http://blog.dmdirc.com DMDirc Development Blog Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:35:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Edit: It was recently brought to our attention that the OS X version previously released contained a bug that prevented the client from starting. This bug has now been fixed in the version available from Google code, we urge OS X users who previously downloaded and tried to use this ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/09/13/dmdirc-06/ In DMDirc 0.6, we have made some back-end improvements to the functionality actions groups which allow authors of action packs to specify meta-data such as a description of the pack, and also list the settings available. We obviously wanted to include this new information into the actions UI, and we ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/09/07/new-action-uis/ One of the things that makes DMDirc good (in my opinion) is that the three main developers actively use it pretty much all day, every day. We are all very, very heavy IRC users (unlike the author of mIRC for instance, who admits to only occasionally using IRC), which is ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/08/31/improving-the-development-process/ If you're reading this via our website, you may have already noticed that DMDirc has undergone a small re-branding. We now use the tagline "the intelligent IRC client" across all the DMDirc sites (apart from the addons site which is undergoing an overhaul — you can take a sneak peak ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/08/07/introducing-the-intelligent-irc-client/ With DMDirc 0.6 coming soon (hopefully — we still have a few bits and pieces to finish off), we're starting to look ahead towards the next major branch: DMDirc 0.7. The 0.7 branch has several major new features, namely sever lists and a revamped update system, both of which ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/07/30/looking-ahead-to-dmdirc-07/ With the upcoming version 0.6 of DMDirc (we know that it's been a while since the last big release, we'll blog about that soon) we have added support for even more operating systems. As you probably know, DMDirc is written in Java which gives us a huge advantage as far as ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/07/25/even-more-supported-operating-systems/ As previously mentioned, once Apple released Java6 for OS X I set about updating the scripts we use for building the installers and nightlies so that we could support OS X officially for DMDirc 0.6. To do this we needed to be able to create a DMG file to distribute it ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/06/13/os-x-support-part-2/ A security vulnerability has been discovered in DMDirc. The implementation of URL handlers allow specially crafted URLs to execute arbitrary programs on the host system. Only custom URL handlers (those listed as "custom commands" in the 'URL Handlers' section of the preferences panel) are vulnerable, and the user has to ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/05/22/url-handling-vulnerability-dmdirc-056-released/ As you may have noticed if you're a regular visitor, the DMDirc website has recently been given a lick of paint. There is now a common header across all of the DMDirc sites (the main website, addons site, bug tracker and blog), which allows easy navigation between all aspects of ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/04/10/website-and-subversion-changes/ Now that Apple have re-released their 'developer preview' of Java 6, we can begin work on improving DMDirc's compatibility with OS X. Currently the release only works on 64-bit Intel processors (Xeons or Core2Duos - not CoreDuos, CoreSolos or PowerPCs) running Leopard. They had previously released a developer preview for ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/03/06/os-x-support/ In DMDirc 0.5 we introduced a feature described in the release notes as "intelligent tab completion for commands" (introduced in this blog post), which allowed commands to tell the tab completer about the arguments that they're expecting. In that incarnation, commands can specify a bunch of extra words to add, ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/02/13/even-more-intelligent-tab-completion/ We have just released version 0.5.5 of DMDirc. This release is an interim release between 0.5.1 and 0.6 to get some important features of 0.6 in use in the stable version. Some of the main changes include: The new launchers which give the client the ability to update itself via ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/01/30/dmdirc-055-released/ The latest major change we've added to the 0.6 branch is a revamp of the preferences system. The original purpose of the revamp was to shift a large amount of logic out of the UI and into the main client core, so that if/when we have additional user interfaces written, ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2008/01/17/dmdirc-06-preferences-revamp/ Since DMDirc 0.5.1, the Linux and Windows installers have received several major updates. Firstly, the Linux installer was overhauled to show all of its messages in GUI dialog boxes where possible (using kdialog under KDE or zenity under gnome). This means that users don't need to be running the installer from ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2007/12/24/installer-updates/ I've just committed changes to DMDirc that allow you to make use of what I call "condition trees" in actions. These basically allow you to specify how conditions should be evaluated. In DMDirc 0.5.1 (and earlier), all action conditions had to be true in order for the action to be ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2007/10/25/condition-trees-aka-making-actions-even-more-incomprehensible/ Hi everyone, As a newcomer to the DMDirc project, I'd thought I'd introduce myself. I'm Chris 'laser' Northwood, and just before the releases of the 0.5 release candidates, I was asked by the other developers on DMDirc to become the QA Lead. My approach will hopefully become fully implemented for the 0.6 ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2007/10/12/qa-and-06/ We have just released version 0.5.1 of DMDirc. This is mainly a bug fix release with a couple of minor 0.6 improvements included, see the changelog for more information. The installer for DMDirc 0.5.1 can be downloaded for Windows or Linux. http://blog.dmdirc.com/2007/10/07/dmdirc-051-released/ We have just released version 0.5 of DMDirc. 0.5 has just under 100 features or improvements and 77 bug fixes since 0.4, the major additions in 0.5 are * Added action wrappers for aliases and performs * Added intelligent tab completion for commands ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2007/09/26/dmdirc-05-released/ Further to the changes to the actions UI previously mentioned, there are now several more enhancements: one exposing substitutions and two UIs wrapping around actions simplifying common tasks — aliases and performs. Substitutions In 0.4 actions substitutions were somewhat of a black art, whilst they were quite powerful, they were nearly impossible ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2007/09/25/actions-ui-improvements-part-2/ DMDirc has now entered Feature Freeze for the 0.5 release (for more information about our release cycle, see this blog post). New for this release we have decided to build Release Candidate builds approximately every day. Release Candidate builds are just like the final release: they are installed using the new installer, ... http://blog.dmdirc.com/2007/09/22/feature-freeze-and-release-candidates/