---------------------------------------------------
mIRCStats v1.15 (build 4) - Uploaded 14.8.2000
by Mikko 'Ave' Auvinen (comments to mircstats@nic.fi)

homepage: http://www.nic.fi/~mauvinen/mircstats/
     FAQ: http://www.nic.fi/~mauvinen/mircstats/mircstatsfaq.html
---------------------------------------------------
HTTP-Component programmed by Francois Piette (http://www.rtfm.be/fpiette).
  - Used to retrieve a "New version" message from nic.fi's web server.
    This uses HTTP GET method, and doesn't send any information out.
    If new mIRCStats version is available, a message window pops up.
---------------------------------------------------


mIRCStats is an easy-to-use IRC channel reporting tool, which analyzes channel log-files
produced by the most commonly used IRC-client, mIRC, and creates a nice looking
HTML-page consisting of channel activity statistics, user reports, tables about changed
channel topics and all kinds of miscellaneous information taken from the log file. 


Some guidelines:
----------------
It's easy to start making statistics using mIRCStats: 

	* Make sure you have a mIRC client program (version 5.31 or higher). 
	  (download: http://www.mirc.co.uk) 

	* Run mIRC and turn on "timestamps", by checking timestamps-checkbox in the
          channel window's options (or use command /timestamp on). 

 	* Start logging channels you are on by checking "Automatically log channels" 
	  at mIRC Options/Logging. 

	*You can ease your life by doing this in mIRC: 
    	     - Check "Strip control codes" and 
	     - Uncheck "Lock log files" at Options/Irc/Logging. 
	     - Uncheck "Show mode prefix" at Options/Irc.

After doing this your mIRC is making .log-files of all channel activities on those channels
you are on. You can generate statistics any time by running mIRCStats and selecting a
proper mirc log file. 



mIRCStats is a SHAREWARE program

	  If you like to use mIRCStats, please register it. By doing that you 
	  also support developing of new features, which you can take full
	  advantage of! Take a look at register.txt for further info.


	Following list includes mIRCStats features. Features which are only 
	available for registered users are marked (*) or (-)


VERSION INFO:
-------------

14.8.2000 - v1.15 (build 4)

	* STILL some bug fixes!
	 (-) Fixed colour bug when using colour effects in long custom stats tables.
          - Corrected '?'-wildcard search. Should be exact now.
	  - Table title selection bug corrected.
          - Other minor stuff fixed.


1.8.2000 - v1.15 (build 3) 

        * Fixed following bugs:
          - Memory was not cleared properly after pressing "Clear" button. This caused daily
            line counts to increase if application was not closed between scans.

	  - Also long term stats were affected by this bug. Improved data comparison and storing.

          - In long term stats the average line length was occasionally shown as 0 (zero). Fixed.


	ps. Added "Limitations" info at the end of this document.


31.7.2000 - v1.15

      (*) Custom stats section added! Find out who talk most about any self-defined
          subject. Define different stats for every week day, day of month, every week etc.
	  Further info available from "Custom stats settings" page.

        * Maximum number of nicks (20000) limit is gone. Number of nicks is from now on limited
          only by the amount of available memory in your computer.

	* Major user interface changes. This had to be done to make it possible to handle 
	  increasing number of settings easily.
	  
      (*) Detailed hourly load table option added.

	* Possiblity to divide quotes into many lines to avoid them to be cutted.
          (Html output/Html 1/Misc settings)

        * Autoupdate script updated. mIRCStats is now launched with START /w command which doesn't
          allow batch file execution to continue until mIRCStats has finished.
	  

30.4.2000 - v1.14.6

	* A quick update because v1.14.5 pops up an update message from the beginning of
	  May 2000. You can use this version until the next real update is released which 
	  is a bit delayed from original plans. Sorry about that folks.


23.1.2000 - v1.14.5

	* Mostly small option additions and fixes requested by users.

		- Use a custom divider in stats: You can now freely define 
		  the divider HTML code under "HTML Structure" tab.

	       (-) Some "Word stats" options added: Select which sections are shown
		   and filter out unwanted words by putting them to the omit list.

		- You can now select whether the html file name is automatically set
		  based on the log filename or the channelname parsed from log.

		- Fixed some small but annoying bugs.


26.10.1999 - v1.14.4
	
	* Multiple log analyzing
		- You can now combine many "daily timestamped" logs. Just select
		  logs you want from "log browser" (press CTRL to select several logs), 
		  or enter a log filter, like "mychannel_*.log". 
		  Maximum number of logs you can analyze to single stats is 200.
		  Logs are analyzed oldest-first. Log analyzing is started from
		  that timestamp where previous log ended, so no lines are counted twice,
		  even when connecting many logs logged in different clients.	

	* Log timestamp modes configurable. In future mIRC versions you can decide how
	  you want timestamps to appear in mIRC channel window. Anyway, it's recommended
	  to keep using the default mode [hh:mm].

	* Optimising..
		- mIRCStats utilises now balanced binary trees (red-black trees),
		  which is known to be one of the fastest search algorithm out there.
				  
		  BigChief ran some speed tests (thanks! :) with this version and an
		  older one (v1.14), the speed increase was about 30% when log size was
		  about 300K lines and there was around 4000 nicks in the log.

		  For those of you who run stats for extremely crowded channels the
	   	  speed boost should be over 50%!

	* Bug fix
		- The "New version message" window appeared sometimes without a reason 
		  in previous versions. Amazing what one uninitialised BIT (boolean) 
		  can cause!! :P



15.10.1999 - v1.14.3

	* Bug fixes
		- Doh! I managed to screw up the "most deopped person"-detection
		  in "Big Numbers" section - Now corrected. (See v.14.2 for details)
		- Also applied some colour fixes.


14.10.1999 - v1.14.2

	* Added "Gave most ops" and "Got deopped most times"-section to Big Numbers.
	  These are language tags 67 and 68. See lang_english for example.

	* Bug fixes
		- Fixed a small bug which caused long term stats to show errors
	     	  when stats were generated for short time period (when channel name
		  was not found in log).
		- Channel Operator signs (@ or configured) is not shown if stats
		  are generated for shorter time period than 3 days. Because Op
		  data is collected from "nnn sets mode +o mmm" messages, there
		  might be days when someone is already an op and there's no sign
		  in the log about it.
		- Changed default link colour back to title text colour.
		- Improved Channel operator detection
	       (-) Nick exclusion works now also in "Most referred nicks" table
		   in Word stats.
		

11.10.1999 - v1.14

	* Manual nick connection file
     		- Specify which nicks actually belong to one person
     		- Separate persons who use same irc client
     		- You can use wildcards (* and ?) in nick filters
     	       (-) Link nicks to their homepages!
     	       (-) Use any IMAGE instead of nickname in user stats!


	* Nick exclusion list!
     		- Filter out channel bot(s) and stats-abusing persons)    

	(*) Word stats 
     		- Most used words - when those words were last used and by whom?
		- Lists nicknames who are mentioned in channel discussion most often.
     		- Most used URLs in channel - shows them as direct links!
		- You can specify minimum length of acceptable words 

	(*) Compensate time zones by adding -+ hours to your log timestamps

	(*) Use your small "Channel logo" instead of "@" to show channel operators
		- It's a good habit to put a small explanation about your
		  new "Op sign" into header file (either mircstatsheader.txt or
		  <channelname>header.txt), so your viewers will be less confused.. :)

	(*) You can shrink the mIRCStats info bar in the bottom of the page

	* Stats fonts selectable!
	
	* File access component re-programmed 
		- This fixed problem when mIRCStats thought that log ended when someone 
                  had pasted weird ASCII-chars to channel which contained also the 
                  control character EOF (End-of-file). Now reads also through those.
		- File reading optimised. Works now faster if you don't want to analyze
		  the entire log, just some parts of it.

	(*) Detect and activate URLs as web links in random quotes, topics etc..
	
	(*) More title styles




15.8.1999 - v1.13

	* Better config managing.
	
	* Some GUI fixes and enhancements
		- Added "run minimized" option for automode.
		- Clear button separated.
		- Warns if user tries to use filenames with spaces.

	* Long term stats: Total number of lines added to stats (language line #78).
		- Uses Windows "digit grouping symbol" variable in formatting.
		  (Control panel/Regional settings/Number)

	* Log pre-analysing optimised, speed increase 100%-300% in that phase.	

	* Some fixes:
		- Date format bug fixed.
		- If channel name not found in log, uses log filename instead.
		- Topic stats: Ignores consecutive topic changes to same topic.
		- Long term stats: Bug in line count handling fixed.

	* New colour preset (sunrise)
	
	* Some strings added to language file 'english.msl' (tags 75-79)


4.7.1999  - v1.12

	* Some functional fixes
	
	* Date and time formats now configurable
	  - Under "Language and Time" tab.

	* Table title styles now configurable
	  - Under "HTML structure" tab.

	* Also included: mIRCStats autoupdate-zip package, which can be used to
	  automatically update and upload html file to remote server.
	  (Unzip it to "autoupdate" folder under your mircstats main folder.)


9.6.1999  - v1.11

	* "Most monologues"-section added. Shows the person who had most incidents when
	  he wrote more than 5 consecutive lines to the channel.
	  
	  Uses language configuration tags 80 and 81. 
	  See lang_english.msl in 'language' folder for sample.


	* Fixed but in "Most nicks"-section which in certain situations caused a nick to
	  be listed twice with different percentages. (?)

	* Search algorithm optimised. Here's some proof (a 16Mb log with 2000 users):

	  Before:	This page was created on 9.6.1999 22:14 with mIRCStats v1.10. 
	  		Run time: 16 mins and 31 seconds.

	  After:	This page was created on 9.6.1999 21:53 with mIRCStats v1.11. 
	  		Run time: 2 mins and 57 seconds.


	  Channels with lot of nicks get the greatest benefit out of this amendment.





25.4.1999 - v1.10 (bug fix) 

	* Fixed a bug in config handling. Previous versions did not set all checkbox
 	  states correctly.


20.4.1999 - v1.10

	* Language support added. Reads language configurations from selected file
	  located at "Language" sub-directory. You can create similar files for your
          own language, so stats look even more amazing! (You can also modify freely
	  those ready language-files made by me.. :P

	  Language files (.msl-files) can be opened with any text editor.


	* History info gathering and long term stats table added. Program saves daily 
	  info to a history file located at "History" sub-directory. After history file
          size has exceeded 21 days (or you have made a large report with your old log 
	  files), long term statistics-table is added to the bottom of the html-page.

  	  You can run all your logs through the program only once. After this mIRCStats
          always outputs also the long term table which contains all those days what you 
          ever have put through this program!
	 
	  (Warning: some problems might occur in year 2004, when 5-year limit has
                    been reached.. ;)

	* Nick limit raised to 10000.

	* "Wolfenstein" colour scheme added.

	* Destination html-file can be now named freely, just uncheck that "auto assign"
	  check box.



 

13.3.1999 - v1.09

	- HTML-structure fixed ( <head>-section ).
	- Colour transformations enhanced (Sinus wave generator etc..) Check out!
	- User header now under page title as default (location can be changed).
	- Fixed kick counter to work also with new mIRC logging style.
	- Line length - calculation fixed (v1.08 bugged in certain situations..)
	- Added "most nicknames" cell to Big Numbers table. (works only when nick 
	 	connecting is enabled).
	- Random line collector rejects short lines ("Hi!")
	- Clear-button added - you can run several stats without restarting the prog.

	- Supports now also Linux Scrolls - logging style. (atleast normal lines..)	  


11.2.1999 - v1.08

	  *** Competition declared! - Make cool configurations in your statistics! mIRCStats
	  is very easy to configure for nice and personal touch. Best looking pages will get
	  a top spot in mIRCStats users link list.

	  hint: Put your own html header code in mircstatsheader.txt - the program will
   	        automatically add it to every stats you run. See v1.06 info for details.
	  	example: <img src="http://your.server/your_own_logo.jpg"> will add a picture 
		         to the top of every page you run! :)
	  ***

	
	- Reporting enhancements: Table colour transformations (one more table sheet)
	  and one entry added to "Big Numbers"-table.

	- Possibility to disable initial countdown in automatic run mode.	

	- Changed default font color to same than other texts - some page headers were
	  too hard to see with previous colors.



24.1.1999 - v1.07

	- Word hunter enhancement: You can now give a list of words from where hunter picks one.

	- Number of entries in user report is now controlled better and shouldn't grow too large.

	- Program rejects now all nicks who wrote 0 lines.

 	- Info screen added. Notifies the user for updated versions and news.

	- for IrcII and Eggdrop-users : if you don't remember to use ascii-mode in your 
	  log-transfers, mIRCStats still can read the log FTP'ed using binary mode.

	- Some minor updates for GUI and html-report. 

   	*** mIRC v5.5 has now an option to trim log files. This helps keeping log processing
	    times down. See mIRCStats FAQ or mIRC documentation for details.



20.12.1998 - v1.06

	- Background image support: Choose the image you want, mIRCStats will copy it to the
	  same folder with the html-file and bars. Then just upload contents of that folder 
	  to the server - that's it!

	  (hint: Very colorful background image makes the page totally unreadable!!
	   Mainly prefer ones you can find from the mIRCStats-folder.)


  --->	- Html header and footer support! - No more hacking with the page source! :P
	  Add your own piece of code to mircstatsheader.txt or/and mircstatsfooter.txt
 	  mIRCStats will then include those lines to the final report (provided that you 
	  had appropriate boxes checked..) 

 	  For those of you who release statistics for many channels, it's possible to 
	  define different kinds of headers and footers for every channel. Make them to
	  files like 'mychannelheader.txt' or 'mychannelfooter.txt' (for #mychannel)


	- Using same configs for channels like #bible and #deathmetal :) may lead to some 
	  kind of compromises - now you can make different configurations for every channel
          you run automatically. You can give the cfg-file as a parameter like this:

  	  	mircstats.exe c:\logs\#mychannel.log c:\stats\mychannel.html -c mychannel_weekly_config.cfg
	
	  Defining special channel configs goes like this: 
		- First run mircstats and set options, colours and files as you like.
		- Press button 'Save configs' (goes to 'settings.cfg')
	    	- Then copy 'settings.cfg' to 'mychannel_weekly_config.cfg' (for example..)

	
	- Fixed bug which caused 'Last N days'-selection not to work in the automode.


	- !! There has been 2 sights of a strange error which caused log reading to stop
	     in the middle of the file. The cause must have been that some person on a channel
             had pasted some ascii-crap there, and those characters must have included
	     the End-of-file mark, where mIRCStats stops reading.
          
             For similar errors, I added one line to the bottom of the html-source showing
             the last line which was read. Just copy that line and search for it in the log file, 
             so you should see some strange characters around that area. If you did, please send 
             me a copy of that area of the log file to ave@cc.tut.fi, so I can try to fix the
             program so that it wouldn't anymore jam in that position. 
		
	     Remove strange lines and save the log, so It will work again.
 


05.12.1998 - v1.05
	
  !!!	- Major optimizations in log handling, application speeded up 40% to 80% depending 
  !!!	  of the size of the log file !!!

	  Test run: 897 kB log file:

		mIRCStats v1.03 - "It took 39 seconds to create this page."
		mIRCStats v1.05 - "It took 9 seconds to create this page."
		----------------------------------------------------------
		Result: v1.05 was 77% faster than the previous version.

		
05.12.1998 - v1.04

	- Some parts added into 'Big Numbers'-section. Check them out...
	- Fixed that 'feature' which caused upgrade-popup to appear 3 months too early.. :P
	

19.11.1998 - v1.03

	- User interface fixes. (Earlier versions looked strange when using big fonts in Windows.
				 wonder why no-one reported this earlier..)
	- Some optimization in code.


10.10.1998 - v1.02
	
	- Command line parameters added. From now on you can run the program with any 
	  scheduler program and give the log name and result file as parameters.
	  Parameter format is: mircstats.exe [source log] [dest. html file]  
	
	  EXAMPLE:
		   mircstats.exe d:\mirc\logs\#paraakkeli.log c:\mircstats\today.html
		
	  !!! v1.06 addition: possibility to use channel specific cfg-files. 
		
	  EXAMPLE:
		   mircstats.exe d:\mirc\logs\#paraakkeli.log c:\mircstats\today.html -c paraakkeli_one_day_settings.cfg


	  mIRCStats runs then in AutoMode and uses configurations you have saved.  

	  (this makes it possible to schedule automatic update of various channels, try it!
	   You can also schedule a ftp program to automatically upload html's to web server)
	  

	- Word Hunter added - Choose a strange word and see who uses that word the most!
	- Minor document structure and colour fixes. 		


	- Eggdrop log handling now possible. Because Eggdrop doesn't include any date or
	  channelname info in the log file, you have to add 2 lines in the beginning 
	  of the log file.

	  Needed lines are these two:

Session Start: NOW Oct 10 00:00:00 1998
*** Now talking in #ChannelName
	
	  (Naturally you must use correct day info at the line #1)

	  mIRCStats uses this date and time as the base point to calculate times & dates.


31.8.1998 - v1.01

	- Some minor fixes


28.8.1998 - v1.0

	- Much more options (structure, parser, colours) to select from.
	- Configuration saving added.
	- Automatic run mode makes it possible to run the application as a scheduled task.


12.8.1998 - v1.0beta(4)
	Date format is not anymore dependant of windows' regional settings.


9.8.1998 - v1.0beta(3)
	Some minor fixes and ircII-style log reading added.


5.8.1998 - v1.0beta(2)
	Very disturbing crash bug fixed.

-------------------



Known bugs:
===========
- command line parameters (filenames) can't contain any spaces in file or directory names.


Limitations:
============
- Maximum number of days to be analyzed with a single scan.............. 2000
- Maximum number of lines per day to be saved to channel history...... 262140
- Maximum number of days in channel history......................... NO LIMIT
- Maximum number of nicks in one scan............................... NO LIMIT
- Maximum number of words in word stats............................. NO LIMIT
- Most variables are limited by range of signed 32-bit integer.... 2147483647


Thanks to:
==========

* All registered users who believe that it can still be developed further
* mIRCStats beta tester group
* Everyone who has sent me mail and suggestions about mIRCStats.


Please report bugs to mircstats@nic.fi


>>> Author doesn't take any responsibility of any damage this program may cause.
>>> Copyright of mIRCStats is owned by Mikko Auvinen
