• Added: Multi-server support
• Fixed: Incorrect CTCP reply

So yeah, This might be weird, given that multi-server was supposed to be a luxury feature, but as you can read in the FAQ, zsIRC is a client I make for my own personal needs, and as such, sometimes the changes happen in a fairly subjective order. (In other words, I've been lacking multi-server more than DCC, etc.)

You can switch between the servers by opening the context-menu on the status window. I know this is suboptimal for non-touchscreen devices, but I haven't really figured out a way yet.

So yeah. Not dead yet. Reason for the lack of updates is one part long and boring, and one part long and less boring. (In short, my iPAQ is officially dockstation-bound.)

Then again, it's strange. See, in my experience, or at least first hand impression, less and less people use IRC. I don't know why that is, although I have to relate to part of it - my first ever IRC experience around '95 was pretty dodgy considering that I had to accidentally find a magazine article that spilled what servers are available in Hungary, and generally it was a lot less intuitive... but that was before Google times - I guess the situation eased up somewhat with the tides of information available.

So why do people IRC less? (If they do.) I've come to discover in the recent times that e.g. Skype's persistent chat/channel thingy is very much like IRC in terms of keeping a channel alive, with the added luxury of leaving your client in even if you're offline - something a lot of people do via BNC's and all that anyway. Another important thing about that (and new IM's in general) is that IRC offers no authentication as such: posing as someone else is ridiculously easy, although it's been literally years since I last saw even a ban, let alone a takeover or something.

And then there's the whole high-level issue of privacy: when you join IRC, you pretty much accept the fact that people will see your IP address and all that. With other IM's, this is carefully occluded by the company who designs the protocol and the client (for the most part). Skype even offers a load of privacy options in case you only want chats from people on your list - which, admittedly, makes joining groupchats a whole lot more tedious and I still don't understand why there can't be a confirmation window, but oh well.

Ultimately, IRC's charm comes from the simplicity and the community, which is why I guess it's still very much revered by e.g. the open-source crowd - but we have to admit that it's a niche thing. I mean, sure, even Microsoft gave it a shot (see Comic Chat), Unreal Tournament implements it, a lot of flash chatrooms are based on it, mostly because they want to avoid reinventing the wheel. But in the end it all boils down to what one wants from a chat client - Skype and MSN and Google Talk are pretty much fire-and-forget, while IRC clients are always a bit fiddly if you want them to work the way it's convenient for you.

As a closing note, I would like to cite a story that enforces the notion that IRC is in fact a phenomenon: I was at a film festival some years ago, talking about the demoscene as usual, and a young lady working at a major film studio asked as the question - "Where do demosceners usually hang out? What's the main communication line?" So we told her about BBS's back then, and later IRC. Her eyes opened wide open and she said: "IRC?! I haven't been on IRC since I was 17!"

• Added: Button-sort on channel bar
• Added: Automatic accepting or refusal of secure certificates
• Added: Keepalive ping
• Added: Check for zsIRC updates on connect
• Fixed: Wrong sort order of nicks
• Fixed: Silly color bug on channel highlight

I'd like to give some credit to the V8D guys which I forgot last time for helping me out with a few things. Thanks!

As for today's amusing news, Miranda apparently recognizes zsIRC as a client and they even remade the icon to a better looking one - or at least their TRAC suggests so. It really means a lot, so if you happen to know someone who's a dev at Miranda, give them a hug! (Also, their rendition of the icon looks much better, I wonder if I'm allowed to nick it.)

• Added: SSL / secure connection support (well that was easy!) Use /serversecure <servername> [port] to connect via SSL.
• Fixed: Proper handling of prefixes on channels and nicks
• Updated: changed around the options window a bit, now it should be friendlier towards Smartphones. (IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to get the focus back from the tabs to the input fields, PRESS SPACE.)
• Added: /wintitle command now sets window title (Thanks to wParam for the idea.)

• Fixed: Removed dependency to commdlg.dll, so it runs on more devices.
• Added: Smartphone softkey menu support! It should autodetect the device so you get the best menu you can.
• Updated: Changed update url to use http://zsirc.com

• FiXato registered zsIRC.com which is currently just a redirect, but I'll make sure it will be pointing here permanently. So use that, it's shorter. Big big thanks for him - it certainly made me realize that people actually care about the client.
• I'm getting sort of bored of the design here, especially because I want to do a proper webforum with logins, etc.
• I seriously need an admin interface for this news. (Yes, I am typing in this as an SQL query as we speak.)
• ...new version of the client would be nice too.

• Fixed: Timestamp option failed to work in the options dialog
• Fixed: Stripping of leading ':' (DOOOOOOOOH!)

• Added: .CAB installer
• Added: Options GUI (!!!)
• Fixed: Some servers/proxies return only \n instead of \r\n

• Fixed: Added option for offscreen buffering - read .ini for details!!
• Fixed: ACTION in query windows

• Fixed: Flickering
• Fixed: ForegroundColor didn't work
• Added: Codepage parameter in .ini

• Fixed: Removed silly deprecated VERSION reply
• Fixed: Resolving code was broke with IP-s
• Added: ForegroundColor parameter in .ini (DOH!)
• Added: StripColorCodes parameter in .ini

• Fixed: Bad logging format
• Fixed: Space delimiting
• Added: PassCommandsRaw parameter in .ini
• Added: Ctrl-enter disregards leading slash
• Added: WHOWAS reply

• Fixed: Forced disconnect broke reconnect
• Fixed: Cut/copy to clipboard (sheesh)
• Added: Temporary copy solution - click on a line to copy the entire line to clipboard (I know, not perfect, but this is the most I can provide right now)

• Fixed: Multi-line /names.
• Fixed: Weird crashbug on disconnect.
• Fixed: Empty notices (--)
• Fixed: Moving down in the buffer preserves previous line
• Fixed: Linebreak after session closed in logs
• Fixed: double popup of context-menus
• Fixed: Editbox didnt adapt to rotation
• Added: /invite
• Added: Nick-complete on TAB
• Added: stuff ;)

• Fixed: Word-wrap bug that caused zsIRC to hang up completely
• Fixed: Bug in settings loader caused server name to reset
• Fixed: Autoconnect didn't work (jeez)
• Fixed: Empty notify list didn't compute (JEEZ)
• Added: Support for BACK button on Smartphones (Please test/try this and report to the forum, I only have one device)

• Fixed: Weird JOIN's without delimiting colon
• Fixed: Much better wordwrap
• Added: Multi-line paste
• Added: Notify list

• Added: Rewrote setting system, added /set
• Fixed: Fixed the networking
• Fixed: Timestamp parsing
• Fixed: Nickchange made user lose op/voice
• Added: Version info to about + introductory text
• Added: Update check + homepage link
• Added: Autoconnect
• Added: Server password
• Added: Option to close windows or rejoin