ARM chatroom

[wizzardx]

I posted this in an existing members and community topic, here, but I thought I would put this here too.

I've just created a web-based chatroom for ARM. You can reach it by clicking the "Chatroom" link near the top of the forum main page, after logging into the forum.

It looks a bit like IRC, but it's actually purely web-based.

The idea isn't to replace the forums, or to make people spend more time typing random things there than on here, it's more as an alternative to AIM or IRC, for people who want to quickly join an ARM live chat and say hi.

One big difference to the forum is that you can't see conversation history (past the most recent 20 messages when you join the chatroom), so if you want to have some interesting conversation, try to keep it on the forum, for other people to be able to read through later and be able to comment on. That's one thing that makes ARM such an interesting place .

I'm not sure how good an idea this is, but I thought I'd give it a try and see how well it works out. I'll close it down if the staff or other members thinks it's going to cause problems. By the way, it is possible to setup moderators on the live chat, if we need something like that later.

There are also a few IRC-like commands you can run on the live chat:

http://www.phpfreechat.net/commands

For instance, one interesting command is /join, which will let you create a new chatroom if the main one is too crowded, eg:

Code:  [ Select all ]

/join some_random_roleplay


There is also the ability to send private chat messages to individual users (by clicking on their name in the online members list on the right side of the screen).

Anyway, I hope I can see a few of you in the chatroom sometime

edit: To learn more about the ARM Chatroom, you can read this wiki article.

[Utsuho Lazy]

I don't think I'll be able to get online often, but I'll try to whenever I can~

[wizzardx]

I don't think I'll be able to get online often, but I'll try to whenever I can~

Well, I'll probably be on there a lot ^^;
I see this being a major time waster for me .

edit:

One thing I've seen is that a few people login to the chatroom, see nobody around, and then logout. And then a bit later, the next person does the same thing

If you visit the chatroom and see nobody around, then try sticking around for a while. Leave the window open while you do something else .

And then if someone visits and posts something, you'll get a bell noise from the chat page, unless you turn that off.

Also, the chat webpage title in your browser gets updated to say how many unread messages there have been since you last switched over to that tab/browser window, so you can quickly check your tabs/window titles every now and then to se if people have dropped by the chatroom and posted something in the past few minutes. And then you can switch back to it and say hi to them.

Similarly, if you post something in the chatroom, and a few people are there but don't respond for a few minutes, don't just logout. Wait for one of them to see your message (while you carry on with stuff in other windows). When they reply, you'll also get a bell noise, and your browser tab/window title will be updated

This has been a public service announcement.

[Utsuho Lazy]

If you visit the chatroom and see nobody around, then try sticking around for a while. Leave the window open while you do something else .

Okay, I'll keep that in mind

And then if someone visits and posts something, you'll get a bell noise from the chat page, unless you turn that off.

I always turn the sound off though, since I listen to music and/or play games simultaneously, and the sound does interfere a bit.

[wizzardx]

I always turn the sound off though, since I listen to music and/or play games simultaneously, and the sound does interfere a bit.

I turn that off myself, because it's kind of annoying unless I'm only chatting. But I do find the browser tab title change very useful, to see when have been posting while I was doing something else. It's kind of like PM that way ("you have X unread messages" in a place you can notice it), but also you can switch over and start chatting in realtime when you have a few moments

[wizzardx]

I made a few updates to the chatroom:

- It now fills up more of the screen, instead of having that useless menu on the left side
- Changed title to "A Reyvateil's Chatroom"
- Added support for images, use the [img] bbcode like you do in the forum
- Changed default emoticons over to the ARM pomoticons

[kairi_key]

I am, somehow, wishisg that this forum have something like this...

It'd be a good thing, huh?

[wizzardx]

I am, somehow, wishisg that this forum have something like this...

It'd be a good thing, huh?

Hopefully

[wizzardx]

Made a topic for posting funny ARM chatroom quotes:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1711

Enjoy

update:

The next time you go to the chatroom, there should be 3 tabs that open up, instead of the usual "My room":

- RP
- RP Chat
- ARM Chat

- ARM Chat is the regular chatroom, where you can do whatever . This one is selected by default, so just start chatting there like usual.
- RP is for roleplaying only, try not to chat about random things there (out of character), especially if there are other people busy in this room.
- RP Chat is for out-of-character discussions of stuff going on in the RP chatroom, in case the main chatroom (ARM Chat) has a lot of other random things going on.

Note, you can still roleplay in ARM Chat if you want, but RP and RP Chat are there for if you want to do some more serious RP without interferences

Have fun

[wizzardx]

Added 2 new bbcode tags to the chat:

Code:  [ Select all ]

[hymmnos]TEXT[/hymmnos] - For hymmnos font


Code:  [ Select all ]

[spoiler]TEXT[/spoiler] - for spoiler box


This is not yet supported:

Code:  [ Select all ]

[spoiler="DESCRIPTION"]TEXT[/spoiler]


Another update:

I made Yuri into a chatroom op. Which means she has the ability to kick users off chatrooms (they can log in again), and a few forum moderator-like things like banning/unbanning, if there are problems. This is mainly to help keep the new "RP" channel on-topic if needed, and she will warn people first.

If there are other problems in the future (eg: people spamming a lot or upsetting members, or something like that), then I can make more people ops, who're in the chatroom a lot .

And of course, if there are problems with chat room ops, you can let me, or one of the forum staff know over PM so we can sort things out, the same as if you had problems with members of the forum staff.

Update:

Here's another tip that members might find useful. If you want to make a backup copy of the chat log, including images, then here's a method that should work:

1) Open a word processor, like Open Office Writer or MS Word.

2) In the chat window, use your mouse to select the chat history you're interested in.

3) Copy and paste into the word processor.

The images and a lot of the other formatting should be preserved.

4) Save the doc file for later reference.

Later, if you see some funny stuff, you can prepare it for posting over to the Funny Chatroom Quotes page, or other parts of the forum, like this:

1) Open the doc file.

2) Export/Save as HTML.

3) Open the HTML file in a text editor, for instance Notepad.

The HTML is kind of gibberish, but the important things are there: All the posters nicks, messages, image URLs, formatting codes, etc. You can use that text to help prepare a post for the quotes page, or for posting somewhere else on the forum.

Another tool which might help for converting to BBCODE:

http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/html2bbcode/

If you copy and paste HTML text in there, and click the "Convert" button, then you get some bbcode. After some re-formatting, you should have something you can post on the forum, which shouldn't look too different to how it looked in the chatroom

Update:

Added a topic for seeing if we can organize some role-playing in the chatroom:

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1716

Update:

Having problems re-opening some chatroom tabs, after closing them? (eg: RP, or RP Chat).

Here's how you can easily fix it:

1) Close all your currently-open chatroom tabs, until there are no tabs left.

2) Refresh the page with F5.

All the default tabs (RP, RP Chat, ARM Chat) will open up again.

And of course, there's this method of re-opening the tabs. Type/copy these commands into the text entry box, one at a time, and press enter after each of them after typing/copying each one:

Code:  [ Select all ]

/join RP
/join RP Chat
/join ARM Chat


(I really need to start a wiki article sometime for the chatroom ).

[Utsuho Lazy]

(I really need to start a wiki article sometime for the chatroom ).

Yup, please. I still can't remember the command to change my username even though you've told me

[wizzardx]

Yup, please. I still can't remember the command to change my username even though you've told me

I'll do that soon then

[wizzardx]

As requested, the chatroom now has a button for inserting images, rather than needing to remember how to use the [img] bbcode

It looks like this:

[Nironeru]

tried exporting and stuff in word... didn't worked...

[wizzardx]

tried exporting and stuff in word... didn't worked...

Well, here's a step-by-step guide:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6228_convert-mi ... -word.html

Although, I've read that MS Word's HTML source code can be really ugly. I haven't actually used MS Word for many years.

If you have problems with MS word, or the HTML it saves, then I'd recommend using OpenOffice Writer, the word processor that comes with OpenOffice, which you can get here:

http://www.openoffice.org/

[Nironeru]

worked now but I have to work out how I did it when i saved the file as html and opened it with FF, then converted the contents in BBcode...

[wizzardx]

worked now but I have to work out how I did it when i saved the file as html and opened it with FF, then converted the contents in BBcode...

I think you need to open the html file with notepad, rather than firefox. I think you can right-click on the file and "open with" notepad. Or open notepad first, and then open the HTML from it.

update:

Okay, there's now a much easier way to make backups of your chats, and to also get the images that chatters added with the [img] bbcode.

Basically, just select with your mouse, and copy and paste directly (over into notepad, or over into a new forum post).

The copied text will now have [img] bbcodes, wherever the chatters used [img] bbcodes.

Basically, I'm setting the image "alternate text" strings to the required bbcode, rather than leaving it blank.

I hope that helps

update:

Okay, another update, so quickly after the previous one

URLs are no longer abbreviated in the chat. They can look kind of ugly/long now, but you can also copy & paste them very easily.

The main idea being, if you copypaste your chat history over to somewhere else (eg: forum post, or backup in a text file), that you also get the original links in your copied text, rather than the abbreviated versions.

[Utsuho Lazy]

Umm, by the way, is it just me or is the Pomoticon missing in the chatroom's list?

[wizzardx]

Update: Restored the missing Pomoticon ^^;

Spoiler:  [ Open ]

Thanks for spotting that. I added them all manually to the chat room, and it looks like I missed one ._.

[Utsuho Lazy]

The Pom thanks you~