Live Chat Forums

[20 Ton Squirrel]

I had an idea a few days back... live chat forums. I've been toying with the idea ever since on my server. It looks like it's a viable option for me to build a pretty powerful, comprehensive chat environment based off membership and forums here. It would be a Flash client hook'n up to a server-side daemon I've been coding on fer years.

My question to you, gentle reader (and mostly to Jesse), is would it be something you are interested in?

Advantages:

Quick reponse rate to questions
Greater sense of community
Ease of use


Disadvantages:

More crap to moderate
More crap to debug
Questions asked will not be saved for later searches (like anyone does anyway)


Those are the pros and cons I could think of. Share your thoughts, roominate on the matter. I'd like to know. Jesse, if yer interested we can natter about the details.

[Josh]

I say go for it man. It IS hard to moderate chat rooms, etc as someone is not always there to catch the person. But at the same time, you get help immediatly usually.

Josh Dura

[Jesse]

This is another idea we've thought about but ultimately the whole 'no saves' thing put us off. I would guarantee in the first day 10 people would ask the same question. We do have a lot of people searching and finding answers, but it's not apparent because they don't post (of course ;) ). I'm open to hear others' opinions on the matter.

[Tink]

again it involves work but it sounds a good idea to me. i used to be addicted to napster servers chat etc. and again it built up a real good community. i can understand peeps would ask the same questions but it would be good to speak to some of u peeps in like real time!

lol. do i sound lonely?

BLEEDA:D

[mrfluffy]

it's a good idea, but normally there are only 3-12 people online at a time (when i can get on), and i'd never speak to jesse:(:rolleyes:

[Ricod]

Sounds great ! but, eh ... maybe only for the general chat and quickies ? Also, since this is an international forum with people from all over the world, it may not work ... me myself I'm at GMT +1:00 Anyone more than 8 hours away will probably never chat with each other ...

[red penguin]

I'm all for it, 20 Ton...It'd be a great addition to what's going on here and the real time thing would be fantastic...I do realize it'd be a great deal of work, but hey, if you are offering, sounds like a wonderful thing!

As for the "international" problem, I find myself on at all times and therefore wouldn't find it to be a problem....I know when certain peeps are most likely to be on according to where they live so go on when I think they are there....!

No saves...ack....we hear the same thing over anyway and it'd be something different entirely, I think, anyway...

Let us know, as I'm sure you will, if we can aid in any way!

[Jungl3M4n]

I was some years ago moderating a chatroom in the undernet servers! #flash it was started by me with the nick (JLx) and a friend (So-Icths), we were there for long! I guess something like 2 years, and yes some times the ppl ask the same question, now the thing is 20 Ton maybe developing something loke a bot(eggdrop) that tells the ppl to go to some tutorial or someting.

We with help of a friend have a bot called Tween he (BOT) know the answer to almost 2000 questions, well it wasnt runned by me ant the owner never let me get the DB of q/a but that might work here as well.

Count with me, i can help there.

Greets,

[Alareth]

Speaking from the viewpoint of an IRC junkie that hangs out in an RPG channel: Yes, you do see the same questions over and over again.

But you get used to it. If the question is asked enough times we add it to the FAQ and refer people.

There are several questions I have that I've never been to get what I feel was an adequate answer to on forums that would most likely be solved quickly if I was actually talking to someone in real time.

Another plus is the fact that during the off hours chat can get hillariously funny.....

The other option for information transfer would be for all of you to put you heads up against the monitor and let me suck the info straight out of your brains using this prototype brain wave scanner I've cobbled together... And don't worry, the drooling and mumbling are just minor side effects that should wear off in a few years.

[Jesse]

The benefit of IRC is that we could make a bot which answerred regular questions and it's already set up and free. Unless we wanted to make a Flash chat with some sort of bot. Sounds XMLish. Not me :)

[Jesse]

Actually we could make this the big community project we were talking about... A chat system which allows for bots, logging of sessions, etc, etc.

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Wow... ask a question, get a community project. Heh. I was expecting to do this all on my lonesome with everyone's input/suggestions!

The server daemon that I work on could do all that and more... it's that dern good. Heck, it was set up to be it's own POP3, SMTP, and HTTP server. It's a run-time mutable object-oriented database. Been coding on it for nary on three years and just found a profitable use for it since F5 came out.

If this IS going to turn into a community project we should start solidifying what we want and who does what where and when.

[red penguin]

You'll all have to excuse me ignorance here... but...
"run-time mutable object-oriented database"...

Could that be cleared up, Squirrel?

Community Project #1....yippee wahoo!!

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Run-time Mutable
Look at Flash and Actionscripting. You build your project, code it, then publish it. This is not run-time mutability. Imagine being able to code on your project WHILE it's running on screen. That's run-time mutability.

This is an awesome feature for a coder like me who is used to having to bring EVERYTHING down just to make minor code tweaks. This server allows you to merrilly compile whatever you want while it's running. In other words, there is no downtime for changes (unless you really screw things up).

Object-Oriented Database
This application/daemon/thing uses object oriented programming (OOP), which you actionscripters should be partially familiar with (even if you don't realize it). It basically means that you start with a root object that has code on it and build objects off of that in a heirarchy. Descendants of an object can use the code on their ancestors... thus it is efficient and powerful.


Still confused? Okay, toss the definition aside.

Like I stated, it can be it's own HTTP, POP3, STMP host. In other words, its capable of dishing out webpages on the fly or sending/recieving/interpreting e-mail. What's more, it can be used to accept client connections from something like Flash's XMLsocket. That feature would be used to carry the Flash interface for the "live chat" feature like second nature.

A lot of people are boggled by the concept of building javaservers or such for some cheesy-arse chat program. Powerful applications have been available and OPENSOURCED since the early to mid 90's! I just happened to stumble on one of the best. All ya gotta do is look around for stuff like MUD's or MUSH's. They are still all over the place as great RPG forums.

Still interested after all that?

[Jesse]

SO your Object-Oriented Database, is it relational also? Can you search by any field? And if so, wouldn't it be slower than a traditional relational DB since you have to scan each object?

[red penguin]

It makes complete sense, Squirrel, and thanks for the info...!

After all that, I would be more than willing, time pemitted, to help with whatever this thing would require. Hell, it sounds like a great opportunity to learn and that's why we are all here, ain't it so?

But then I read Jesse's reply and I think, damn, am I out of my league? Surely a little red penguin can do something, I'm sure!!

[Jesse]

Pff I just like to sound smart. What I wrote prolly doesn't make any sense :)

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Nay sir, the database itself is object oriented and not relational... though the coding structure contained within allows for such a thing if you get clever with coding.

Searches are quick, and the limit in which you can "query" an object is limited only by processor and imagination. Heck, the help file system on there is completely object-oriented/heirarchy-based and it's quick. Just keep in ind this isn't ODBC compatable... no SQL going on here, mate.

I'm strongly suggesting it for the fact that it was designed for this very purpose... in a sense. It's a multi-user text-based virtual environent, kinda like a multi-player Zork on steroids. So all of the "chat" functions are inate. What's more, its capable of handling a large volume of users.

It's kinda hard to explain how the whole thing works, but I'd be happy to give people a test-ride if yer not afraid of a text-based interface. Anyone who is game for it, we can set up a little meeting time and I'll provide the rest of the info from there.

And certainly there is something to do for anyone interested in this project, no matter the skill level. I'd like to take on the mantle of programming the chat engine... or at least head it up if we're gonna use this tried and true system I'm pimping. Any other system will probably be beyond me.

[Jesse]

Well let's start spec-ing then. Is it going to be a lot like mIRC? Are users going to have to register their nick or just log in whenever. How about communication? XMLSocket? I'd like to go that way so I can learn as we go.

[Ricod]

I hope its not going to LOOK like mIRC ... I may not know much about design etc, but ... whats with the color thing ?

Anyway, anything I can help with ?

[Tink]

i would like to see the chat reserved for members like the forum is (well posting is)

I used to love the audiognome chat. don't know if u have ever heard of it? it was like napster. nice and simple and clear!

BLEEDA

[20 Ton Squirrel]

I'd prefer an open chat forum... kinda like mIRC, I suppose, though I don't use it all that much (like never). Anyway, the idea would be to have the following windows:

Display - Occupies majority of screen, displays all incoming chat.
Input - Space to type stuff to others
Who List - Who's in your room/forum. Allow selections for whispers or pages.
Room/Forum List - Selectable list of forums. Clicking brings you into room, updates Who List.


I agree that it should be limited to the registered members of the forum. I'd like a way to interface the chat engine with the current forum's database of users. I know my engine can handle that sort of thing, but I'd need to have access and know the format of the database (to exploit you all ruthlessly).

I think that this is something we can all contribute to, but I don't think everyone will have the ability to do so directly. I've coded on MUDs that had four other coders and it didn't turn out very nice. Too many cooks in the kitchen and what not.

Maybe we should spec out roles, elect heads of those roles, and have those people decide on who does what. Anyone who can't/won't participate directly could at LEAST play the role of testers/critics. At least we'd have no end to others' opinions.

What needs to be designed:

Chat Engine - using my engine or something else (I'm trying not to be pushy here... open to suggestions).
Chat Client - using Flash and the beloved XMLsocket. I've had lots of experience with this, but would rather be coding the engine. I could provide consulting on it?


Within the scope of those two components we'd need coders and designers. We have great artsy types here that can contribute to design (m'self pseudo-included), and this whole SITE is abooooot the AS, so no shortage there.

Whaddya think? What roles should we define for each component?

[Ricod]

Maybe u already mentioned it ... but, what language r u using ?
Keeping the teams small is a definite pre (We once did a game with 15 people with undefined roles. We ended it after a month or 6 producing nothing but basic concepts) Just a thought :

I'd say teams of about 3 people, including the 'senior' :
- Ap designer / producer(s)
- Serverside coders
- Clientside coders
- Clientside designers.
And u can never have to many testers I guess ... :rolleyes:

The teammembers discuss only with each other and the senior. The seniors only with the producer(s). This way people don't slow each other down (too much), right ?

[Tink]

:( think i'd better stick with testing.

sigh! 1 day maybe

BLEEDA

[20 Ton Squirrel]

The engine itself was written in C, but we won't need to tweak that any. The database itself uses a language called ColdC, which is a slightly toned-down and tweaked derivative of C.

It's a object-oriented database language. I cut my coding teeth on this system, so I'm very partial to it. Ties right in with just about every other C-related language.

[vilehelm]

Is this going to be something similar to IRC? i've been using MIRC recently and i actually like it quite a bit. It has an old school feel to it.

I think that the forum will still be more of a place for indepth ?s and discussion but as far as really building a community nothing like instant relay...

has there been any thought as to subscribing to one of these environments rather than building it from scratch? i think they're free...at least some of them. but then again i know how squirrely geeks love to do it themselves and that way you can customize it wth lots of "acorns" (that's my new AS.org term for easter eggs and hidden features, i urge everyone to use it as much as possible!)

oops i just read the rest of the thread ignore the MIRC stuff.

but use ACORNS!

i'd be willing to help out with usability (that's what i'm best at and all i have time for, things are gettin UGLY in the advertisng world).

[vilehelm]

Ok screw it i'll help out with design too if anyone needs it. I've been spending too much time doing boring corporate work and designing maps for Unreal has been my only outlet lately and this sounds fun.

The deal with colors in MIRC is that you're supposed to codify the language with color. For instance green is an action. Purple is a thought. Blue is mood. etc... it's not always used that way but i believe that was the original intent. It's a neat idea i think. I 've always thought that you could use that as a way to seperate threads within a chat session. A green converstaion could intermingle with a red and still be distiguishable.

It's an idear...pardon for sounding like an idjit but it this "chat room" going to be inside flash?

i really need to read the rest of this thread...

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Since this has become the community project of choice, I'm not sure what everyone's intent is for either the engine or the client, but I'd like to make the client Flash-based just so we can all learn/teach something relevant from participating.

So... I elect Jesse as Director of the project. Since he has all the power anyway, why not?

[Jesse]

Erg. Me? Director? Can you all wait six weeks for a reply to an email? Hehe. OK maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Let me just make some comments:

PHP is better than ASP in my opinion. (20TS - I'm assuming we're going to need some or of server side language... or can your engine spit out XML?)
The visual layout 20T suggested sounds good except that I think the room list could be a popup (in Flash)
mIRC is great but I think we should develop this from scratch. There is already a Flash Client for mIRC (saw it somewhere just yesterday)
Flash 6 is going to be the way to go. If you people haven't seen already it has many more text field controls which will be what we need. But I guess we could use HTML enabled fields for the moment.
Registration should be compulsory before posting I think.
So as not to waste the knowledge that is shared, I would support all the sessions being saved every 2 hours or so into a searchable online index... What do you think?
Should we allow for private messaging also? That might greatly increase the load on the server...

I'm sure I had more to say than that but I'll come back later when I remember.

[Jesse]

OK to show I'm actually interested in this and to get the ball rolling I made a small module. It's much like the name completion module from mIRC (which is of course modelled on the bash UNIX environment's TAB command). When executed over a partial string it searches for a match in a list of names. If it find a (non-case-sensitive) match, it returns it. If it finds the exact same string it returns the next match (if any). Those of you who use mIRC would be aware that if you type "Joe" and there's a "joe" online it will change your prompt to "joe" (note the case difference), but if you type "Joe" and there's a "Joe" online, if there is also a "Joe2" or a "JoeRT" online, it will skip to their name... For those of you who don't know what I'm on about at all, in mIRC you can type the first frew letters of an online user's name and press Tab and mIRC will complete the name for you.. it just makes calling someone by name that much easier.
Enough talk, here's the code. I've not optimized it but with B. Hall's String Object it should be way fast.
names = ['Andy', 'Andy2', 'Bobby', 'Catey', 'Doogey'];
function matchName (partial) {
for (var k = 0; k<names.length; k++) {
if (names[k] == partial) {
continue;
} else if (names[k].toLowerCase() == partial.toLowerCase()) {
return names[k];
}
if ((names[k].substr(0, partial.length)).toLowerCase() == partial.toLowerCase()) {
trace ("found possible match!");
return names[k];
}
}
return null;
}
trace (matchName('And'));
trace (matchName('and'));
trace (matchName('andy'));
trace (matchName('Andy'));
trace (matchName('Anc'));

[Ricod]

Well, since its going to be a very real thing ... who's volunteering for what ?

If possible I'd like to do some stuff on the client side (dunno much about server side stuff anyway), but if possible, I'd like to be able to see whats going on on the server side ... u know, for educational reasons :)

Maybe people can make their own GUI's and submit them for general usage ?

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Server-side language... hmmm... well, that depends on what you want to accomplish. The engine can handle a great deal of tasks on top of just spitting text back and forth. It's internal language will probably suffice for most functions.

The engine can spit out HTML inately, but I can structure some XML no problem. If we use a Flash client and the XMLsocket() we don't necessarilly need to use XML. On the past two or three projects I've built using the XMLsocket and my engine I used simple strings. The XMLsocket doesn't really care, believe it or not.

I like Ricod's idea of allowing users to develop their own clients, and the idea of keeping the client a popup was my intention even before this became community!

Saving sessions could get kinda hairy, honestly. Imagine how much worthless chatter is going to be passed back and forth here... let's face it - if I'm on, you can count on a few megs worth a day. Heh!

I could code up a function for users to highlight text on the client and "save" it as a session with keywords et all. My engine performs incremental backups at designated intervals, tar-ing and g-zipping it all up in a directory by date.

If it's official we're using my engine, then I volunteer for server-side coding. Anyone interested in assisting in that department should sound off now, I'm a cruel taskmaster but you might learn something... or you might teach me... I dunno yet!

Jesse, if this be the way, I'll need to know a few things about the bedeviled server we run on like the OS and such... I'll also need a shell account to upload and compile the engine. On your blessing should I pester Strok?

[Ricod]

Maybe we could tag stuff as we chat : U know, this is important !. And automatically set certain individuals to blah blah ! :)

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Ya know, I just had a storm of the brain. We could code up an object in Flash that has all the functionality and connectivity handled. Then the user could create their own client based on that... just copy & paste all the code in. We would, of course, provide the basic client.

The problem with that idea is that we'd open a floodgate of questions about client development rather than keeping things focused on Flash. Maybe we could provide the object as opensource but not support in any official capacity. Heck even if we didn't provide it opensource people would still rip the code. That's a given.

Regardless of that idea, there are a few security issues to worry about when dealing with open connections like this, but nothing that would affect this site or the server it resides on. Mostly stuff like database integrity and such. There are pricks out there who want to ruin everyone's fun...

[20 Ton Squirrel]

OOOOH! Had another idea, inspired by Ricod. Log in, go directly to a public forum where everyone is chatting away in an un-saved fashion.

Say you want a question answered and you want it logged? Okay. You type your question in on a box in your client, hit send. It pages all the other folks out there with a notification. Anyone interested in taking up on the offer responds to it. Once a response is made, a recorded session is created and saved.

To prevent spam we'd just have a little light on the client somewhere start blinking. You'd just click on it to get a listing of all unanswered questions for the day (no more than a day, that's what the forum is for).

[Ricod]

Heh ! I guess we could have tutorial "Make your own Actionscripts.org chat GUI" with a step-to-step intro and a few restrictions (like setting the fontsize to 100p or sumthing).

I guess it'll be as risky as ICQ and mIRC, right ? How do they handle it ? Speaking of which, how about the option to send data to a specific client ? Like zipped fla's. (Anything over 1 mb can't be posted) On the other hand, that might seriously criple bandwidth ...

[Tink]

sheesh guys

now i was up for a chat room. sounded kewl to speak to peeps real time but this thing sounds wicked!

:D

[20 Ton Squirrel]

I say an emphatic no to streaming data across. The developers of my engine are working on that, but to be honest I think that the forum is the best thing for that. We're looking to supplement the forum, not replace it.

We can easily restrict how text and such is displayed. Since we'll be using the HTML option on the output box there will be limitations set on the size/color of the font.

Besides, if anyone gets overly stupid I can ban their host. Heheheh...

[vilehelm]

I can see this is getting messy already but here are my suggestions as far as project development go.

Interface design seems to be jumping the gun a little bit.

We should at least have an agreed upon wireframe to work from, and for that we need a func_spec of some sort. (is that too formal for this?)

I think Squirrel and Jesse are obviously the ones to decide on what goes in the func spec. The func_spec will be incredibly helpful if you have a team of developers. It's the play book.They should take all of the suggestions and the hand it off to an IA.
(i'll do that if no one wants it).

The IA can then make the wire frame (just a schematic document that shows everything that is needed for any given screen situation). I have some templates to follow if anybody wants them, simple visio documents.

IA, Squirrel and Jesse hash that out and then the wire frame can be given out. Everybody loves to design so maybe we can have a little GUI challenge to everyone and see what we all like. (that will be messy too).

What might be helpful there is a creative lead (it's what i do for a livin but it seems like a touchy thing so maybe it's not such a great idea, however the lead would not be the final designer but instead a person who makes sure the final designs are tight and nothing has been overlooked)

Then it's mak'n time!

All the while the back end can be developed and tested by the back end team.

That's my two cents, it may be too formal but it might also make things run a little smoother.





:rolleyes:

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Actually, I encourage as much structure as possible. I'm chaotic and tend not to play nicely with others. In fact, that was my main misgiving about this being a community project... too many cooks in the kitchen would end up like a Macaroni Grill commercial (sorry you non-Americans).

Interface design would be something to iron out when the project is complete, I agree allowing everyone to go willy-nilly is a bad idea at this point.

I haven't seen any other takers or suggestions, so does anyone have objections to me being commanding officer for the chat engine?

[Ricod]

No objections ! In the worse case scenario it'll lead to a mutiny :) Hey, it's your idea and engine !

[vilehelm]

Originally posted by 20 Ton Squirrel
I haven't seen any other takers or suggestions, so does anyone have objections to me being commanding officer for the chat engine?

Aww crap, i just bought my PHP for Dummies book. I was hopin I could take the lead.

Oh well i still have the reciept i think...

Squirrell If you need a func spec template i might be able to dig a couple up for you. I don't think it has to be as formal as the ones that we do for big projects for clients but it might be helpful to use a little bit of it.

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Bah, PHP to run a chat engine?! A better investment would be the book Flash and XML... by... uh... I don't remember, but I spotted it at Barnes & Noble the other day. A few minutes thumbing through it proved interesting. Check the site!

Flash & XML (http://www.flashandxml.com)

...
...

Oh poop. That reminds me! I've gotta finish that book review for Jesse! CRIPES! *scurry, scurry*

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Oh yeah, Vile, if you could send me those docs that would be cool. Are they PC friendly? They might be of use to me in more ways than just this. Thanks!

[vilehelm]

I'll be the technical lead of jack and ****...and jack just left town

[red penguin]

So I missed a few hours....this thing is really taking off here! I do, however, have to stick in my two cents and admit that this sounds a bit over some of my capabilities....

*boy, does that sound sad, or what!*

Anyhoo...anything Flash based, I'm up for. Seems I have my plate half full for the moment with work, and I can devote my time to aide in the tasks that need to be accomplished...Something needs doing? I say it gets posted somewhere and then we can have whomever wants it takes it...And that wouldn't mean first come first serve...as many people interested in it, would take it...The more minds on something, the better the code'll be, the faster the production'll be, the easier it'll make certain tasks get done. Information will get passed around and everyone will be informed of things and be up to speed with production...

okay, enough rambling for now....

Seems as though we have our leaders! hip hip horrah!!!

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Agreed, then. I'd like to suggest that we have a temporary forum open here so we don't clutter up General Chat or Actionscripting. Over the course of the project this could get pretty deep. Or we could just keep flogging this thread. It is, of course, up ta Jesse and such.

I'm going to start getting the bare bones of the database built. I can port it over to an engine on actionscripts once Jesse or Stroke is foolish enough to give me access to a shell account.

Given the propensity of crashes I'll probably do much of the development on my own server and incrementally port it over.

Anyone know anything about CRON scripts to run programs on startup in LINUX? We'll need something like that just in case the problems persist.

[vilehelm]

yeah a seperate forum would be helpful

it will get major confusing if we keep it to one thread.

also i was thinking that we might use MIRC at least once or twice when we reach keypoints.

squirrel, pengie's gettin awful close to you in the postins # ...

[tg]

pengies gettin close, but billyt will pass em both by the end of feb.

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Yeah, I've been so busy here at work (my usual posting time) that I haven't been able to devote much time in my appointed forum. It's shameful, really.

If anyone's willing to take the dive and DL the freeware they can connect to my current server at:

208.244.32.251:1138

It's a telnet connection and you could go there from a command prompt, but I suggest that you use a client that I have set up here (http://lonewolfe.net/~grimslayde/GMUD.zip). It's PC, so you Mac users will need to download something else.

If you download the client, just unzip it and run the GMUD executable. Click on the connect button and select Wayland, then hit okay. You should get some splash text almost immediately. If you haven't logged in before, type:

create <name> <password> <e-mail address>

... and hit return.

If you've created already, just type:
connect <name> <password>


... and hit return.

The interface is alot like mIRC and Zork mixed. I'll see you there if you are interested. I go by Grimslayde there.

[vilehelm]

i'm drinking the koolaid rightnow...hmm

taste like cashews

er actually i'm hitting an internal firewall problem. my IT guys opening it up now. see you soon.

[red penguin]

Yeah, another forum would be good...i have another suggestion, though, and it's just that...a suggestion. We could set up something completely different at...*ahem*....yahoo ....*cough*....so as not to clutter things up...
A user group of sorts....This way it'd be separate from here..There are some advantages as well as disadvantages but I'd like to hear what y'all say 'bout dat...

suggestion...I...SAY...

So now I'll attempt to get this stuff squirrel posted and see if I can't get in there...

Thanks...

oh...and Billy is the postin' madman! Way to go!

[vilehelm]

The yahoo club thing is fine with me. I use the IM all of the time. My entire group uses it just for office stuff even.

I was going to suggest once teams really got pared down and things were rolling that we use IM but i'm an IM kinda person. Some aren't.

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Taking it to another site would be okay, I suppose, but if we are going to roominate about various issues in Flash it might be worthwhile to archive here for later reference.

For instance, we'll be delving deep into the world of XMLsocket(). There are maybe [SIZE=4]TWO/SIZE] posts on that as of now... both of which I have my paws in one way or another. Anyhoo, what we go into there will be neat to look back on later.

I use ICQ - which, at one point, was free of AOL taint. *sigh* I'd move over into AIM, but they don't allow you to lead a name with a number! No 20 Ton Squirrel?! INCONCEIVABLE!!!!

My company might be banning all use of chat clients like that, though, so at any point that might get yanked. That's my take.

[red penguin]

Okay then...we should in the next few days get a head count on this thing..who's interested...put up an announcement if in fact that's what we're gonna do and get right down ta bi'ness...

I see your point there, squirrel....

See? We need this instant thing!

[Jesse]

Well it seems we're full of idea. A few comments from me:

No streaming files. Security and bandwidth troubles go WAY up
Registration befor eposting, and logging of IPs will prevent SPAM to some extent. It's the best we can do
I think this project should be of a limited open source nature. I can just see us developing it and another less scrupuluss big business person stealing it and selling it.
I'll set up a new forum later today (given the chance). Should it be public access?
Squirrel - We run FreeBSD and I'm sure a shell account shouldn't be an issue but for the moment can you do it locally because we're having trouble just keeping the site up as is!
I think structure is a great idea, so let's get to spec-ing. Or maybe we should make that the first post in the new forum.
I think the GUI should be skinnable simply because I hate non-skinnable programs now. Yes I'm a yuppie.
Are we going to have web-based or standalone clients? Someone who nows about XMLSocket; can the standalone player do it without troubles?
More later. Catch.

[vilehelm]

last post before nightie night

the projects that i've been involved in before usually go like so:

the first series should be an idea dump - everybody throw their two cents on the table. grand visions, little things and wish lists, a brain storm if ye will. nobody call anybody else's idea stupid. check your ego at the forum door.

then Jesse and 20 pick through it all with the filter of what they want to deal with and what they know they can do and come up with the spec for what they want to build. this is the playbook for the dev team.

then they get the help they need from the rabid throng of volunteers. as stated before i'll be willing to help IA anything. (as i told the squirrel best if i'm not allowed access to anything even resembling code :\ )

somewhere close to the end of the engine building (during testing?) we need to produce some sort of visual map for the gui. that's the wireframe doc.

(by the way i think making it skinable is a great idea...i thought of suggesting it but wasn't sure how viable it would be.)

after whatever look and feel process we go through (i think this still up in the air) the dev team intergrates the look and feel. usually there is a continuity person who deals with that transition.

after that a little care and feeding work and documentation.

err, again checking all egos at the door including mine is key, build this sucker like you want, this is only my suggestion from experience. i'll help out however you want (i'll get the donuts! do they have donuts in Australia?)

[Ricod]

Well if its gonna be semi-open I suggest the chat forum will be participants only. Else if some evil company comes by they can just sign up and STEAL everything ! Think of all the squirrely sweats thats gone into that engine ... that would result in a worldwide cashew shortage !

I'm not really familiar with Yahoo .... does it has groups like ICQ ? If its gonna be a little like mIRC, why don't we have a few mIRC sessions once in a while ?

BTW, maybe one day Billy'll surpass Jesse ! We oughta mark that day in history then !

[Jesse]

Well the new dedicated forum is up. Check it out peeps. When Billy approaches my post limit I'll start pruning his older posts :)

[20 Ton Squirrel]

Okie, sounds like a plan. I already had plans to do initial development on my own server that Vile and Pengie have visited. See a few posts back if you are interested in doing the same. Glad to hear you run FreeBSD, that's what the creators of this engine built it on... though any *NIX system will do. We'll talk shell account access later.

As for security... well, we all know how bloody difficult it is to secure Flash, I don't suggest that we put potentially dangerous or private code in there.

While web-based, the XMLsocket can only connect to the server that it's on. BUT while local it can access anywhere. So to answer yer question, Jesse, we could make stand-alone and web-based clients. No problem.

The engine is very secure, it's developers are dark and powerful entities of emmense brainy intellect (and ironically enough they DESPISE Flash). Unless the person REALLY knows the engine or hacks the server we don't have to worry about that.

I really like Vile's structure for the project. I think we should stick to that.

I think that's it for here. I'm going over to the new forum now to foozle about some.

[red penguin]

Yeah, I think and nominate Vile for keeping tabs on structure and the like. I think he's our man!

Over to the new forum...

Wahoo....zippedy dooo.............

[Billy T]

Originally posted by Ricod
maybe one day Billy'll surpass Jesse !

hmmm I DON'T THINK SO;)

I've been on holidays for last couple of months but the fun's about to end:(

I think this live chat thing is a great idea and am happy to help however I can. I know nothing about XML or anything but might be able to help on the design or something

cheers

[Jungl3M4n]

Hello! I know that there is long time since i came here!, well I'm back! no programming knoledge yet perfectioned! but some Java ****! lol! wats ut with this project ??? is stoped ?

[pinkaboo]

no it's certainly not stopped, in fact I believe things are going to happen pretty soon. Red, Vile and 20 have been doing a grand job juggling real life, jobs, distractions in the form of pinkness, and managing to beaver away at the chat project too. Jesse/Strok have provided the space and 20 has got it running on this server now apparently so something should hopefully be visible in the near future. :)