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We did it again, big update with new features!
Posted by soczol at 2007-03-25 22:04:04

If you were in #NordicBots lately, you might have noticed that we were having some stability problems with our bots. This was due to a Natasha upgrade, that upgrade sadly did not go as planned, although we did do extensive testing before even considering launching the new version we found out that the newly baked code still had some flaws.

We think we have ironed most of those flaws out of Natasha and we felt it was time to tell you all about the changes this new version for Natasha brings you, so here we go! :)

Ban System
The ban system has been fully revised, the old ban system was not good at removing its own bans, had problems kicking multiple people, etc.

The new ban system has support for a load more new features which includes adding so called 'sticky' bans, a sticky ban is a ban that may never be removed from the channel. If someone removes a sticky ban, the bot will always try to set it back. It's also supported to ban users by nick, auth, host and later on also IP (this is still in development). The new ban system introduces a few new commands, and channel settings, as listed below.

Channel settings

dynamicbansIf set, the bot removes non-sticky bans [minutes] minute(s) after setting them on the channel (default: enabled, 5m).
enforcebansIf set, the bot will kick users that match bans set by other users (default: enabled)
showbanbyIf set, the bot shows the auth/nick of the user that set the ban when kicking. (default: enabled).
userbansIf not set, the bot will not allow users to manually place bans on the channel, bans needs to be made through the bot. (default: enabled).


Commands

The BAN and UNBAN commands have been updated, more information about how to use them be found at the documentation.

Two new commands have been added:

UNBANALLWill remove all the non-sticky bans from the channel (not from the banlist!) - Level: Op
DELALLBANSWill remove all bans (including sticky bans) from the channel and banlist - Level: Master


Mode Queueing

As you have probably noticed, the bot will no longer do this:

* Bot sets mode +v nick1
* Bot sets mode +v nick2
* Bot sets mode +v nick3

But it will do:

* Bot sets mode +vvv nick1 nick2 nick3

We are sure that this will make our bots a load faster and make them lag less.

Chanset Rewrite

The CHANSET command has been rewritten from scratch, it has much more friendlier messages, and if you want to know what a certain mode does you can do: HELP CHANSET setting, for example:

/msg NB-Check help chanset massvoice

And the bot would respond with help:

Usage: CHANSET #chan +massvoice [mask], example: CHANSET #chan +massvoice MyClan|*
If you activate this, the bot will automatically give voice to people matching the mask you specify, if you don't specify a mask, the bot will voice everyone.


Trigger modifications

A lot of people can stop bugging me now as we finally introduced trigger modifications which includes support for multiple lines!

Triggers can be modified with the MODTRIGGER command. You can add lines, modify or remove them. How it works you ask? Well it's rather simple.

First, you have to add a trigger the regular way (through the ADDTRIGGER) command, for example:

ADDTRIGGER #chan !commands Commands available for this channel:

Then, if you want to add another line, you do that this way:

MODTRIGGER #chan !commands add !command1 - !command2 - !command3

That's it, you now added a line to the trigger !commands, if you type it now you will get the following response:

Commands available for this channel:
!command1 - !command2 - !command3

For more information on how to edit lines, or how to remove them read the documentation on triggers.

Topic enforcement changes

Due to continuous abuse from takeover kiddies, we have had to change the way how topic protection works. Channels that have topic protection enabled (chanset +topic) can only have their topic set through the bot's SETTOPIC command, any other topic will be replaced.

Note: Sadly this also means that if you never set a topic through SETTOPIC, the bot will restore an empty topic.

Mode enforcement changes

The chanset +modes will now be enforced, unlike the previous system which would only set it on join, the new system will always try to make sure the modes in +modes are set. Note that modes that are not in +modes, are not removed.
When setting +modes like: +modes -ilk+tn the bot will make sure that the modes '+i', '+l', and '+k' are never set on the channel, also it will make sure that the modes '+t' and '+n' are always set on the channel, but it doesn't care if someone sets '+N'.

Advertise/Flood changes

The advertise and flood modes now have configurable punishments (warn, warn+kick, kick, warn+ban, ban) just like the badwords setting. For more information on how this works, read the documentation about Bad word, advertise and flood protection.

Peak changes

The peak system has been completely renewed. It will no longer flood the channel if a large group of users joins, and it will remember who 'broke' the last peak and at what time (if available).

Massvoice changes

Massvoice now takes effect immediately, and after the bot joined the channel/gets ops. This will mean that all users matching the massvoice mask will get voiced.
We have also extended the mask functionality and it's now possible to add full hostmasks (like *!*@*.some.isp.com), of course the old system is still supported.

Google additions

We have added support for 'Google Calculator' through:

!google calc:1 + 2
(Response: 3) :-)

But it also supports currency conversion, like:

!google calc:1 euro in usd
(Response: 1 Euro = 1.3319 U.S. dollars)
!google calc:1 euro in danish money
(Response: 1 Euro = 7.45011584 Danish kroner)

And other nifty conversions, like:

!google calc:10 m/s in km/h
(Response: 10 (meters / second) = 36 km/h)

We have also added support for 'Google Define' to show the definition of a term:

!google define:IRC
(Response: 1. IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. IRC is a massive network of text-based chat channels (rooms) and users all across the world. See Also: CHAT ROOM)


mIRC Script
The mIRC control script has been updated too and can be found in the Download area after logging in.

That's it!
That's about it for the new Natasha release. We hope you will like the changes and would like you thank all once again for using our services.

I would like to especially thank the users that were patient and didn't keep bugging us while the service kept crashing, thanks! Let's hope we we can leave this behind us now.


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Comments
#12007-03-25 22:19 | dusti (NordicBots Staff)
this should help a lot, nice :)

#22007-03-25 22:52 | Petyyy (NordicBots Staff)
Nice job soczol users will love the new features :P

#32007-03-31 22:17 | Pevik
OMG, thats modificatons are great! :-) Very nice job, especially new ban system =D ad triggrs :S

#42007-04-03 11:40 | anton (NordicBots Staff)
Kickass work soczol! =)
Personally I love to see Natasha develop and see new commands and such added. =)
There aren't many botservices who update their bots often, and they sure doesn't pown NordicBots. ;)

(Btw soc, you should replace \n with <br> at comments :o)

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