Help Test Out a Possible New Chat System!

Hey guys! Artemis got my attention about Chatango.com, a chatroom creator that allows a website owner to embed the chatrooms as flash programs.

The Chatango chatrooms themselves are fairly standard, but definitely a step up from what we're used to with the Chatbox... Sounds can play to let you know when messages appear, text color and font can be changed as you want, and you can even have a little profile picture next to your name. =P I'm still learning how they work, myself, but they seem pretty dang functional so far!

I've labored to install three rooms on three different pages... A General Chat, for conversation... A General RPs Chat, for softer and more casual rps... And an Alternate RPs Chat, for the harder and more graphic stuff. Just like I always wanted to do with our chatbox, but never could. XP

General Chat: http://www.hungrypokemon.net/General-Chat-h30.htm
General RPs: http://www.hungrypokemon.net/General-RPs-Chat-h32.htm
Alternate RPs: http://www.hungrypokemon.net/Alternate-RPs-Chat-h33.htm

These chatrooms are currently in a 'Beta' phase...I'm still not completely sure how they work, and I'm not sure they work 100% properly yet. So! I need you guys to try 'em out! I would suggest starting off in the General Chat section...any Chatroom links to the other two, so it's easy to navigate between them.

Also: if you get a free account with www.chatango.com, you can have a dedicated username, profile, and display picture in-chat. =P I would really recommend it. I apologize that I can't integrate HPF sign in names with this new chat system, but that's the way the cookie crumbles!

In addition, I am curious: theoretically, it would be possible for me to put two chats on one page, something like YumChat does with its frames system. Is this something that would be desired?

Please let me know your opinions of the new chats here. And remember: this is a beta test. We're not using these for sure yet, but they need to be tried out first. So nitpick if you want to...I need to know the good and bad about these things!

Alright, have fun!

Oh wow! I'm surprised you took my suggestion and ran with it! ^.^ I'm glad you like the chat. I've seen it used pretty successfully in other roleplay settings.

Chatango logins are universal, and unless you log out/delete your cookies or whatnot you'll still be logged in when you go to a new one, so multiple chatrooms on one page would actually work fairly well.

I'm glad I could help out. ='D

I like it.

I use Chatango on other sites as well.
I've also go a subscription to it.
(so that gives me another reason to be smug)

FLASH?! *Growls* Apple's iDevices will never run Flash, which means that anyone who tries to use these chats will get the 'Blue Lego Block of Doom'. So anyone wanting to chat on your iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad will not be able to use these chats at all, unfortunately.

Well. The chat we've already got lags on me quite badly when my connection runs slow. Which is often.

This one, on the other hand, won't load at all. This may or may not be because of my connection issues.

Thumbs down. I prefer things that actually work even when my internet's slow. >.>

EDIT: Okay, it actually works quite well, after it actually manages to load. However, waiting 5-10 minutes to get into a chatroom is rather... inconvenient. At best.

ok I tried it but as normaly with new stuff iam confused:(

Meh, I don't hate it and I don't love it. That's all I really have to say.

Nyah... Chatango is ok, but I prefer this chat. I don't like chatango's style much. Plus Silver cant use it sooooo...

blueimp.net/ajax/

Might I suggest this chat? Its the same one The Black Labrynth uses, has much more features than chatango, and is HTML based.

As mentioned in my little 'edit' above... it actually works fine for me, but it takes forever to initially load the chat when my connection's bad. ^^;

Still~ works bad for you, and I dun like it when things don't work for you <3

EDIT: Also, it dosnt open on my Droid either.

Basically, if you don't have Flash, you won't be able to participate in these chats. And if you do have Flash, it would depend on you computer, and internet connection as to how well they would work. So I have to give this a thumbs down. XP

I have to say it's not all that great. Sure we can have multiple rooms and imbed them on the forum but it doesn't seem worth it since at least a few people will have problems already most likely quite a few more will in the future. We do thank you though for try Charem since I know we've all been bugging you a bit for more rooms but...seems like this unfortunately isn't the best choice, though I'm not sure what to suggest in it's place.

I don't understand why people expect to be in chatrooms on their phone or other extremely low end computers. =/ Especially iAnything... which is crippled due to fail.

On the other hand... that Ajax chat DOES have a surprising amount of features. Looks like it might take some work to install though.

They do because not every one can be on a computer all the time, and not everyone has a high end computer. Keith for example can only really be on his iTouch most of the time and that would mean he would get excluded (as would others) form chat going-ons if we switched to this. It's nothing personal, just trying to accommodate as many people as possible

It might not be a persons choice to be on a low end computer. Ever concider that? Silver lives in the middle of nowhere. The only internet company he has access to is crappy. And its nice to be able to access friends on the go. Its the whole reason I got a smartphone. And while I love my Droid, apples iDevices arnt crap by far. There is a reason I have kept my iTouch.

And in my opinion, the extra effort will be well worth it. Most people who go to TBL have little to complain about the chat program.

I'd point out the other side of the story, but I'm being censored from giving my opinion. *Looks at reputation*

How crude. I'd like to know why everyone who likes this chatroom is getting -rep'd.
Not fair, at all.

oh please do point it out, as long as you keep it civil no one will shoot you down...and I wouldn't worry to much about the rep, it's just a thing, really

I'm afraid not. I feel my freedom of speech being violated and feel offended by this abuse of the reputation system and honestly will probably turn to lurking because of it.

no one's stopping you from saying what you like. Maybe explaining your side of thing will change people's minds

Nobody is censoring you. Your negative rep might have something to do with you assuming everyone had access to perfect computers or net connections, or that they shouldn't want to acess places on the go.

Judgemental Smeargle -_- All I did was speak my mind openly and I don't feel I should have to fear punishment for that.

If they wanted my opinion they wouldn't be -rep'ing everything I say in an attempt to discourage me from posting. Quite frankly, it's bullying.

So I'm going to keep my head low and my mouth shut, just like in school.

If anything Artemis the same -could- be said of you, but enough is enough, this isn't the place to argue so either post your side or stop calling people things, even if it's only once. Other wise we all get in trouble for essentially spamming this thread...and it's only bulling if you let it get to you, which it obviously already has

I rather like the new one.

There was a round of drama about what type of things were allowed on the chatbox and what wasn't.
Now that stuff has a place which people can look at but don't have to if they don't want to.

It's got a nice bleep which sounds whenever there's a post. However you can mute it if you don't want it.

It can alert you via e-mail whenever there's a new post.

There's no session time outs, that means there's no dot spam every 5 seconds if people don't have anything to say.

It's more easily monitored by the admins due to the fact that all the conversations are stored.

And that's without mentioning the pretty stuff like the font style and sizes which aren't neccessary, but can be quite interesting.

I do like chatango. I've used it several times before. I admit it has nice features, but I prefer Ajax. Its more oriented twords RPs than chatango, and it does make sounds when people post. The sounds are the only flash based thing, so users who lack flash still won't miss out on the chat too.

I see good points all around. The Chatango client does have higher versatility, customization, more room in the typebox, and the fancy doodads like built in peer to peer private chatting, and the Chatango offline message grabber. However, it is also lacking in certain ways. Our current chatbox is linked directly to our site profiles, so whenever we update those it's good and done, and people can easily see who we are with just a right click and such. It also allows us to send private messages to accounts directly from the chat. It has been shown to cause various problems for people with poor connections or mobile devices as well. Then there's the Terms of Service and sweeping issue.

Now, Charem has said he'd be keeping the chatbox as well, but it would no longer be the roleplay room, but a
general chat room, and those caught using it for roleplay would get in trouble. I understand his grievances with the chatbox, but I still feel that Chatango, with its dynamic hotlinky thingies and free access should be the general chat if anything. Since anyone can get on it and talk, and the chatbox is more exclusive, so only people who bother to register and actually contribute to the site's user growth would get to roleplay, and the extra step might also deter some potential bad apples. Of course, the same could be said for the opposite, it could deter good users too.

I suggested AJAX earlier to Charem, and he asked me to do some searchy for him before he did anything. I'll tell him what he wanted to know when he gets back. I think AJAX would be a better substitute than Chatango as it has profile hosting support, multiple room support, and private two way conversation support, as well as the larger typebox that he was wanting. HOWEVER, to be fair to all involved, negatives of AJAX have to be pointed out. Like the logs wiping if you get logged out and come back in, and the server errors that seem to be happening late at
night, and interrupt and delay conversation. Though that problem is not standard to our knowledge and is probably in the way it was setup somewhere or the way the site is hosted.

So. I'm in favor of chatango, but not as a roleplay spot, and I feel the roleplay room, if it needx to be changed, would be better suited to being AJAX. However, the bottom line is, change makes people uncomfortable, and there WILL be complaints and problems over it any way we go, not everybody will be perfectly happy.

Ajax is an open-source chat. The guys over at The Black Labyrinth are modifying the source code to provide profiles and a logging system, to keep track of previous RPs. The only 503 errors I have gotten were from bad code they had inserted trying to achieve this. Which they promptly fixed by re-installing. Ive never had issues with the logs wiping. Only when an RP has gone on for so long that the upper messages dissapear, but that takes a very long time to do.

Personally, I prefer good old IRC. It has numerous clients, many with logging features. It runs on virtually every platform, too.

I've read through everything... Ajax seems to be preferred here. And it looks fine, but I think you guys should know by now, I've got next to no programming experience.

I 'downloaded' it, but all I got was a notepad file. I'm reading through their documentation, and I'm sure as to what I'm supposed to do with it.

If one of you wish to help me set up this thing, cool. Otherwise, it's beyond me.

I've got some programming experience and could try... (I'm thinking you probably got source code.)

But seeing as I'm a new member... I have a feeling it would require a bit more trust being placed in me than I've yet to earn >.<