July 31, 2005
Despite how pitiful I may currently be at writing Python, I’ve devised what is probably the best script ever written to integrate X-Chat with a media player. My Quintessential Remote script for X-Chat uses AMIP (Advanced mIRC Integration Plugin) to allow for automated reporting (to specific channels) of what’s the player is currently doing. There are plenty of other neat features, including…
- Public player control (in specific channels)
- Public request for report (can be toggled)
- A public command ignore list
- An age prerequisite for automatic reporting of media player status
This might seem like a fairly simple concept, but there is a lot to take into consideration when allowing for automatic reports requested reports. For example, an automatic report might annoyingly repeat a requested report just seconds after the fact; my script prevents this by creating an exemption stack per network/channel/song so that the automatic report can skip songs that have already been reported.
While this script is tailored for Quintessential Player, making it work with other media players, while it can’t likely be done by the configuration alone, shouldn’t be hard. All you need is a file containing the media player’s current status, and command line flags to control the player.
January 21, 2005
Locate your punctuation keys once more, for IMGrammarBot has returned. I had quit running it because of how much of a hassle it was to keep it in chats when chat owners would ban or kick it. That is presumably the reason why the grammar bots people I knew had established have been gone for a while, too. Now that annoyance is gone forever, for now IMGrammarBot is capable of managing what chats it’s in on its own! That and many more new features are available in IMGrammarBot 0.5. Go get it, and be sure to read the README so you know what to do!
August 31, 2004
I have released version 0.4 of IMGrammarBot! This version features a much more reasonable logging system: Instead of logging to individual files for every message received, IMs are all logged to ims.txt in the specified logs directory. Additionally, chat logging has been added, and chats are now logged to logs prefixed by chat_. This new logging system uses PHP’s error_log() function, which sounds like a stupid function to use, but I can’t find any other PHP functions that append files.
In the advent of the new logging system, I have included the statistics generator that I use to create a list of everybody who ever sent a message to IMGrammarBot. Now everybody may easily publish lists of fans of their own grammar bots and infuriate the masses.
July 18, 2004
I have released IMGrammarBot’s source code under the GNU Public License. Now everybody can easily create their own grammar enforcement bots for AIM chats! It would be great if more and more people start running these on a regular basis so that more correction might be accomplished.
If anybody has any suggestions or comments regarding the IMGrammarBot scripts, I’d like to know them. I actually already have a few plans for it.
Jul 20, 2004: Version 0.3 is out. Get it; it’s much better.
July 14, 2004
My English grammar correction “technology,” first seen in my IRC bot, has now graced AOL Instant Messenger under the screen name IMGrammarBot. Using the PhpTocAim class, I quickly wrote a very simple bot that can be dispatched into up to three (AIM limit) chat rooms. When common grammar errors are seen in messages, IMGrammarBot informs the violator of the most regretful of his or her mistakes. The results are quite hilarious…
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