Magenta

A Cyan Chat Client by Yohshee

Magenta is a Win32 client for Cyan Chat that implements Version 1 of the CC Protocol. It implements it correctly, as well as implementing it completely (i.e. full ignore and color support). It is small, swift, and easy to carry. Unlike most software.

Additional features are planned for the future, and the author will freely take suggestions, so long as they're sensible. Some suggestions were not implemented in the current version, but they will be.

Features that are particular to Magenta include:

• The ability to create a private chat window bound to a particular screen name, and have all private messages to and from that person dispatched there, instead of the main window.
• Ctrl + clicking on either name list box will paste the selected user's name into the message window, prefixing what was already there.
• The ability to remove ignores at will, as well as being able to view a list of all those that you have ignored.
• Choice over whether to send the ignore command to the ignored party.
• Choice over whether to cause a mutual ignore when someone else ignores you.
• The option of being notified when you're ignored.
• The option of being notified when a new message comes in and the Magenta window is minimized.
• Sending of raw commands to the chat server.
• Snapshot logging of the current chat session. You can save this log file in RTF or plain text.
• Continuous logging of the chat session in HTML or XML. (See documentation for more details.)
• "Chat Console" that logs all incoming packets. The console can be set up to be pulled up at startup.
• Graphical representation of those currently connected to the chat. Hovering your pointer over a name gives you more info about them.
• The ability to change which server and port you wish to connect to.
• Auto-completion of names of chatters when the Tab key is pressed. If more than one match exists, a list box pops up with a list of possible replacements.
• The ability to create a private block list, consisting of particular user names. These blocked users still appear in the Who's online window, but with "[Blocked]" after their name.
• The ability to automatically set your username at startup, optionally logging into Cyan Chat.
• The IRC command "/me" is recognized.
• Actual documentation!
• If you have Windows 2000 or XP, you can set the window's transparency.
• Many other features.

For the curious, Magenta is written in C++, utilizing the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) for all Windows stuff. It is also statically linked to the MFC libraries, which causes the executable to be a wee bit larger, but it also prevents the need to distribute libraries. And look! I even give you the source code! Woo!

For the help file to work, HTML Help must be installed. If you have any modern Windows (i.e. 98 and above), then you should not have to worry about it.

Magenta is currently built using Visual C++ 6.0, as there are issues with using .NET. The preferred OS is Windows XP SP1, but you can go as low as Windows 98.

Visual Basic Client Information

If you still absolutely must use the VB version, download the full install package of Magenta ONLY if you have never downloaded and installed Magenta before. Otherwise, download the executable update. I strongly recommend that you do not, since there's a hard limit on how much text you can receive that I could not remove.

Installation Information

Installing an executable update is relatively simple: extract the provided ZIP file to any folder, and then copy the exe file contained inside to the folder where Magenta is installed. (Typically C:\Program Files\Magenta). For newer versions of Magenta (0.8 and above), you can put the executable wherever you want. If you've ever used Putty, well, Magenta behaves like that now. If you want to use the help system, be sure to place the help file into the same directory as Magenta.

If you find that you are having trouble seeing the text (i.e. the output area text is all black), you may have to update the version of RichEdit you have on your system. Supposedly, Win98 and above have the version that you need, but a bad installer might have smashed it with an older version. I have a redistributable version of RichEdit 3 you can download, which is the version of the control I work against. Install it if need be. If that does not fix the problem, get in touch with me.

Downloads

Current Versions:

Download Magenta v1.0.61.
This version is not binary-compatible with Magenta versions prior to v0.9.16.
(The distribution includes the help file)

Current Magenta Source Code. Be sure to read readme-src.txt in the package.

Issues Resolved:
"Notify when minimized" essentially froze up the program when you minimized. My stupid mistake.
A connected timer is now displayed in the status bar.
Fixed an obscure problem with the auto-complete; preventing future problems by using synchronization.
Accidentally clicking on the "Join Chat" button twice is now fixed.
Namelists know how to refresh themselves now. (>.<)
The "Block the Chat Server" option actually works as advertised now.
The XML generator had a small problem, and is now resolved.
More synchronization has been added, due to Magenta being more multithreaded than before.
Many new options have been added, and other bugs have been fixed.
Very VERY VERY bad pointer bug has been fixed.
The main window is now resizable. Also, a tray icon is set up for the program, though no functionality has been assigned to it yet.
Bug in the XML generator which caused invalid characters to appear in names has been addressed.
Unignore had this issue where only the first entry was eliminated; hopefully fixed now.
Keyboard shortcuts have been assigned to many common menu actions.
Adding keyboard shortcuts broke the Enter key. D'oh.
Additional keyboard shortcut changes.
Miscellaneous changes implemented, including hiding the system tray icon, and a workaround for the auto-detected links not appearing in some cases.
Many little annoying things fixed, and some new features added. I don't think I want to add any more new features for the time being, really, so I'm going to ask that feature requests be put on hold for the time being.
Miscellaneous things tweaked.
Minor bug fixes. I probably should've dated this little changelog when I started it, yeah?
Even more bug fixes. I'm declaring this 1.0, since I haven't updated it in a while, and I don't see any reason not to declare it as such.
Corrected nonbreaking spaces with Wine. This is more a Wine problem than a Magenta problem, admittedly.

Here's a sample XSL stylesheet for the Magenta XML Format.

Also check out the Magenta XML DTD.

Older Magenta Versions:

Download the full Magenta setup package. (~2.2MB, v0.6.45)

Download the final executable update for Magenta 0.6.45.

Source code for Magenta 0.6.47 (internal release).

News and Updates:

2/9/2008: As you can probably tell, updates on Magenta have been pretty nil, due to the fact that there's really not a whole lot to improve, except for minor bug fixes. As such, I've decided to quit beating around the bush and call this 1.0.

8/31/2006: More than a year since I wrote something here? Yeah. There've been a few bugfixes here and there, so pick up the latest version, if you so desire.

4/26/2005: Updated Magenta, and updated the helpfile. No regex in Magenta, plzkthx. SFT, your request has been honored, and tested.

1/9/2005: Happy New Year! And a Happy New Magenta, as well.

8/23/2004: Micropoint release. If you really need Alt-S for sending private messages, get this build. I didn't even bother rolling the version number up for this one.

8/12/2004: Remarkable. This thing has been out for nearly a month, and nobody told me that the Enter key stopped working! (Except Magician.) The fix was a one liner. Get your updates. Also, if you are still using the VB version (you know who you are), get the new one. Really. You won't regret it, and the VB version is completely unsupported.

7/9/2004: Point release. I've fixed a couple of long-standing bugs in the program; thanks to Odo for ferreting them out. Also, I've started investigating building under VS.NET, as it is far superior in too many ways to VC++ 6.0. However, I've opened up yet another can of worms with trying this, so I'm going to keep working on it. I'm going to start including both the workspace and the solution files for both environments from now on.

4/23/2004: Not much to let go with this update. I need a few ideas as to what to do with that tray icon, as well as finishing up bug reporting, which has code in place, just not the dialog box to send it. Once that is done, I will call it 1.0 at last. I'll be happy with that, because I'm sick of seeing open source projects that never reach 1.0, and I don't want to be a hypocrite. ;p

3/14/2004: The bug with the display has once again been reported. I've looked around, thought hard, stared at my code, and the only solution I could come up with is possibly upgrading your version of RichEdit. The download is above. If you're running anything less than Windows XP, I suggest getting that upgrade, anyway, to prevent future problems if ever I decide to take advantage of some higher-level features (not that I don't anyway with the URL highlighting).

3/13/2004: Those of you who keep up with my life know that I've been very busy lately. Remember always that Magenta is a hobby project, and is therefore subject to times when I'll just let it lay fallow.

I've gotten reports of some strange problems with the XML generator (greater and less than signs not being replaced with entities, which is what it does, so far as the source and XML output tells me), name sliding with the RCC (I warn you about this, anyway, but the problem is obscure), and what happens if you leave Magenta on for a long, long time (no longer receiving messages). I've been unable to reproduce these bugs, therefore I cannot fix them.

I have a few things coming down the pipe in terms of features. That and the help file will actually be updated to document them. Stay tuned.

1/30/2004: There is a new link. Do not use the old address for this page anymore; right now, I have a redirector at that page that will take you here. Use http://www.fadedtwilight.org/Magenta from now on.

1/25/2004: Yes, I finally officially released a new version. You may notice that the Large Window version is no longer available for download. That's because the Magenta window is now resizable. All it took was you guys bothering me enough for me to finally do it. Also, I've gotten a report of the Magenta main text panel going suddenly black and unreadable...I haven't been able to isolate the cause of this. If it does happen again, try using regedit, and deleting the following value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Faded Twilight\Magenta\Settings\Font
Let me know what comes of it.

11/1/2003: Almost there to true release. This version is just for getting a couple of new features out into the wild. As before, I've been too lazy to update the help file. ;p

10/12/2003: New partially working version uploaded. Partially working because a couple of the new features are untested and undocumented at this time. Uploaded because of a killer bug.

9/22/2003: Two months of work, and I finally have a new version. Go get 'er.

7/22/2003: Just in time for UnMysterium!

4/7/2003: Latest Magenta update. No other updates have come down the pipe because I simply didn't have anything to fix or add because nobody reports anything. Well, not until recently, anyway.

2/21/2003: Guess what? :> By the way, if you want to link to this page, please use the following URL: http://www.fadedtwilight.org/Content/magenta.htm.

2/14/2003: It has come to my attention that there are some rather peculiar bugs in the frozen version of Magenta that's here on this webpage. Guys, I can't fix the bugs in later versions (or see if they're even there) if you don't let me know what causes the program to crash. Fortunately, a certain show-stopper bug doesn't exist in the new version of Magenta, due to how Magenta handles namelists now. (I.e. names of chatters were case insensitive in the old version, and the keys would collide and Magenta would thusly crash. The internal structure that handles names now is keyless, and therefore not vulnerable to this problem.) It may seem as if I've stopped development on Magenta due to how, er, old this version on this page is. Well, I haven't. I'm thinking of implementing an email function in the new version to automatically send crash reports by request. That and a form of auto-update are being considered. More later.

10/24/2002: Well, I thought I froze it. By request of Alahmnat, I've fixed one little thing that made it not conform to Windows user interface standards, which I ought to know by now. x.X Go get it.

10/21/2002: New setup package uploaded. Development on the current version of Magenta is now FROZEN. Keep checking back, though, until I'm able to release a newer version (and hopefully faster with a smaller set of dependencies).