Easier widget creation

There's a new easy to use tool to create a Mibbit widget:

http://www.mibbit.com/widget.html

Just input the information, click on preview, make sure it works as you want, then grab the code or URL :) Job done!

Feel free to create a Mibbit account purely for your widget, then use the settings ID for that. You can then play with the settings in that mibbit account, and not have to update the widget code at all.

Undernet and some more networks

A few new networks have joined us, and we now have an undernet server setup, so you should be able to connect to that successfuly. Just choose the Undernet server in the drop down.

We now have 25 networks setup with WEBIRC (Means it looks like you are connecting directly, bans/cloaks/etc all work properly).

We have a further 43 networks with which we have agreements for increased session limits.

All of these 68 (Currently) networks channels are indexed, so please do use the [channel search] on the top right if you want to find new channels.

Weekly updates

This is quite a big one...

* There is now an [account] tab. This is where you store login details for your IRC servers. Also there will be things such as email address, and account type settings here.
The IRC server settings you put in here will be used for any connections, such as clicking on search results, or any auto-connects you have setup in [channels].
Note that the default AuthType has been set to NickServ. You may need to change this to PASS for some of your servers.

* Channels - The server login details have gone from here, moved to [account]. You can also now list a server more than once, so you can have a few favorite groups of channels on a server, and just click [connect] to join that group of channels.

* Load a skin - in Prefs, you can now load a skin. If you know the ID, just click on [load skin] at the bottom, and input the ID. Tweak it, and save. For example, try the ID 40d4f6c76550fbd0daaf419a85b2e1e6 which is a plain blue theme I just made.

* /who output shows nicer now

* Widgets can now join multiple channels. Separate with a comma.

* You can now set things like tab colors, background, etc. Lots more customization.

* You can get the widget to ask for a password (NickServ auth only at the moment). &promptPass=true

* gzip is now supported. This means that instead of loading 200k of javascript, you only have to load 40k. Loading should be even faster.

As this is quite a big release, there may be bugs. If so, please email or submit a bug in the bug tracker at bugs.mibbit.com

Here's an example widget skin :) http://embed.mibbit.com/?settings=40d4f6c76550fbd0daaf419a85b2e1e6

This weeks updates

* There is a new system for settings in widgets. You may pass the param settings= and it'll load the settings from a Mibbit account. To find out this ID, simply go into [prefs] and it'll be shown at the top. Please note there is currently a bug that means it will not be shown right after a register. So if you register a new account, click reload, *then* go into prefs.

If you change any prefs in the Mibbit account obviously these will be used the next time your widget gets loaded.

* Banning... If Mibbit has the information, you'll get 2 new user menu options - ban the user, and ban the host. It will have this info if the user arrived after you, or if you have done a WhoIS on the user on that server. Later on the info will also be shared so that you should get info for all users.

* New infrastructure for a [My account] tab. This will contain private things, like email, account settings, etc

* On channel search results, if we have the info, get to see which channels are actually busy. If there are Mibbitians on the channel, we will also include info such as (6 users, 2 chatting). A user is defined as chatting if they said something in the last 10 minutes. Note also they can be any client, not just mibbit users.

* Known tor exit nodes are now blocked from Mibbit due to abuse.

Mibbit continues to grow well, 4 million lines of chat handled daily now.

Latest updates

Here are some new features:

* Channel search works a little better. Now the server name is searched as well. So you can search for "freenode", and all the channels on freenode will be returned.
* Channel search now has pagination. When you do a search, you can now page next and back etc.
* Text links and channel links color can now be set with prefs.
* Fixed a bug related to people trying to login before the page had properly loaded.
* First (beta) version of PM logging is live.

Some notes about the logging - This is disabled by default for now. If you'd like to enable it, just go into your prefs, and click on "Log my PMs". It will take effect the *next* server you connect to. Please rest assured that your logs are completely safe and confidential. If you wish to remove one of them you can click on 'delete' from [Logs].

We also have WEBIRC setup with rizon and a few other new servers on board which is great :)

We also now have a 'language' setting in prefs, which can also be passed in via the widget. The available options so far are 'en' (English), and 'fr' (French). We will be adding to this during the week :) This setting effects most of the messages, menus, etc.

Numbers, numbers, everywhere...

Each day on mibbit:
* 10Gb of data transferred.
* 2.5 Million lines of chat received.
* 260,000 lines of chat sent.
* 16,500 IRC Connections handled.
* 2,000 image URLs auto-thumbnailed.
* 100 pastebins created (New feature).

SSL IRC connections

Just pushed out some new features that should make some peoples life easier.

Please once again, accept my apologies when the backend restarts. I try to do this at quiet times, and only once or twice a week. On the minus side, you have to reconnect. On the plus side, you get new features :)

* If the IRC server is setup for WEBIRC, the ident is no longer set to the users IP in hex. This means if you are connecting to a WEBIRC enabled server, and have a cloak setup there, people can't see your IP.

* You can now choose to see extra information on joins/parts. This includes the hostmark, (mibbit/widget), and the device (ipod/iphone/wii). Just set the options in Prefs, or pass these into the widget URL. This is disabled as default (I *think* most people won't be interested).

* You can connect to SSL IRC servers :) Please note you need to find a server that supports SSL, and make sure you are connecting on the correct port for SSL. The way to signify Mibbit should use SSL, is to simply prefix the port with a '+'. For example irc.irchighway.net:+9999

* Mibbit now replies to ctcp pings. A small one, but good to know :/

* /whowas replies are parsed and show up nicely on the currently active tab for that server.

Enjoy :)