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1.0 is out

Today, I uploaded tabSRMM 1.0.0.0 to the Miranda file listing (also known as the addons page).

Both Unicode and ANSI versions are available now. They require Miranda 0.5.0.0, although the ANSI version should run on 0.4.x.x (but that is an unsupported configuration).

The DLLs are built with Visual C++ 6.0, so no additional libraries are required.
The default icon pack is included as well.

The "plan" for future developments

tabSRMM 1.0.0.x will be feature frozen from now on. This means, the 1.0.0.x branch will only get bug fixes but no new features. It will also be kept compatible with the Miranda 0.5 series.

New features will go in the trunk code (which currently has a version number of 1.1.0.6).

For a list of changes you can view the included changelog or search this blog. There is also the forum where you can find a lot more additional informations.

Known issues in that build

• some minor formatting problems are still left in auto - bidirectional mode, although, the current code has much improved. Almost all formatting options, including grid lines and mutliple background colors, are again working and most visual artifacts (wrong background colors etc.) should no longer appear.
• when using auto-bidi mode, the last message will show an additional newline. This is not avoidable, because otherwise the rich edit control won't properly format the last message in the history.
• Disconnecting from IRC while multiple group chat windows or tabs are still open may lead to a crash. That may also happen on exit, so I suggest that you first close all containers before you exit Miranda. This is currently under investigation as it is not clear whether it is a problem in IRC or tabSRMM (or maybe both).
• Skinning should still be considered alpha quality code. It works well for many people, but there are minor issues.
• Same goes for message splitting. It basically works, but there are issues which are beyond my control (e.g. it doesn't work with ICQ offline messages since the ICQ protocol does not report the proper message size limit when a contact is offline).

I'am currently working on a *real* documentation for tabSRMM. This will be a standard Windows helpfile in HTML-help format (.CHM). A plain HTML version will also be available.

This will take a while though, since there is a lot of stuff to write - I'am just realizing how big tabSRMM has become over time and how many things can be told about it :)

Automatically split long messages

First, I've always been against this and I still think that automatically splitting messages is a bad thing, at least, in Miranda, because the way how message sending works does only allow it with a few drawbacks.
However, this is one of those features which will always be re-requested over and over again (no idea why it is so important, but well...).
Nevertheless there is now a working implementation in tabSRMM, but it should be used with care. Read the list below to get the facts and understand that most of these things are not going to change.

Read more...

On reporting bugs

Right now, Miranda's bug tracker gets a big amount of attention by someone who has taken the ball and is currently trying to clear up the mess which has managed to accumulate for the last few months or even years. Based on this, I want to talk a bit on bug reporting - remember that good bug reports are one of the keys to better software quality. A relatively small open source project like Miranda doesn't have its own QA - its quality depends on its users from the community who help with testing and reporting things which need to be improved.

Software has bugs. That is not a nice thing but a fact we all have to understand when using software. Some bugs are critical and have the potential to stop you from using the software or cause loss of vital data, others may only cause some annoyances when using it. Read more...