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New Chat Program

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The chat program is new. The motivation to change was that the old one could be a bit laggy at times. Also, every now and then, the old one would time people out.

The new one is "on trial". We can easily switch back to the old one. After using the new one for a while, please post any feedback on any pros and cons you find, compared to the previous one.

Here is what I have found thus far:

Pro:

  • The new chat didn't lag as much for the hour or so I used it yesterday. Nor did it time people out. But, we'll have to watch it over a few days to know if it is really better in this regard.
  • It supports the ability to "ignore users". Personally I would not use this feature, but someone once mentioned it as something they'd like to see in chat
  • It supports in-line posting of images (nice little feature)
  • It supports multi-line posts (personally, not important to me)
  • It supports different styles/colors (personally, not important to me)

Cons:

  • Multi-rooms are done a little differently. From what I can tell, one has to be in one particular room. When one switches, one is in the other room. The old chat has one "in" both rooms, because it uses tabs. I think there were only a few times we actually used a second room in the old chat. So, I'm not sure how much people value having a second room, and being able to be in both simultaneously.
  • Private messages have a different interface. They show up in the main window (with a little parenthetical comment that says you're whispering). I haven't tested it too much yet to know if it is a con, maybe it's just different without being much better or worse

That's what I have found thus far. In summary, I'd say, for the way I use it personally, the features are close enough that it makes no difference to me which one we use. If the new one lags less, I'd vote for it.

Since everyone use slightly different features, and has different tastes, I'd appreciate feedback similar to this, with suggestions about which one you prefer. Check the new one out for a few days and post here.

Edited by softwareNerd
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Pros

- Almost instaneous message appearance compared to sometimes even long delays in the old chat.

- Style/colour choices.

- Ignore users. Now that it can be done I am going to suggest someone that gets frustrated by me a lot uses that feature.

- Word wrap.

- Customisation through peferences (eg: change the volume of the sounds (they were too loud in the old chat and are too loud by default in the new one)).

- More interesting emoticon set.

- Quote, code, URL, and image buttons.

- The new commands (see the help function).

- A help function listing the commands.

- A bigger area used for chat (on high resultions like mine (1920x1440) a lot of area was wasted by the old chat.

- The new private message system. This is to be a pro, not a con. I prefer not having to switch tabs to view a private message. Also, sometimes with the tab system people don't notice you sent a private message. Private messages are less likely to be missed now.

Cons

- No colour coding for names.

I have to say feature set wise it is much better and as such I am very much for a permanent switch.

What do you mean by "multi-line" comments? Comments already went onto a the next line rather than scrolling across. Are you refering to word-wrap? If so that would be better described as such or "multi-line words". Personally I like word-wrap. It is much better than the way long words scrolled across.

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What do you mean by "multi-line" comments? Comments already went onto a the next line rather than scrolling across.
It is just that in this one you can choose where to break the line, by hitting Shift+Enter (or was it Ctrl+Enter?) If you hover on the field it'll give you a tooltip. Not sure why one would want to be that particular in chat, but there is is... a feature.

Sometime this weekend I hope to hack it to get some variety in the nick colors. It won't be quite as nice as the previous one, but will be better than nothing. It is complicated by the fact that there are so many available styles.

Edited by softwareNerd
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I can turn off the bleeding smilies!

I'm delirious with ecstasy. I burble. I am transported.

You have made my month.

Now if only you could make "Enable Smilies" when posting in the forum a persistent setting, so I could set it to "Off" and have it stay that way, I should be reduced to some quivering mass of really, really happy goo. Or something.

~Q

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It is just that in this one you can choose where to break the line, by hitting Shift+Enter (or was it Ctrl+Enter?) If you hover on the field it'll give you a tooltip. Not sure why one would want to be that particular in chat, but there is is... a feature.

Sometime this weekend I hope to hack it to get some variety in the nick colors. It won't be quite as nice as the previous one, but will be better than nothing. It is complicated by the fact that there are so many available styles.

Ah, interesting. I doubt I'd use it, but interesting nonetheless.

I am glad you intend to bring back nick colours.

I can turn off the bleeding smilies!

I'm delirious with ecstasy. I burble. I am transported.

You have made my month.

Now if only you could make "Enable Smilies" when posting in the forum a persistent setting, so I could set it to "Off" and have it stay that way, I should be reduced to some quivering mass of really, really happy goo. Or something.

~Q

Why would you want to disable them? I can't see any reason why. They are an effective means of expressing emotions. They are the closest thing text based digital communication has to facial expressions.

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I can turn off the bleeding smilies!

I'm delirious with ecstasy. I burble. I am transported.

You have made my month.

Now if only you could make "Enable Smilies" when posting in the forum a persistent setting, so I could set it to "Off" and have it stay that way, I should be reduced to some quivering mass of really, really happy goo. Or something.

~Q

I love happy goo. I'm all for that.

sNerd, I love the new chat. So far, I'd say keep it.

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In chat, I find the smilies much more visually intrusive and no more effective than their text-based equivalents. I like that the new chat lets me choose to see text-based equivalents instead of graphical smiley-face icons.

I never use smilies in posts, and I dislike it when I type something like "B)" and the system turns it into a smiley. I always have to remember to scroll down and de-select "enable smilies" when I post something. I think it would be more convenient to have "enable smilies by default" be an option I can set on my options page so that I no longer have to scroll down and un-check the box for each and every post.

I'm not suggesting disabling smilies universally in either chat or the forum.

~Q

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In chat, I find the smilies much more visually intrusive and no more effective than their text-based equivalents.

I find the opposite to be the case since the graphical versions take less time to interpret, especially when they are new to me. With text ones I have never seen I often have trouble interpreting them. Also, ones like the monkey in chat (or the heart which is :favoruite: for some reason) are not easy to interprete as text. Its a hell of a lot easier when they are text.

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In chat, I find the smilies much more visually intrusive and no more effective than their text-based equivalents. I like that the new chat lets me choose to see text-based equivalents instead of graphical smiley-face icons.

I never use smilies in posts[...]

Since the dawn of the internet I have been against shorthand like "lol" and the smiley faces, even in text form. I just thought it was silly. The more I interact with people online, however, the less I care about that lingo. Sometimes it is just easier to "lol," than say, "Oh, man, that was really funny. I actually laughed out loud. I mean, really, it was audible!" For me, the smilies serve the same purpose, so I use them sometimes. I actually prefer the tacky yellow faces, because I register the intended emotion more easily.
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For me, the smilies serve the same purpose, so I use them sometimes. I actually prefer the tacky yellow faces, because I register the intended emotion more easily.

Exactly! I find a picture of a smiling face, an angry face, a sad face, etc does a better job of portraying the emotion than words even if it a primitive picture like a smilie. A smilie may not be a picture worth 1,000 words, but is worth more words than, "I am angry," or, "I am happy," or, "I am sad," etc. It is probably worth dozens of words. It is easier to say too. Easier and a better job of portraying the emotions is a good combination. :pimp:

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Am I the only one who hates this format? Is there a way to make a uniform background, to prevent it from looking tacky with colors all over the place? With the two-toned background, you've significantly increased the number of potential clashes that occur. With a wide variety of background schemes, people are more likely to change their font color to better suit whatevre background they chose, whereas people usually kept it black/white in the old chat. The end result is annoying color everywhere. Even if people keep the default font, most of the schemes look bad. Imagine reading the forum where every line has a different background/font color. It would be unreadable.

It seems as though the black background gives you best chance of not being annoyed by color, but I don't want a dark background. it's irritating and hard on the eyes. it's dark and depressing and makes all the colored name titles stand out. I feel like a hippie in a cave, with tie die everywhere, not an Objectivist. This is tackier than yahoo.

Aside from that, it runs well.

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Colors should be the easy part to change, once we know we want to keep it for the functionality. If you're familiar with HTML colors/fonts, and a minimal amount of CSS, I'd be happy to send you a CSS file from one of the existing styles. You simply plug in the colors you like and I'll install it as a new style called "Simplicity" :pimp:

If you're game, PM me.

Update: I've added a simple style. Just choose the one named "audacity". PM me if you want to take the CSS file and improve it.

Edited by softwareNerd
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Well, tonight the chat spazzed out. It's actually showed me logged in the chatroom even after I closed all OO.net web pages and then reopened the main page! It's also been lagging quite a bit as of about 20 to 30 minutes ago, and there were only about 4 of us in the room.

(shrugs) :P

Also, some people complained about the way the chat scrolls, but I found a button for switching the scrolling on and off. I have no idea if that option is related to the room hanging...

Edited by tps_fan
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Yes, TPS pressed a button and the chat wigged out and my Internet went down. I tried pushing the same button to see if it would stop the super lag we were getting (It took 3 minutes for your text to show up) and it didn't do anything, and the button wouldn't not switch back on. Now the chat box is no longer there for me and it just says "Internet Explorer cannot display this page"

:P

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Even more worthless than the old chat. In both cases I get a window with no text whatsoever, in *this* case if I type in it my system freezes up for half a minute.

I liked the *old* chat before the "fix" you did on it a month or so ago.

Seriously, I hope it works well for the rest of you, but it's a boatanchor for me.

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I am now having the problems as well, but I'd suggest it is am database error, not a chat error. I got an SQL error message, so I suggest the problem is in the database, not the chat software itself. It could also be a server error though for all I know. But either way it doesn't seem like a chat error.

Here is a quote of the error message:

Query failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''At point 1 ')' at line 1
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^Me too.

That was strange last night when chat wigged out on us. Wonder why. It did seem like it was related to Greg turning autoscroll off, but it's just a coincidence, I'm sure. :thumbsup: I still really like this new chat, and if whatever happened can be fixed, I'd still like it to be the permanent chat.

How dare you, Greg! How dare you!

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Query failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''At point 1 ')' at line 1

SoftwareNerd must be working on some new functionality, but I fixed that particular error.

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