THIS IS ALPHA SOFTWARE, THEREFORE DONT BLAME ME IF IT TRASHES YOUR HARD-DISK. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DO IF YOU RUN IT.
This said I dont believe it will trash your HD. I have used it since over 10 month now as my only IRC client and it is quite stable for me. I received however some reports of hard crashes. So I'd save my documents before I run it first time if I were you.
I do develop on a Pmac 7100 under System 8, a Powerbook under 7.5.5 and a G3 under 8.1 and 8.5. I recon that the more your configuration resembles mine the more stable it is. The 68K version is lagging behind (not in features, as I am developing from one source tree, but in testing ).
Do _NOT_ expect this client to be the one kick-ass client with all the features you have always been waiting for just yet. I am developing it for about 10 month now, and even though I built upon the very good and reliable sources from O. Tietz (the creator of ircle upto 1.5.6), I have spent considerable work in bringing it to modern systems and a new IDE (the sources were from 1992). This Alpha-release is far from feature-perfect is aimed at showing a select circle of hard-core IRC users what I think of as a new approach to ease-of-use and my definition of a nice, mac-like interface. Also I do hope to get some good ideas from other people how to make it an even better client.
I do ask for feedback in the following areas:
Ñ interface desigh: what do you think of it. What is good, what is bad. new ideas
Ñ ease of use. Is there anything confusing about it?
Ñ features: what would you like to see in a client (apart from scripting - this is a bit farther off, as I have not found _the_ scripting language yet.). I welcome new ideas, and will gladly pick the best for immediate implementation
Ñ stability: if you get crashes or hangs, and you can reproduce them tell me how. please install Macsbug, when you crash type "stdlog" and restart. After that youll find on your desktop a file named stdlog. Just mail it to me, its a great help.
Ñ graphics: I am not so good at desighning icons and logos and such. If you take an interest in grafics design and are willing to help, get in touch. I need some help there.
Ñ People who want to localize versions of smIRCle. One person showed up for French, I will make a German version. Others whod like to contribute send me an email please
Known bugs:
Ñ memory leaks. I stuffed the worst, but there could be still some left.
License & Warranty:
No warranties, express or implied, are guaranteed with the software package "smIRCle" (referred to as "The Software" from here on). Any damage caused by The Software will be bore by the user of The Software. The author (Johannes Jander) of The Software is absolved of all liabilities resulting from any damage caused by The Software, even if the author has been notified of the possibility of such damage.
By using The Software, you agree to the above terms and the license described in the accompanying file "Copying".
I can be reached at Snow@starmail.com for ideas .
I am known as snow on IRC, mostly at #macwarez and mostly on IRCnet. If you have comments about the state of things, please let me know, I am really interested. I am not currently giving out the sources, but I will, once a final version is out.
