Chat Box!

[exotoa95]

I was thinking, many ppl who are looking at these forums are kinda confused where to go at first etc.etc. I know I was, so i was thinking why not put in a chat box on the main site or the forums (or both) so people who just have a quick question or suggestion can ask away. There are a few places that offer these services, but the best one by far is xat.com the chat boxes are free and they have a good control system with owners mods members and guests. This helps to distinguish the people who are "senior" rainmeterers who can best help the people with questions. Getting this box is super easy too, just go to the site and create the template for the box, and copy the custom HTML to the site and done, if yall want too i have a box of my own that can be used, (its suuper quiet). Tell me what ya'll think!

[dragonmage]

We do have a link to an IRC chat applet at the top of every forum page. The channel has died down a bit lately, but it's still there.

[exotoa95]

Yea, i saw that, but to me its 1)out of the way and 2) suuper unattractive the new boxes look like this and should be put on like the front page of the forums or something, somewhere where ppl can see it at first and not have to look around for it. I dunno I just thought it was a good idea

[jsmorley]

Yea, i saw that, but to me its 1)out of the way and 2) suuper unattractive the new boxes look like this and should be put on like the front page of the forums or something, somewhere where ppl can see it at first and not have to look around for it. I dunno I just thought it was a good idea

We have looked a few chat options for phpbb and they are really bad or need so much customizing of the forum software that we put our upgrade path at risk. We find IRC works fine.

[Digi]

iam a noob at irc and dont know how to work with it, i have tried the irc channel here but didnt work for me....

a chat box in the other hand is simple and easy to use so i would like to see a chat box.....some other sites use the chat box but they use it for none thech talk sort of making friends between members and normal chit chat that help some time making member spend more time in the forum as they are chatting and having fun :happy1: ...like good morning etc

of course it can be used for tech talk but then any one has a problem will not take the time to post a thread but instead just ask in the chat box and by that any one come and search for a problem will not find a thread that could help him and thats a real problem....

i think we can have a chat box but not for solving problem but for general chat and if some one have a problem he need to make a thread so other can benifet from..

[Alex2539]

I think the IRC is just fine. The only problem with it is populating the room. I'm almost always logged on to IRC, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm actually there. A chat box wouldn't fix this in the slightest since there are typically at most 5 users on the board at any time (Search Bots notwithstanding). It would wind up being as slow, or slower, than IRC currently is which would in the end make it no better than a really disorganized thread. Add on the fact that jsmorley has explicitly stated that they couldn't find a good solution for a chat box and the chances of this showing up are looking to be zilch.

It's a single click away to IRC, what's the big deal?

[exotoa95]

Its because the IRC is unnoticable, i dunno about everyone else, but when i first got on the forums i completely passed over the irc link, so in my opnion it is out of the way. and another thing, the chat box doesnt have to be on the forums, if its easier it could be posted on the main site, if the developers dont mind, that would make it much easier than having to redo the forums (didnt know it took that much customizing and stuff).

[jsmorley]

IRC works really nice, and the web-based one we have here is falling off the log easy to use. You click on the link, put in any user name you want, and you are talking to us.

I understand the appeal of a "shout box", and have seen them in in other forums running different software. However, IRC is our (I mean the folks that actually make some effort to provide real-time help, and there are only a handful of us) preferred method. Also, nobody sits in the main site all day, and folks logging in there and asking for help would be met with a deafening silence.

The link at the top for IRC isn't huge, granted. However, it is also a large link on the main site as a way to contact us.

I am fine with the forums as they are. Forums are one kind of community based support, and I think the forums here are active and useful.

[exotoa95]

True that does make sense, ah well discussion closed than