Website Suggestion - Chatroom info on side of main page.

[Davidvaini]

To whom it may concern:

First off, I would love to say I really like the flash chat on this site.
A couple of things bother me as an end user though...
1. Sometimes people are in chat without posting on the chat request thread.
2. Sometimes people post in the chat request thread and leave 1 minute after joining, so I join and its empty or I have to go to the thread, and go to the info.php page to see if anyone is in.

I really dont like that I have to do the following just to see if someone is in the chat and talk to them:

go to spudfiles.com, then click forum, then click website discussion, then click chatroom requests, then click the info link, then click log into chat, then type login info if I'm not already logged in.

Now I admit that its not really that much work to do this, but I thought of a way to simplify the process a little bit.

On the Main page (www.spudfiles.com), there is room on the right column, enough room in fact to add an area where you can see the list of names of the users currently logged into the chatroom. Enough area where it would not clutter up the main page either.

It would be like the info.php page but embedded right onto the homepage.
It would be right below the search and welcome boxes on the right column of the site.

This is what I am thinking it would look like:

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/9808 ... ewchat.jpg


You could even have a link in that box to join the chat if you wanted...

[jrrdw]

Well that would make it easier to see whats going on with chat. Sounds like a good idea but it's up to PCGUY...

[Davidvaini]

yeah, I just like to involve the community with my ideas, so he doesn't just think that I think its a good idea.

[Davidvaini]

well, shall we send a PM to pcguy?

[psycix]

Yes, link PCGUY to this topic.
Good idea!

There should definitely be a link to the chat in that box.

It would also make the main page somewhat more informative.
Usually I click on the link in you wrote ###messages as soon as I land on the homepage.

[Davidvaini]

alright, I sent him a PM, hope he gets it

[rp181]

Those kinds of things are easy to implement, but what would you implement? I was not able to find any thing that access the IRC channel and ports the info.

[Davidvaini]

flash chat is not IRC.. and I already said what my idea is above... just a simple chat info on the side of the main page listing all the members.. similar to this page:

http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/chat/info.php

Would like to note that flashchat does have some IRC like commands, but It is not IRC.

and there could potentially be a problem with the info being on the main page since its at a directory higher than flashchat itself.. since its PHP and PHP sessions are based on domains and directories, it might cause an issue. Nothing I wouldnt be able to figure out as a programmer, but I could potentially see this being a little more work then you would think.

http://airsoft-barracks.com/forums/index.php

A good example, they use flashchat as well and they show the members on the side of the main page.

[rp181]

ahh, I get what you meant then. Sounds solid.

[PCGUY]

This is very possible to do, and originally when I put in the chat I didn't add that feature since I thought a new redesign of SpudFiles would be coming up soon. However you never know what life has coming at you, and here we still are chugging along on the current version of SpudFiles.

Something like this can be implemented fairly easily, and I will go ahead and plan on it. Someone remind me if I don't say anything about it for a few weeks however

[Davidvaini]

http://tufat.com/docs/flashchat/whos_chatting.html

reminder!

[psycix]

*bump*
We would still appreciate the implementation of this feature.

Do it and I'll donate again!

[jrrdw]

*bump*
We would still appreciate the implementation of this feature.

Do it and I'll donate again!

A brief??? Starting to sound REALLY good now...

[ammosmoke]

That really sounds quite useful... Actually, it would make the chatroom requests thread seem rather archaic. Even better, this would increase the usage of the chat function, which to my knowledge is rarely used in proportion to the rest of the site traffic.

[Davidvaini]

bump,

would reallly like to see this feature added...