Winsock IRC Version 3.1
Released in 24-03-96.

Copyrighted by Alex Fung 1995,1996.
All rights reserved.
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What's new in the version 3.1

1. Support identd, now you can use WIRC to connect some IRC servers 
   required identd such as irc.eskimo.com.

2. Fix the problem of the 'Cannot Insert Line' GPF of the channel
   list when there are more than 2000 channels. Now the channels
   are divided into 4 pages.

3. The INI file are currently moved to the working directory instead
   of Windows directory. So for a single PC, each user can have his/her
   own customization by different directories of WIRC.

I lost the latest source file of the help file. So I keep using the help
file of WIRC 3.0. Anyway, there is not many changes. I hope I can
re-engineer the source file.


What's next ?

I am now porting the WIRC 3.1 to Windows 95 using Delphi 2.0. And
I will try to build some Windows 95 features there. By the way, I
am very busy in these days, so I do not have many spare time to
work on WIRC. I will try my best to enhance it.

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This is a fixed version 3.0. It fixed the following bugs:

1. GPF when storing the Channel list in the INI file. Now I
   store the data in some separate files in the working directory.

2. Add the leave menu item in the Channel List pop-up menu, it
   is for the user who cannot get the bottom status bar ( since
   they use large font).

There is a known bug when there are too many channels, the Listbox
will overflow and GPF of "Out of resource". This is due to the 64K
bound of 16-bit version. I hope I can get the Delphi 2.0 or something
like Huge listbox to solve this problem.

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It is released in February 1996. It is written by
Fung Sing Chiu, Alex (scfung@hkstar.com) who is
living in Hong Kong. It is a user-friendly IRC Client
Windows program. The latest version will be available
at my home page (http://www.hkstar.com/~scfung).
It requires the following :

(1) Windows 3.1 or above
(2) Internet TCP/IP connection and Winsock Interface

The executables, help file, related database and library
files may be distributed together freely in an unmodified
form and may be used without fee by any individual for
non-commercial use, subject to the following terms:

Winsock IRC may not be sold or resold, distributed as a
part of any commercial package, used in support of a
commercial service, or used in any kind of profit-generating
activity even if it is being distributed freely, without the
permission of the author.

You may use Winsock IRC freely if:

(1) You are a member of a non-commercial educational institution.
(2) You are a home user.
(3) You are a member of a non-profit organisation.

Otherwise, please leave me Email to notify me and get the approval.

For any one who like this program, want any enhancement of this
program, or report any bug, please feel free to send me email
(scfung@hkstar.com). And I will be very happy to receive your mail
and that will greatly encourage me to further enhance this program.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warrenty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


New features in 3.0
-------------------

(1) Support .chat file: Winsock IRC can now be one of your Netscape
    Helper Application, and you can launch the program, connect the
    IRC server and join the channel automatically simply by one click
    on the link under Netscape. If the link is refering to the same
    IRC server you are connecting to, it will simply launch the current
    running Winsock IRC, and change the channel directly, without neither
    logout and login again, nor execute another Winsock IRC.

(2) Support URL and Netscape DDE, so it will prompt you to launch
    the URL when the program detects some URL like "http:", "ftp:",
    "mailto:", "www.", in the incoming messages. You can turn off this
    function under the Setting|Preference function.

(3) Add the Netscape "Start", "Launch URL", and "Close" function
    to make Winsock IRC work with Netscape happily. A "Launch URL" button
    is also added next to the Topic textbox, so if some URL address is
    included in the topic line, you can launch it with only one click.

(4) History Database will store all the connection history in terms of
    server, port and channel. So you can reference this information in
    the combo box of the "Connect IRC Server" Dialog. And this greatly
    simplies your operations to connect your favour servers and channels.

    Note: For the old version users, the server list in the WSOC_IRC.INI
    is no longer referenced. To add a new server, you can simply connect
    to it, and the server entry will be added automatically, and will be
    shown next time.

(5) Channel Database will store the Channel List you retrieved for each
    server in terms of Channel names and Topics. You will find this
    function very useful if you have tried to download thousands of the
    channels each time you login to each server, and know how painful
    it is. The stored list of each server will be shown automatically
    after you connected to that server. You can turn off these function,
    if you want to save your valuable disk space, under the
    Setting|Preference function.

(6) You can now tune the socket buffer size to fit your connection speed.

(7) Nickname textbox is provided in the "Private Chat", so that even the
    user leave the joined channel, you can still chat with him.

(8) "NOTIFY/SAY/ACTION" button is improved. The button will be reseted to
    "SAY" after you use "ACTION" or "NOTIFY" each time.

(9) Fixed the bugs in Overlapped Messagebox, GPF, Channels Filtering.

(10) Rewrite the Setup program to make the installation easier.



Game Project Sample
-------------------

I start to develop some games based on the Private Chat with Winsock IRC,
using DDE. 

There will be a sample is a program written in Delphi 1.0.  You can feel
free to ask me the source code.
