A S C I I A r t O n I R C

A BETTER WAY

If you know of even a better way, please let me know...

  1. Create a directory under your mIRC (or other IRC client) directory for macros (ASCII Art). For example: If your mIRC directory is c:\mirc, create a sub-directory "macros" so the directory structure is c:\mirc\macros. If you use Windows 3.1 or 3.11, go to File Manager to create this directory. If you use Windows 95, you can create a directory in Windows Explorer.

  2. Download this text file into the sub-directory you just created. With Netscape Navigator, you can use a right mouse click on this link. then select "Save Link As", and specifying the correct directory. Alternately, you can left-click on the link to follow it, and when you see the train, go to the FILE menu and select "Save As".

  3. Type this command in and send to channel just as you would send any other text.

      The Command: /PLAY c:\mirc\macros\train.txt ... Please note the three periods after train.txt. They are part of the command, and serve to control the speed at which the text is sent to the channel. If you can run your IRC client software now, you can just copy and paste this command into the client.

      This command assumes your client directory is c:\mirc\macros - You may have to change that to d:\mirc\macros OR some other directory path.

      The command assumes the ASCII art is in the file named train.txt


AUTOMATE THE COMMAND

By setting up an Alias for a command in miRC (I'm not sure about other clients), you can issue the command with very few keystrokes. Instead of typing /PLAY c:\mirc\macros\train.txt ... , for example, you can accomplish the same task by typing /train , once you have set up that alias. Here are the steps:

  1. Copy or write down this command : /train /PLAY c:\mirc\macros\train.txt ... the /train part is the alias

  2. Go to the TOOLS menu in mIRC and select "Aliases"

  3. Paste or type the command above into the Aliases window

  4. Click on Save To, then OK, then OK again to exit the Aliases window

You will have to set up an alias for each text file (ASCII art file) that you want to use regularly. Rather than re-typing everything each time, what I find easiest is to COPY one entire alias command...in this case /train /PLAY c:\mirc\macros\train.txt ... and then PASTING it about ten times. Then, as I get more text files, I simply edit the end of the command to reflect the new filename. This technique makes it much less likely that you will make a mistake.

Be certain to test the macro in a private channel before trying to use it in a busy channel. If it does not play, check to make certain that the directory path is correct, the filename is correct, and that you are using the correct alias.
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