Phantasy Star Cave Message Board

Please use this thread for any discussions regarding the shoutbox. Any questions, requests, discoveries please let us know.

12th April update:

• Who is online: I have added the who is online feature, however please note that it will only display you as online if you are active in the chat itself. Meaning that if you are logged in and viewing the chat without posting, then you will not be displayed as online. This can obviously have a negative effect as users might be waiting for others to come online while the others are thinking the same. What is the solution? Post whats on your mind every time you visit the board!
• Notification of new threads: There will be a notification in the shoutbox when a new thread is posted.
• Increased height: Ive increased the height from 190px to 260px.
• Flood time: I have decreased the flood time (seconds between each post) from 20sec to 10sec as requested.
• Message displayed on index: Changed from 10 to 12 messages. Let me know if it should be increased further.
• Date format: Added the "less than x minutes" date format.

Features:

• Who is online refresh: The list refreshes every 30secs.
• Word censorship: You cannot currently use the F-word. It came with the script. As for other filtering, just keep it clean and use them only when you need to express yourself, not to insult anyone or trolling.
• Max message length: 500 characters.
• Archive: 30 posts per page.
• Custom page height: The stand alone chat space is set to 500px. You can access it by clicking on the Shoutbox link at the top.
• Access: Guests can view the shoutbox and the archives but cannot post. If you feel that the archive should be restricted to members only, then please let me know. The shoutbox is hidden from search engines.

14th April update:

• Themes: All the forum themes are functional with the shoutbox now. Let me know if anything doesnt work.

16th May update:

• Flood limit: The 10 second posting limit has been decreased to 3 seconds.

I'm hoping to continue improving the shoutbox. I have this idea to use a "Topic of the day" where it says "Announcement"... and maybe have you all submitting your topics. Its just an idea, carlsojos said that the topic of the discussion will grow organically anyway. But please do give feedback and let me know how it works out.

My hopes are that it will at least be used as a shoutbox where random messages are posted... if that turns out to be more of a chat, then thats great too!

My board style just vanished.

They are all back now! Or more like last night. The shoutbox should work on all themes. Let me know if there are any issues or requests...!

Yeah. Integrate shoutbox to #PSchat IRC channel.

How trafficked is that channel anyway?

Missagh wrote:How trafficked is that channel anyway?

Me alone. Symandr was there too. I quess there ain't too much ircers here at PS Cave.

Bring shymandr here

I have a proposal: Mibbit applet to replace shoutbox.
Pros:

• much less lag
• it's IRC
  • meaning you can also join to chat with IRC client program
• requires only basic javascript to work
• doesn't add load to PC Cave server as much as shoutbox

Cons:

• no backlog
  • you can't see previous discussions
• may not integrate well with board theme (is there mibbit plugin for phpbb?)
• channel takeover is possible (choose network wisely)

Things that can be pro or con:

• logging in...
  • pro: you don't have to login if you don't want
  • con: you automatically disconnect if you leave the page where mibbit is --> may need a extra frame (or new window) to preserve connection

Please post if you have more cons or pros. I'll update this post then.

See mibbit website for more: http://www.mibbit.com

current #PSChat channel

I think we should vote fro this.

(Missagh, Ben: split this into a new topic if you feel it needs it)

I liked it. I vote yes.

Tanith wrote:I liked it. I vote yes.

Let's vote after we get reply from Missagh. I want to know if Missagh is willing to add this applet if it gets more yes votes than no votes.

Mibbit isn't a simple shoutbox, it's a full-blown IRC client. Plus it doesn't integrate with the board. That it requires JavaScript just to work isn't acceptable to me.

BenoitRen wrote:Mibbit isn't a simple shoutbox, it's a full-blown IRC client. Plus it doesn't integrate with the board. That it requires JavaScript just to work isn't acceptable to me.

Well. So does this shoutbox too. Disabling javascript results to this:

Your browser does not support JavaScript or JavaScript is disabled

It is still possible to view the shoutbox without JavaScript. But you're right that you can't send a message in that situation. Something to fix.

It would require, "meta-refrehing-iframe". Or maybe best is if the server sends chat "log" as a html file stream that never sends EOF. Hitting the submit button would still require that page to be reloaded at least. So to make it work seamlessly the submit has to be in other frame.

I suggested Mibbit because it's easy to put into already existing code. It can be themeable ofcourse, but the problem comes when people use different themes on forum. So easiest would be to just set the theme to match PS Cave yellow theme.

Zucca, thank you for the proposal.

Although I believe it would be nice to have our own channel and the possible pros, especially the lagging, I do not think that in it will suit this community, or at least the way in which the traffic is driven to the chat. Remember that we have advertised the IRC chat both through the main website (it had its own section in the Other menu) and in the forums, but there were hardly any users there. Which means that it will need to be integrated with the board like the shoutbox is and as I am sure you know, it will not be equality smooth to have the applet loading up every time index hits and "keeping" that session when the user returns to index.

Other problems is as you said the backlog. If you look at previous discussions you will notice that user come online, jump directly into the discussion and then leave and return...

Regardless, good idea but not sure that it will work out here. I do however agree that the shoutbox will need to be improved. Hopefully the next modification update will have some nice features