Hi Mouser,

Once in a while, I also got into a situation where I have this focus problem.  And once it happened, I think it stays like that until I restart the process?

As a matter of fact, I am experiencing this right now.  When I hit the PAUSE/BREAK key, FARR doesn't come up as the foreground window.  It's hidden by my browser window from which I am typing this msg.  If I resize my browser, I can see FARR was actually brought up and its editbox has the focus (the caret is flashing).  So I am now in a state where I have double flashing caret (one in FARR, one in my browser), and when I type, the characters go to my browser's editbox as opposed to FARR.

I am using the latest farr build (v1.09.04)

the main thing is that in both cases you can just ignore them and use the programs without worrying about them

Although I agree with that, it's not necessary the case all the time.  See the following quote from Joel,

Even if you think your new feature is all good and can't hurt because "people who don't care can just ignore it," you're forgetting that the people who allegedly don't care are still forced to look at your feature and figure out if they need it.

"How could a mute button on a sound system hurt?" After all, if you don't want to waste time learning about the mute button, you can just ignore it completely, right?

No. Because at some point, someone will hit it by mistake, and no sound will come out of the speakers, and if they don't know about "mute," they'll start trying to turn up the volume knob all the way, so when they do finally unmute the thing, the speakers will blow out with an ear-shattering boom that creates permanent, concave warps in each of the walls of the room where the sound system was installed (and a matching hump in the floor of the apartment upstairs).

The entire article could be read here http://www.joelonsoftware.com/design/1stDraft/01.html

I don't think there are too many preferences in WSW though, it's an absolute wonderful piece of software and worth every single penny of it (esp. with the discount)!!!

I have been using Trillian ever since its creation and was very satisfied with it because it's very simple and gets the job done.  I have tried Miranda a couple of times back in the days but was always turned off by its random crashes and its MILLONS different configuration settings (probably more settings than ms office!!!).

However, during a casual chat with brotherS, he mentioned a new release just came out and asked me give it another shot.  I did just that and patiently went through the 218379821798123 configuration options.  Now I finally realize how much more powerful and flexible Miranda is compared to Trillian.  The latest build is very stable.

Anyway, for those of you who were afraid of Miranda's infinite configurability, don't be.  It's totally worth your time.  Give it a shot.  I love it.  If you see me coming in and out of IRC like a madman, it's most likely I am hard at work configuring my Miranda :)

A big thank you to brotherS for convincing me to make the switch!!!!

Miranda IM - VersionInformation plugin by Hrk, modified by Eblis
Report generated at: 01:34:50 on 21 February 2006

CPU:         Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.70GHz [x86 Family 6 Model 13 Stepping 6]
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP [version: 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2]
Installed RAM: 1535 MBytes
Free disk space on Miranda partition: 644 MBytes
Miranda path: C:\Program Files\Miranda IM
Miranda IM version: 0.4.3 alpha build #47 Unicode
Build time: 21:41:44 on 10 February 2006
Profile size: 676.13 KBytes
Profile creation date: 20 Feb 2006 at 23:14:01
Nightly: Yes
Unicode core: Yes

Active Plugins (34):
AdvancedAutoAway.dll v.0.0.2.1 [15 Jul 2005] - Advanced Auto Away
AIM.dll v.1.4.2.3 [28 Nov 2005] - AIM TOC2 Plugin
chat.dll v.0.3.2.1 [11 Feb 2006] - Chat (Unicode)
clist_nicer.dll v.0.6.0.4 [11 Feb 2006] - CList Nicer+ (Unicode)
crashrpt.dll v.0.0.0.2 [21 Dec 2005] - Crash Report
dbeditorpp.dll v.3.1.2.0 [20 Sep 2005] - Database Editor++
dbx_3x.dll v.0.5.5.1 [21 Oct 2005] - Miranda database - with AutoBackups
findAmsg.dll v.0.2.1.0 [02 Feb 2005] - Find A Message
gmailm.dll v.0.2.4.2 [08 Feb 2006] - Gmail Multiple Notifier
help.dll v.0.1.2.2 [11 Feb 2006] - Help
historypp.dll v.1.4.0.0 [31 May 2003] - History++
historystats.dll v.0.1.0.3 [27 Jan 2006] - HistoryStats
ICQ.dll v.0.3.6.12 [11 Feb 2006] - IcqOscarJ Protocol
import.dll v.0.9.2.2 [11 Feb 2006] - Import contacts and messages
IRC.dll v.0.6.3.7 [11 Feb 2006] - IRC Protocol
IRC2.dll v.0.5.1.3 [20 May 2005] - IRC Protocol
jabber.dll v.0.4.3.0 [11 Feb 2006] - Jabber Protocol (Unicode)
linklist.dll v.0.1.1.1 [17 Jan 2006] - History Linklist
MetaContacts.dll v.0.9.19.12 [19 Feb 2006] - MetaContacts Plugin
msn.dll v.0.4.3.0 [11 Feb 2006] - MSN Protocol (Unicode)
NetAccessNotify.dll v.2.7.1.0 [13 Dec 2005] - NetAccessNotify
png2dib.dll v.0.1.3.0 [11 Feb 2006] - PNG images processor
PopUp.dll v.2.0.3.8 [22 Sep 2004] - PopUp Interoperability
quicksearch.dll v.1.3.0.2 [19 May 2005] - Quick Search
scriver_unicode.dll v.2.3.0.6 [16 Feb 2006] - Scriver
simplear.dll v.1.0.0.0 [28 Oct 2005] - Simple Auto Replier
smileyadd.dll v.0.1.11.10 [13 Feb 2006] - SmileyAdd
StartupStatus.dll v.0.0.3.1 [26 Jul 2005] - StartupStatus
updater.dll v.0.4.0.8 [19 Feb 2006] - Updater (Unicode)
V_RecentContacts.dll v.0.0.0.3 [23 May 2005] - Recent Contacts
VersionInfo.dll v.1.0.1.17 [03 Feb 2006] - Version Information
WhoIsReadingMyStatusMsg.dll v.0.0.1.0 [22 Jan 2003] - WhoIsReadingMyStatusMsgNotify
WorldTime.dll v.0.2.6.2 [05 Sep 2005] - World Time
Yahoo.dll v.0.3.0.9 [11 Feb 2006] - Yahoo Protocol Beta/Nightly


End of report.