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Textual 2.1

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(4) 3.75

Lightweight IRC client. Demo ($4.99)

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Codeux Software

Textual is a lightweight IRC client created specifically for Mac OS X. It was designed with simplicity in mind. Textual has taken the best of IRC and built it into a single client. Its easy-to-use functionality combined with scripting support makes it an ideal IRC client for novice to advanced users.

What's New

Version 2.1:

[NEW]: New lion-esque aqua based user interface.
[NEW]: Message count for channels similar to Mail, iTunes, Colloquy, and other applications. Uses red background to indicate a highlight in an unread selection.
[NEW]: The input box now automatically resizes based on the amount of data presented to it similar to the application "Colloquy" and iChat.
[NEW]: Incoming messages are now automatically throttled to ensure a large blob of text from something such as a spam bot does not lock up Textual's own user interface.
[NEW]: Support for SASL plain text authentication.
[NEW]: Added "/spotify" script.
[NEW]: Highlight logging will now appear within a sorted list by pressing ⌘5 or selecting the "Highlight List" menu item from the "Window" menu. They will no longer be logged to queries.
[NEW]: User interface redesign for "Server Properties" to make it easier to navigate and leave room for future expansion.
[NEW]: IPv6 addresses can now be used by the "/server" command. It requires the standard brackets ([ and ]) to surround the address to qualify as a proper address.
[NEW]: Added support for IPv6 "irc://" URLs.
[NEW]: Added support for IPv6 addresses in primary server field.
[NEW]: Added option to prefer IPv6 over IPv4 for server addresses that contain entries for both.
[NEW]: Textual now prevents the network wide ban of its active user through the IRCOp right click menu. The use of the commands "/gline," "/kline," "/zline," and others do not provide this functionality.
[NEW]: Inline images can now be disabled for specific channels.
[NEW]: Join, part, quit activity can now be disabled for specific channels.
[NEW]: Support for regular expression highlights have been brought over from the master branch.
[NEW]: Textual now supports multiple inline images with the ability to differentiate between duplicate ones.
[NEW]: Added ability to hide an inline image by shift clicking it. Woo!
[NEW]: Added ability to remove more than ten channel bans, ban exceptions, or invite exceptions at a time.
[NEW]: Added support for mode +u for channel owner. (ac3xx)
[NEW]: Added support for ESC key to exit full screen.
[NEW]: Added support for the keyboard shortcut ⌃⌘L to focus the channel view in order to allow scrolling with the keyboard.
[NEW]: Added two new HTML layouts for theme developers to use. The first one is a slight variation of the original and the second is a "div" based table layout.
[NEW]: Support for "ircs://" URL protocol.
[NEW]: Added "cap" command to show what extra capacities are enabled depending on the server connected to.
[CHANGED]: ⌘+Enter no longer sends the message within the input box as an action.
[CHANGED]: The theme "Experimental" is no longer packaged by default with Textual.
[CHANGED]: Flood control settings are now server specific.
[CHANGED]: The "WHO" command is no longer sent to channels on servers that support user hostnames in the "NAMES" command.
[CHANGED]: Sandbox support is now enabled in Textual to comply with app store guidelines. This may break some scripting functionality. Contact Textual support for more information.
[CHANGED]: Flood control is now enabled by default for Freenode connections.
[CHANGED]: The IP address matching system for channel views has been removed because of increasing stability issues.
[CHANGED]: CTCP ping requests now use nanosecond accurate math.
[CHANGED]: Textual now differentiates between actions and normal messages in alerts.
[CHANGED]: The old syntax of the "ctcp" command has been changed. It is now nickname first, then request type.
[CHANGED]: Replaced scrollbar markers with "Next Highlight" and "Previous Highlight" navigation shortcuts.
[CHANGED]: Xsysinfo is no longer packaged with Textual by default as requested by developer.
[CHANGED]: Right clicking an empty space on the server list now provides option to add new server as apposed to old system of showing menu relevant to selection.
[CHANGED]: Increasing channel view font size ⌘+, ⌘- will now apply to all listed views instead of only the focused one.
[CHANGED]: The server and user list of Textual now have the ability to be hidden during normal usage instead of reverting size when the view has changed. Simply drag each list until it is hidden and it will remain that way as long as Textual is kept open.
[CHANGED]: The topic bar is no longer displayed for the console. Only for channels and queries.
[CHANGED]: The writing direction of the input text field now reflects the setting specified in Preference as apposed to only applying the setting to the chat window.
[CHANGED]: If a server address is left empty, then Textual will now use "localhost" for its address instead of "unknown.host.com"
[CHANGED]: The underline text format keyboard shortcut has been remapped to cmd+shift+u to accommodate the "Server Properties" window which already uses the combination cmd+u
[CHANGED]: Scripts, Extensions, and Themes that are packaged with Textual by default are no longer copied into a separate folder. They are stored exclusively in the application so that only custom items are stored in the old location.
[CHANGED]: Simplified Light is now the default theme.
[CHANGED]: Made some dialogs more clear by replacing the "OK" button with "Save"
[CHANGED]: Maximum scroll back size has been extended to 10,000 messages. Double original value.
[CHANGED]: During wake Textual now only reconnects to the servers which were already connected to before sleep occurred.
[CHANGED]: Use of the "/ignore" command with nothing after it will now open the "Add Ignore" window within the Address Book.
[CHANGED]: The option to enable or disable text indentation is no longer available. This feature is now left up to the theme developer and is made available depending on the HTML layout that they use.
[CHANGED]: If a user is logged into a bouncer from two clients and try and use the "/oper" command, then any client that is already an IRCOp will no longer display a message saying the user is now one.
[CHANGED]: Almost all commands handled internally by Textual have been rewritten to accommodate a new rendering engine that supports truncation of formatted text in order to not lose colors, bold text, etc.
[FIX]: Fixed command auto completion not working properly in some instances.
[FIX]: Fixed some functionality not working as intended on Mac OS Lion.
[FIX]: Fixed Textual not using system wide shortcut for full screen in Lion.
[FIX]: Nickname changes now use a case sensitive comparison when checking for duplicates.
[FIX]: Fixed duplicated items in several lists when the use of the "Update" button is used.
[FIX]: Fixed the broken /who command.
[FIX]: Italic text now scales properly to match surrounding text in the channel list.
[FIX]: Fixed the command "/join 0" not parting all channels on networks that support it.
[FIX]: Fixed bug in Simplified Light resulting in it not displaying some content properly.
[FIX]: Fixed paste not working properly in many circumstances.
[FIX]: Fixed input history not working properly with formatted strings.
[FIX]: Fixed proxy authentication not working.
[FIX]: Fixed growl support.

Version 2.1:

[NEW]: New lion-esque aqua based user interface.
[NEW]: Message count for channels similar to Mail, iTunes, Colloquy, and other applications. Uses red background to indicate a highlight in an unread selection.
[NEW]: The input box now automatically resizes based on the amount of data presented to it similar to the application "Colloquy" and iChat.
[NEW]: Incoming messages are more...

Requirements
Intel, Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later

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+4
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Linkinus

+1
Shareware $32

Advanced IRC client.

Textual User Discussion (Write a Review)

ver. 2.x:

(4)

Your rating: Now say why...

Overall:

(4)

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+98

Zephyris reviewed on 07 Jul 2011

I gotta say I like Textual a lot, its cheap and does a good job as long as you don't need dcc. I don't think anyone still uses dcc. I am not sure if this is comparable to limechat as limechat is very basic. I switched from linkinus, which was a memory hog.

[Version 2.0.6]

-1

Sandwich reviewed on 09 Feb 2011

The homepage for Textual fails to mention that it is based on Limechat, which is both outstanding and costs nothing. Limechat is also actively developed.

Trying a demo of Textual, I couldn't see any must-have feature in it (that isn't already in Limechat).

I also found some users in the Textual IRC room to be either sarcastic or indifferent to my question of what Textual has that Limechat doesn't. Which I thought they would be eager to answer, seeing as they are selling a product. So my first interaction with them was not impressive.

[Version 2.0.1]

2 Replies

Damien` replied on 16 Mar 2011

i'm sorry but i totally disagree with this review, i have both clients and textually by far has many more, if you don't care for scripts or features and just want inline images limechat is fine, if you want scripts, formatting options, conversation tracking, etc you will never find these on limechat, so really depends what you're looking for

+69

Neutralzone replied on 12 Mar 2012

I'm sure Damien is correct about most of the features he listed, but I would disagree that formatting options are not available in LimeChat. I'm not a super technical user, but I was able to figure out how to edit the LimeChat CSS files to make a custom theme with formatting quite different than any of the bundled themes.

I wouldn't be surprised if Textual moves many formatting options to the GUI, and the reasonable price makes Textual's improvements worth considering, it certainly looks a little nicer. But LimeChat is doing the job so far.

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