player command am i going in the right direction

[Mitch]

You could cache the stripped player name with this callback and on connect:

		CodeCallback_UserInfoChanged(clientNum)
{
    oldname = self.name;
    name = self get_userinfo("name");

    self clientuserinfochanged();
} 
	

This is how I remove the color tags and spaces:

		stripColorsAndSpaces(t)
{
    if(!IsSubStr(t, "^") && !IsSubStr(t, " "))
        return t; // colorless spaceless text
    
    n = "";    
    for(i=0;i<t.size;i++)
    {
        if(t.size > i+3 && t[i] == "^" && t[i+1] == "^" && isInt(t[i+2]) && isInt(t[i+3]))
            i += 3; // skip ^^xx
        else if(t.size > i+1 && t[i] == "^" && isInt(t[i+1]))
            i += 1; // skip ^x
        else if(t[i] != " ")
            n += t[i]; // append text
    }
    
    return n;
}

isInt(char)
{
    asc = getAscii(char);
    return asc >= 48 && asc <= 57;
}