The file mirc56s.exe contains the 16 bit mIRC version 5.6 Released June 3rd, 1999. mirc56s.exe ( 975152) - 16 bit mIRC, for Win 3.x. mirc56t.exe (1028096) - 32 bit mIRC, for Win95, Win98 and Win NT. mfaq40hp.zip ( 97271) - The mIRC FAQ version 39 Welcome to mIRC version 5.6 mIRC is a shareware Internet Relay Chat client for Windows. It is developped and copyrighted by Khaled Mardam-Bey. mIRC is a highly configurable IRC client with all the goodies other clients on UNIX, Macintosh and even on Windows offer, combined with a *nice* and clean users interface. mIRC offers full color control, full DCC File Send and Get capabilities, aliases, a remote commands and events handler, scripting, place sensitive probrammable popup menu's, World Wide Web and sound support, and... a lot more. mIRC can act as an external Web browser helper application but it can work totally independent as well. mIRC is shareware but not crippled in any way... If you like it you're asked to register your copy to support work on future versions, new features, and bug fixes, and to ensure technical support via email now and in the future. mIRC is distributed in self-extracting cabinets that automatically will install mIRC on your PC. You dont need any external programs to install and setup mIRC on your PC, just follow the instructions. You first have to find out what mIRC issue you will be running. mIRC is available in a 16 bit issue (mirc56s.exe) and a 32 bit issue (mirc56t.exe). The 32 bit issue is meant for 32 bit Operating Systems like Windows95, Windows98 and Windows NT. If you are not sure what issue to use, try the 16 bit mIRC issue! That issue will always work. Download the cabinet of your choice and run the installer. Once you have installed mIRC, you can run it, fill in the required setup information, and connect to an IRC server. When you're upgrading mIRC all your old settings and scripts will stay as they were. mIRC will guide you through the initial stages and hopefully you'll be chatting in no time. If you get stuck or want to find out more about a certain feature, just click on a Help button in a window or browse the Help file and you should find lots of hints to help you out. As you become more experienced you can also start configuring mIRC's features to suit your own needs and tastes, features such as colours, fonts, function keys, aliases, popup menus, scripts, sounds and many others. Good luck and have fun! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet Relay Chat. For those of you new to the Internet, IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. The IRC networks offer a virtual meeting place where people from all over the world can meet and talk. Dont mix-up IRC with the slow Web chats you might have seen. IRC is specially designed for chatting and works very fast. IRC was originally written by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988. Since starting in Finland, it has spread to almost all countries around the world. IRC is a multi-user chat system, where people meet on "channels" (rooms, virtual places, usually with a certain topic of conversation) to talk in groups, or privately. There is no restriction to the number of people that can participate in a given discussion, or the number of channels that can be formed on IRC. mIRC attempts to provide a user-friendly interface for use with the IRC networks. As a user you run mIRC on your PC and you connect to a "server" in an IRC network. All servers are interconnected and pass messages from user to user over the IRC network. One server can be connected to several other servers and up to hundreds of clients. You can join several channels at once and participate in private discussions at the same time. The various parts of the IRC client mIRC have been designed with the aim of simplifying and speeding up your IRC sessions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is new? mIRC's new version 5.6 fixes most, if not all, of the small but nevertheless anoying buggies found in the previous version. mIRC's new version 5.6 has far too many new features and functions to mention here in detail. I'll try to show the best here, in a nutshell. - A "Track Urls" option is added to the System menu in Channel/Query windows. This option auto-opens websites as they are mentioned in a conversation in those windows. - Your away status is now shown in the Status window titlebar. - The date logfile names option now uses the full 4-digit year. - The line "Session Time:" is now output to log files at midnight as marker for log files that are open for a long time. - You can easily ignore specific file types with a new option in the DCC/Options dialog. This makes mIRC ignore any DCC Sends which match the specified filenames/types, like *.exe, *.com or *.ini files. A new "Lock" section is added in the File/Options/General dialog. It allows you to lock mIRC, disable various features, etc. If you hold down the Control key when you minimize mIRC, it will ask you for a password when you try to restore the window. - The message highlight feature is highly improved. It is now possible to add individual highlight matches each with its own settings. You can specify the highlight colour, add sounds, and add a flash message. Several small bugs are solved in this new mIRC version. Some of the ones you might want to know about right away are; - A bug in the URL hotlink function (when hoovering over nicknames beginning with non-alphabetic characters which matched other nicknames on the channel. Some notes for scripters. Several old syntaxes in the scripting language are no longer supported. We can not drag these old buggers around for ever! Apart from that lots of new scripting possibilities are introduced and old ones improved. The most important things to look for are the following; - The backward-compatibility for the old format of $left, $mid, $nick, $right, $snick, $str, where N was specified first is removed. - The syntax of the $nick() identifier is extended to $nick(#,N,aohvr,aohvr), to replace all of the other $opnick/$nopnick/etc. identifiers. Both aohvr parameters are optional. The first specifies which nicks you'd like included, and the second specifies the nicks you'd like excluded. a=all, o=ops, h=helper, v=voiced, r = regular Note: the old identifiers are still supported for now. - An on PING event is added. It, for instance, allows you to hide the PING PONG server message. Since IRC is a constantly evolving medium lots of changes to mIRC are made with every new version to keep in track with new IRC server code and network specific changes. This version we added support for !channels for IRCnet, support for IRCX %#channels, and for owner .nicks in the channel nick listbox, as well as /mode +q. Also the channels list window popup menu now allows you to stop listing channels in mid-list when on DALnet servers. We think we did a good job and your download of this new mIRC 5.6 is highly recommended! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- More information. mIRC is supported by a set of WWW pages. On these pages you'll find information on new versions, new ideas, known bugs and solutions, and possibly all other information you might need on IRC in general, and on mIRC. Besides the newest mIRC also the new mIRC FAQ and IRC Intro file are available from these www pages. http://www.mirc.com/ USA http://www.mirc.co.uk United Kingdom http://www.geocities.com/~mirc/ USA http://www.nip.nl/mirc/ The Netherlands http://www.mirc.queen.it/ Italy http://mirc.kems.net/ Kuwait http://www.mirc.com.ar/ Argentina http://www.conesul.com.br/mirc/ Brazil http://www.mirc.co.za/ South Africa http://mirc.eon.net.au/ Australia ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- License Agreement mIRC® v5.6 Internet Relay Chat Client Copyright © 1995-1999 mIRC Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. mIRC is Shareware which means that you can use it legally for 30 days free of charge to evaluate it. If during, or at the end of, that period you decide that you would like to continue using it, please register your copy. Your single-user registration will license you to use your copy of mIRC, will support work on future versions, new features, and bug fixes, and will provide you with technical support via email. Please see the Registration section in the help file to find out how you can register. mIRC may be freely distributed subject to, but not limited to, the following terms: mIRC may not be sold or resold, distributed as a part of any commercial package, used in a commercial environment, used or distributed in support of a commercial service, or used or distributed to support any kind of profit- generating activity, even if it is being distributed freely. If you would like to distribute mIRC as part of a shareware distribution, magazine, internet book, CD ROM, etc. contact me for written permission. All commercial use interests in mIRC eg. site licensing, should be directed to khaled@mardam.demon.co.uk. mIRC may only be distributed in the original distribution install file format as distributed by mIRC Co. Ltd. The mIRC distribution install file may not have files added to it or removed from it, and none of its contents may be modified, decompiled, or reverse engineered. mIRC is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall mIRC Co. Ltd. be liable for any damages whatsoever including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, loss of business profits or special damages, even if mIRC Co. Ltd. has been advised of the possibility of such damages. mIRC is a registered trademark of mIRC Co. Ltd. The mIRC Logo is a trademark of mIRC Co. Ltd. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------