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1. 

   Patch
   Member

   I'm sorry, but the new styles fail, they are much harder to read, and less styles overall. And the ones that are readable have annoying quirks. I'm good at CSS, but not good enough to change this stuff without knowing what goes to what (Like finding a needle in a haystack).

   So I was wondering if you hard a new Style SDK out yet? Because it's all fun and games until you throw away my old style and give me a second rate new one, and I know what i'm doing with the SDK, just not in a full CSS editor where I gotta search like mad to find things.

   (Lol, sorry for coming off a bit harsh, but it's very annoying when everything gets 'wiped' on ya, especially when it's the most important part about the client.. legibility and comfort.)

   Posted 8 months ago #
2. 

   alphalpha
   Member

   I came here to see if anyone mastered the new styles yet, but I feel like I need to add my opinion:

   I actually couldn't agree more with the poster. I'm not a fan of the new styles, they're intrusive and frankly, obnoxious. I use IRC because it's text-based and free or glitter. I was using a modified version of the old Mmm.. IRC style, a style that was your basic IRC format of [timestamp] <nick> text. Having such a style is absolutely essential to me using an IRC client; so much so that it's pretty much a deal-breaking/making feature. It's what I'm used to, and what I'm used to is unlikely to change. I think this goes for other die-hard IRC users, and I think the Linkinus devs, if they use IRC, should be aware of this feeling. Imposing a reinvented interface is not going to work. I feel like the new version of Linkinus removed more features I need than it added, and it seems to be catering to users who probably don't even use IRC to begin with instead of the power users that it should be looking to please.

   Like the above poster, I wouldn't be here complaining if I could figure out how to change the styles. I know enough CSS to get by (I modified the original styles), but for some reason I'm pulling my hair out trying to simply change a style's font. The new styles are considerably more difficult to edit because there's way too much logic in the HTML than there used to be. It's probably an obvious mistake, but customization really shouldn't be this hard. There's only so much effort I'd put into making my IRC client look like an IRC client before I give up and find a new one. If someone knows an easy way to mess with the new styles, please share.

   Posted 8 months ago #
3. 

   Patch
   Member

   Woah woah woah, I just also found that notices aren't sent in the main chat anymore, instead are sent to a query.. wasn't there an option or something to stop this? Aright, i'm really angry about this update now.. it hurt me more than helped me...

   Posted 8 months ago #
4. 

   ripienaar
   Member

   The styles are really horrific, so bad that I'd rather stick to linkinus 1 till a new style SDK comes out.

   I *love* how you can now change the background color of the active channel/chat, but seriously this is IRC lets try to at least make it resemble that rather than some fancy teenage happy GUI mess.

   Posted 8 months ago #
5. 

   Woet
   Member

   The new style is indeed horrible, they could have at least imported the old (much cleaner) one. Downgrading to 1.3 too until this has been changed.

   Posted 8 months ago #
6. 

   cjrp
   Member

   Came here to post the exact same thing as alphalpha. For me it's essential that the timestamps are on the left, but I can't figure out how to customise this.

   Posted 8 months ago #
7. 

   Furrikain
   Member

   Same here, I ended up here looking for a resolution to both things mentioned already in this thread:

   - lack of a basic IRC format of [timestamp] <nick> text
   - notices are sent to a query

   These are both SERIOUS dealbreakers for me. Too bad, since this update seems to feel much smoother, the previous version felt kind of sluggish at times on my mac mini G4 1,42ghz.

   Posted 8 months ago #
8. 

   nl
   Co-founder & Developer

   @Furrikain and @Patch
   - [timestamp] <nick> text sounds like a really simple change in Styles.
   - Notices are sent to query if "Redirect notices to the consoles" is not checked in the Miscellaneous prefs.
   So both yout serious dealbreakers are really one-click adjustments to your needs.

   About making styles, /debug html will display the powerful Web Inspector, enabling you to do CSS changes, run JavaScript consoles, debug and profile code. More information about the architecture of styles is available at http://www.conceited.net/wiki/creating_styles

   We all agree that 6 styles can't fulfill everyone's need. To encourage third-party designers making styles, we'll run a contest soon.

   --
   Nicolas Lapomarda
   Conceited Software

   Posted 8 months ago #
9. 

   Woet
   Member

   We want a proper template like simplified, and it's absolutely pathetic that you tell us to create our own layout.

   Posted 8 months ago #
10. 

    nl
    Co-founder & Developer

    Woet, no one is telling anyone to do anything. I'm offering a simple solution to *your* problem that most people do not share. Obviously, the concept that your ideas are not shared by everyone else does not come easy to you.

    You're free to use any other product you like better than ours.
    Bottom line is, Linkinus came out last evening. I understand that you would have loved a larger range of styles to be available at that time but we're not going to bundle 500 styles hoping that one of them will semi-satisfy Woet. Third-party designers will port their custom styles when they have time to do so. In the meantime, we have worked hard on 6 styles and the large majority of users have found at least one they love so far.

    Posted 8 months ago #
11. 

    Woet
    Member

    I think it's quite obvious that all the people above me want simplified too.

    Posted 8 months ago #
12. 

    nl
    Co-founder & Developer

    Simplified is a great style indeed, but it's Cowboy's (Ben Alman) and he's reported not having time to work on it for now. He will port his creation when and if he wants to, not much I can do about this.

    Posted 8 months ago #
13. 

    Furrikain
    Member

    nl,

    If you care to explain how i can use a style similar to Simplified with just one click, please feel free to do so.

    I understand the new update only just came out, but things like a default, simple IRC layout and notices not being treated as queries fall under basic out of the box functionality in my book.

    Yes, the bells and whistles are nice to have, but I'd much rather be able to start out with a normal layout and i'm obviously not alone in this. I also wasn't planning on "learning about the architecture of creating styles" just to be able to use a style that doesn't look like a coloring book.

    Anyway, I'm just hoping it won't be too long before this is possible.

    I suppose some reactions in this thread may have been a bit harsh, but we bought an IRC client that came with this functionity by default, I'm sure you can imagine our surprise after installing the update.

    Posted 8 months ago #
14. 

    Patch
    Member

    In other words, paying customers must LEARN how to use CSS in order to be able to enjoy IRC the right way because you decided to throw out flashy-'pretty' styles instead of informative useful styles? I know CSS, but not everyone should have to learn it just to get what they want out of the IRC. It's not Cowboy's fault that YOU designed bad styles for the Default set, don't just say 'Oh, he didn't have time to develop a standard IRC layout that everyone uses, so we didn't bother either.. have this flashy one instead".

    We're not asking specifically for Simplified style, we just want the normal bare-beautiful style that has all the information we need instead of the flashy crap that tells you less of what normal ones do. Pretty silly notion.

    As another example of extremely useful features that are gone, mouseover-hostname thing is gone.. that was probably the most useful feature, instead of searching alllll through the lists of people you could just mouse over their names and see their hostmask. Maybe it was still style dependent, but it still mattered.

    Just frustrating when the devs think flashy > informative.

    Posted 8 months ago #
15. 

    ripienaar
    Member

    It's not just about the CSS, not showing age old style information like nick!user@host style information is an epic fail, attempting to add it to a theme seems a nightmare.

    1) Copy ~/Library/Application\ Support/Linkinus\ 2/Styles/Whisper\ Dark.lnk2Style/ to Foo.lnk2Style
    2) Look in Contents/Resources/js/definitions try to find out where the username is kept, no joy, try to find out where hostname is kept - find USERHOST_KEY = 14;
    3) Go to js/controllers/index.js and adjust line 165 to have: type="join">' + messageDetails[NICKNAME_KEY] + '@' + messageDetails[USERHOST_KEY] + ' has joined the channel.</span></div>'
    4) Edit the plist file to change the theme's name to my liking

    apply, end result? blank space after the @ in the theme.

    This should surely have worked based on the other uses of messageDetails[USERHOST_KEY] in the js file?

    Posted 8 months ago #
16. 

    Furrikain
    Member

    I actually hadn't yet noticed that operator and voice status (@ & +) are no longer being displayed next to the nicknames, am I to understand it is at present impossible to regain this feature? Well, feature, more of a de facto standard in just about every IRC client I've ever used.

    I tried checking "Prefix users with privileges" but this doesn't seem to affect the userlist?

    Another weird thing I'm experiencing: when I whois a user, i get 2 whois replies: the normal whois reply notice in channel, but I also get a popup window displaying the exact same information that won't go away until i click "OK", which is rather annoying.

    Posted 8 months ago #
17. 

    nl
    Co-founder & Developer

    The checkbox you enabled toggles prefixes in channels. If you want to toggle them in the userlist, toggle "Show privileges as prefixes" in the Userlist prefpane.

    Posted 8 months ago #
18. 

    Furrikain
    Member

    @nl

    That's what I did, I enabled both checkboxes and it doesn't seem to work.

    Any idea on the 2 seperate whois replies?

    EDIT: restarting Linkinus didn't work, restarting Linkinus & IRC did. Any privileges given before checking the option to display them weren't being picked up.

    No luck on the whois thing though.

    Posted 8 months ago #
19. 

    Patch
    Member

    Doesn't help that privilege prefixes are bugged currently, the sub-prefixes (~ for Owner, and & for Protect [q and a]) go away a couple of lines after the person holding them joins the room, so does the name color in the userlist. Lots of flaws with this build, lets hope 2.1 is more useful.

    Posted 8 months ago #
20. 

    dave
    Member

    i really like the update, long awaited, i didn't even know if there was going to be another one, but thanks for putting in the effort guys.

    dont fret over the styles guys, people will make tradition/simple styles. i will if no one does >.<

    @nl
    

    Notices are sent to query if "Redirect notices to the consoles" is not checked in the Miscellaneous prefs.
    So both yout serious dealbreakers are really one-click adjustments to your needs.

    i think he was talking about how it displayed notices in the current chat window by default before, it does appear like it went back a bit. funny enough this feature was one of the main reasons i stopped using colloquy.

    Posted 8 months ago #
21. 

    alphalpha
    Member

    I think it comes down to this:

    The old styles were far simpler to tinker with if there was a problem. There was no cryptic JS to go through and the messages were structured very neatly in separate folders and files that made changing one single message an easy task that could be described to someone quickly. The new styles, on the other hand, rely on JS to show the message and are therefore far more difficult for a normal user to edit. Telling someone to edit "Incoming/Action.html" is way simpler than saying "go to the main.js file, search for a switch involving messageDetails and change code there.".

    The process doesn't simply involve HTML&CSS anymore, but now people must be aware of javascript syntax littered all over the place. In addition, if someone were to create a completely new style from scratch, they would basically be forced to reimplement the entirety of the logic that renders text on the screen. Furthermore, if they made a change to that core behaviour, it would only be available on that style, making it really difficult to share functionality. What happens if/when Linkinus fixes a bug in the way scrolling works, for instance? Or if new emoticons are added. Will every single style need to be updated? Right now that logic is independently stored in every style.

    I also worry about the fact that the internationalization support that the old style sdk had builtin is now completely thrown out the window by forcing the use of JS for every message. Where you used to get free internationlization by using the Cocoa bundle API, you now have to handle languages manually. I assume this will become an issue very soon.

    Overall I question the design of the new styles architecture. It's far more limiting than the old one was. Frankly, I played around with it a bit and I could probably make the necessary changes, but I don't think I want to deal with the headache of maintaining it in the future. I'd rather wait until a sane default style is implemented and officially supported that simply shows what IRC users expect.

    "Make IRC client look like an IRC client" should have been the top item on Linkinus' TODO list, not an afterthought that users are told to implement by themselves. The idea that the official response on this issue is that we're somehow expecting too much and we should implement our own IRC-like styles for an IRC application is a little depressing.

    Posted 8 months ago #
22. 

    Patch
    Member

    @alphalpha

    I don't really agree with the first part of your post, I think it's organized SO much better than it was before, this is how you truly organize a CSS type of thing, just requires know-how to find stuff, since the SDK is updated yet. But I FULLY agree with your last paragraph and it's basically what i've been trying to say in between my frustration-typing :P

    Posted 8 months ago #
23. 

    Soliah
    Member

    http://www.betsubetsu.net/files/mIRC.lnk2Style.zip

    I made a mIRC look alike. It's no where near as functional as the proper styles but it should get people started. It's definitely far from complete.

    Posted 8 months ago #
24. 

    nl
    Co-founder & Developer

    @alphalpha: there are thousand of developers whose first priority was to make their app look like an IRC client. mIRC, irssi, ircii, xchat and so many others. This has never been, is not and will never be "the top item on Linkinus' TODO list".

    About the styles however, I didn't mean you guys were "expecting too much". What I meant was more styles will come, people are working on them. I'm not at all surprised to hear that not everyone is happy with the 6 bundled styles. I'm just saying delaying the release so we could bundle some more styles wouldn't have made anybody any happier.

    Posted 8 months ago #
25. 

    nl
    Co-founder & Developer

    @Soliah: thanks, will download and test it now!

    Posted 8 months ago #
26. 

    cheef
    Member

    Soliah, that's just what I'm after too. Good work.

    Perhaps worth a thread of its own to discuss improvement options?

    Posted 8 months ago #
27. 

    Soliah
    Member

    Well I'm pretty happy with the way it looks for now. I can't seem to be able to put [] around the timestamp without some whitespace appearing after the PM/AM. And I can't make all links appear the grey in the previous sessions history without making all links grey.

    At first I was trying to use JQuery to add the necessary modifications to the nicknames and timestamps but figured out I could do it in CSS, but like I said before timestamps become [3:00 PM ] :( (And I swear my simple selector JQuery wasn't working).

    If a mod wants to start a thread where people can contribute it'd be nice. (Seems like I can't make threads on my own?)

    Posted 8 months ago #
28. 

    cheef
    Member

    Yep I can't create a thread either. And on that basis....

    Can anyone enlighten me as to how I can includes seconds showing on the time stamp on the new version of Linkinus? I currently see "21:00" on the Whisper theme, but I'd like to see "21:00:00"...

    Posted 8 months ago #
29. 

    nl
    Co-founder & Developer

    @cheef: Linkinus uses System preference Date & Time settings as far as date/time formats are concerned.
    What happens when you try to create a thread?

    Posted 8 months ago #
30. 

    cheef
    Member

    nl,

    I just don't have the option anywhere on the main form page to create a new topic. I just see a set of threads, that's it.

    Where you say:

    "Linkinus uses System preference Date & Time settings as far as date/time formats are concerned."

    ...does this mean I can somehow get seconds to display or not? Sorry to re-ask, but your comment doesn't really answer my question, I'm very new to Linkinus. :-)

    Appreciate this thread is now going off-topic, so if a new thread can be created that would be great.

    Posted 8 months ago #

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