Ok so I've been using Miranda for past few years. I'm generally very happy with it, it's light-weight, it's useful, it's personalizable, but it's also pain in the ass to set up properly.
I got my package I flicked together some time ago and I'm happy with it - it might not show avatars, it might not show me info about all my contacts when I hover above them, it certainly doesn't tell me what the weather forecast is, but it functions, sends and receives messages (and, I must add, I can be sure they'll be delivered (which actually took me some time to achieve but anyway)) and doesn't bother my life that much.
It has, however, started getting somewhat old and senile lately, one extremely annoying error window started popping up on every attempt to connect (ideally every on every start-up, but in praxis much more often) and I'm now sterile, unable to send/receive files to anyone. Oh yes, and some people can't read my X-Status properly. Or at all.
So I decided to get a new one. Young. Vigorous. The latest build. With all the updated addons. Well, I did get the lastest build of the core. What I didn't get was the modern contact list addon (which is vital for any skinning - which I require) - the original (and obviously only) place on the web where it should be downloaded from (Miranda database) was bugged. After some extensive copying and enabling/disabling of addons and general proces of getting pissed off I though "Heck, I might as well get one of already functioning packs with some stuff I'd like and just disable the rest!". So I did.
I downloaded sssuigi's (I hope I put in enough "s"'s) pack. He's some slovakian guy and the pack was quite cool. I downloaded it, unpacked, simply copied and I was up and running. But oh-my-jolly-god, what all didn't I see! It was so, SO cluttered with useless junk! I mean, it had bosskey (what for? I can chat no problem!), weather forecast (in IM? why the hell would I want that?), TV programme (I don't have TV), radio programme and streaming (I don't listen to radio), Windows uptime (again - what bloody for?!), Miranda traffic meter (...OK, so I'll know how much I talked. Great.) and even more of some other stuff I didn't even understand what it was supposed to do!
It did have some nice features though, like e.g. contact-info on mouseover (very cool, with statuses, x-statuses, last-seen, god-knows-what, cup size...), avatars, cool semi-transparent pop-ups and all sorts of other gadgets and features. But the message window was ugly and cluttered too. It was red-on-black, which is bloody illegible. No chance.
So I thought I could tweak it appropriately. I started disabling addons and editing settings. But how great was my astonishment when I saw, that after disabling few (about 3/27 or something) addons and restart it stopped functioning! "Error, miranda had to be shut down, wanna send a message to Microsoft, they'll fix it for you." No, I did not. After trying three times and failing three times over I gave up and went back to my good ol' simple pack.
I think I'll cope with that start-up message and send files over ftp. I only fear what will I do when it will definitely die.
Adam
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