A non flash based chat?

[SGHOM]

Sounds good to me jase....... I miss winding peeps up in chat!

[foxdie]

Then put some clothes on you sicko

Thats with jeans on

[Beastlee]

+1 from me. Flash is dead, long live HTML5

[scottie2hotti]

The flash chat does bug me greatly, here's why:

• It's slow and uses a lot of CPU
• It's highly prone to timing out when you're on a high latency connection (Atik suffers from this a lot)
• Not everyone has flash support on the device they want to access the chat room from
• The chat log isn't persistent, if you time out for example, you miss what has been said

What would be nice is the following:

• A HTML-based chat room (powered by AJAX / JSON*) that works on just about all browsers (including most smartphones such as WinMo, iPhone OS and Android)
• A higher timeout threshold, so people on high latency connections (ie. dialup / 3G and those with people uploading) don't lose their connection to the chat room
• A persistent log, so that when you join chat, you get the last, say, 50 lines of chat sent to you, so if you DO time out or have to restart your browser, you can come back without missing a beat
• The option to send invitations to individual non-paid members to join the chat room (this would be moderated / voted for by everyone present in the chat room)

I'm happy to develop something like this for the club if needed.

* When I say JSON, I don't mean me, JSON is a method for updating web pages without reloading them

What about make the whole forum JSON then we dont have to keep refreshing when a heated discussing going on. Or am i getting greedy?

[foxdie]

What about make the whole forum JSON then we dont have to keep refreshing when a heated discussing going on. Or am i getting greedy?

I set up a small page not long ago that would refresh "Posts 24hr" every 60 seconds, you can find it HERE

There are a few caveats however;

• The auto-refresher is completely safe, it won't capture any information, I welcome people to look at the source code as it's ridiculously simple
• The auto-refresher will reload the "Posts 24hr" page every 60 seconds religiously. If you click on a link, you will get redirected back to the "Posts 24hr" page within 60 seconds or less. To avoid this, open the page you want to view in a new tab / window
• In using this auto-refresher it makes you "appear online" in the Who's Online? page, even if you go AFK for several hours, keep this in mind and remember to close the window if you step away. You can always reopen it later
• There's a minor annoyance with the Pager; A pager message will appear and you'll start typing in a reply in the auto-refreshing window and suddenly it refreshes the page, so you lose what you've typed in. Again, opening a new tab / window to any page on the site will allow you to reply safely

Also, just as an update, I've managed to reverse-engineer the protocol that FlashChat uses, I'm going to start building a non-flash based chat room that'll work seamlessly with FlashChat (Person X using non-FlashChat will be able to talk to Person Y using FlashChat and vice-versa)

I'll keep you all posted, but keep in mind this will need vetting by the committee before it's made available

[foxdie]

Just a minor update, a mostly-finished mock-up done in CSS, looks pretty close to the actual FlashChat yeah?

[elnevio]

Looks pretty neato Jase!

[foxdie]

Okay, this is making some good progress, you may see me popping in and out randomly of chat (I'll try not to leave it signed in for more than 5 seconds whilst testing) over the next few days whilst I steamroller this beyotch to completion!

[SGHOM]

Coolio

[BraindG]

not to steal thunder but why not just use stuff already available and maintainted in the vb community? - it all fully integrates into the forum software, regular updates etc.

non flash chat - http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=71049
auto refresh new posts - http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=108314

[foxdie]

Excuse me whilst I mutter profanities into the swear jar..

SOUP!

(I think I'm still gonna continue building it though, not much point stopping now it's 90% finished..)

[foxdie]

Muhaha, getting there, thought I'd immortalise this moment



About 90% of the way there now

[Confused]

Looking good, Jason

Hopefully much more reliable than that flash-thing!

[Turbo_Steve]

May I suggest that you settle for a grey or white background instead of the blue?

It gives you a wider range of text colours available (without clashing) and the added benefit that you could, potentially, open it at work without everyone crowding round to see what the blue thing is?

[foxdie]

Photoshop it to how you'd like to look it and I'll swatch out the colours in the stylesheet

[foxdie]

95% Finished now, nice and easy to use movable dialogs added

Only got smiley support and possibly sound to add then it just needs vetting by NJ / Steve

[taylor]

ill happily volunteer to beta test on iphone...

or, an iphone app? that would be cool

[BraindG]

an iphone app? that would be cool

Already on that, keep eyes pealed.

[foxdie]

Already on that, keep eyes pealed.

Good man

[taylor]

Already on that, keep eyes pealed.

Sweet, If theres anything I can do to help let me know!