedded contact lists (like in the ignore or typing notify option dialogs) now appear unskinned and even more simplified*. Basically, they look like clist_classic now and use the colors and fonts which have been set as dtefault. They ignore all skin item definitions (basically everything on the Background+ page).
This makes them easier to use and easier to read, also, no matter how you configured your skin, the embedded contact lists will always be easy to read and not waste too much space.

*Slow and/or delayed redraws while protocols are connecting should be fixed*.

*New sorting method added*. Inspired by an idea from Scott, I added a %{color:blue}Sort by message frequency% sorting method. It considers the frequency of +received+ messages to sort contacts. A high message frequency will put contacts on top of the list or group, while a lower frequency will place them at the bottom.

+Please note a few things regarding this feature:+

* This feature will work better over time. When used for the first time, the contact list gathers some information about the message frequency of the last 100 days. This is, however, not 100% accurate. Over time, the sorting should become better, because the clist updates the message frequency data everytime you receive a new message - the more you chat, the more accurate the data will become, but in the beginning it is more like a "guess" - although, the most active contacts should still appear on top of the list or group.

* It only considers message events - all other events are ignored for building the statistical data.

* The message frequency is simply the average time between received message events from a given contact, so this sorting method will prioritize contacts who send you messages often.

[thumb:6:l:l=d]*Skinning internal frames* It is now possible to define skin elements for the frame borders (not only the frame title bars). This works best with image based skinning which is in the works and will be released soon. To illustrate what it means, just look at the picture. Note that all frames have a skinned border (which is actually a PNG image). With a fully transparent contact list, this can create some pretty cool results - it will just look like several independant windows with spacing between them, each of them having its own skinned title bar.

There is one serious bug in the current tabSRMM chat integration:

If you have the chat integration enabled and disable all protocols which are using group chat (currently: Jabber, MSN and IRC register as modules with chat.dll), Miranda will crash on startup with an integer division by zero.

In order to solve this, you'll either have to remove tabSRMM from the plugins directory and then re-enable the protocols or install a new protocol which uses the group chat feature (you can temporarily make a copy of msn, irc or jabber and then restart Miranda - the new protocol will be enabled by default and the crash shouldn't happen then).

The bug is fixed in SVN revision 117 (rev from May, 11).

h3. "Testing build #53":http://www.miranda-im.org/2006/05/04/miranda-im-v0430-build-53/ has been released.

+Regarding tabSRMM+

There is one bug which affects group chat tabs only - when the option *ESC closes sessions...* is disabled under %{color:blue}Message Window->Tabs and layout% you may not be able to close group chat tabs individually. You can still close the container. This may also cause a few very strange things like duplicated tabs for channels and more.

So either enable that option or just use the close button of the container.

This is a short list of new features which I plan or already have added to the group chat window implementation. Most of them are IRC specific and might not be so useful for other group chats, but then.. they don't hurt in any way.

* Classic IRC style nick marking. Symbols like @, % or + in front of the nickname. These symbols will appear both in the nick list and chat log instead of the status icon we currently have.

* Clickable nicknames in the chat log (single click will open the user details dialog, double click will open a query window). When nicknames are clickable, they will appear with the hyperlink color - this is something which cannot be changed, as the rich edit control does not allow to change the colors for hyperlinks (they are defined in the system color scheme).

* Colorized nicknames for the nick list AND the chat log (colors can be configured for 5 different user modes - op, halfop, voice and 2 special modes which are used on some IRC networks with different meaning - the ! and * user modes. Note that colorized nicknames and clickable nicks cannot work together (well, they can, but a clickable nickname will always appear with the color of a hyperlink).

* text symbols instead of icons in the chat log. This should be known from tabSRMM using the Webdings font for showing symbols. This method is much faster and uses less memory and other resources than putting an icon in front of each event. Might be interesting for high traffic channels and/or when your chat logs grow a lot.

* icon downsizing for the chat log. It is now possible to use 16 x 16 event icons instead of the small 10x10 icons. This will improve the look of the icons on the contact list, the system tray and the message window caption bar.