View Poll Results: Would you be interested in a live chat system on PGD?

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  • No

    3 14.29%
  • Yes

    18 85.71%
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Thread: AJAX Chatbox for Pascal developers?

  1. #11
    code_glitch, what are you smoking?!=)
    +1 for AJAX chat.

  2. #12
    @code_glitch: haha, well that's quite an ambitious thing to do. I'm pretty sure plenty have tried to create their own "better" chat protocols. I'd say it's not worth the effort.

    @Phibermon: You have some valid points there. Especially concerning the firewalls that might be installed at workplaces and the devices that can run a client. And code formatting would also be quite usefull. Would it be possible to write a custom client for it, or is it a completely closed system?
    Coders rule nr 1: Face ur bugz.. dont cage them with code, kill'em with ur cursor.

  3. #13
    PGD Staff code_glitch's Avatar
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    @Dan: Got back from 3 week holiday, and now its about as stressful as the rest of the year and thats a late night post. TBH I don't remember what I was smoking but it was pretty good and I'd definitely like to find some more
    I once tried to change the world. But they wouldn't give me the source code. Damned evil cunning.

  4. #14
    PGD Staff / News Reporter phibermon's Avatar
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    Can I please itterate I'm not attempting to start a flame war and that I have been a keen user of IRC in the past

    And there's no reason a custom client can't be written, it's just that instead of a direct TCP connecton your client would use HTTP as the transfer mechansim. The client side would be forwarding messages using some form of AJAX interface which if it was so desired could be written into a Chat client. I believe there are several Web MSN clients that use a similar technique.

    But to play devils advocate once more, perhaps there are AJAX IRC clients that by means of server side code, can transfer messages back and forth. In fact a quick search finds this :

    http://www.vedetta.com/ajax-irc-clients-list

    But I should imagine that these require server side code as stated in order to make the actual connections to an IRC server.

    I would say that in order to have the most accessible chat system, an AJAX/http interface would be the way to go. My preference still lies with a system such as AJAX Chat for all the web tech features it offers. But there's a lot of clients in that list, perhaps one of them layers additional web functionality similar to AJAX chat while still connecting to a normal IRC Server. Administration however is still an issue as it's not possible for admins to be connected all the time, a restricted member only chat tied into the existing user system would be a big win in that respect.

    It would probably take a lot more work to write a bot that managed members (tied into VBulletin) and held the room. Plus the bot would have to conform to the rules of the chosen IRC server which are almost always against bots that restrict access to rooms.

    If the decision is made to add chat to PGD then I personally will not further my debate if software/bot and server could be suggested that can equal AJAX chat in minimum implementation work and ease of administration tasks. While the web 2.0 features of AJAX Chat would be great to have, standard IRC will serve to meet the task.
    Last edited by phibermon; 16-08-2011 at 06:36 PM.
    When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie - that's an extinction level impact event.

  5. #15
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    Well it seems that this is a wanted feature to some degree in some capacity. So I may pursue this in the near future.

    I'm more inclined to use a web-based approach to start as it is the most accessible right now, but this does not restrict the option for an app for other platforms later down the road. The web-based approach would be the most friendly to all parties involved, just based off the availability to load web pages and use AJAX extensions from JavaScript via HTML on mobile devices as well as other work and home computers.

    My biggest influence is easy of access for everyone in the community so I will focus on this. The rest is about security and easy of maintenance.

    IRC unfortunately doesn't really fit into this mold very well. It would rely on 3rd party applications, registration and lay on the whims of other public IRC servers. Not a combination I'm comfortable with when it comes to keeping an environment that is pleasant for our community members. There is no reason however that any of you couldn't start up a #PGD channel on an IRC server somewhere to chat, however this has been done before and it slowly faded into oblivion over time.

    Suggestions are still of course welcomed and of course interest will help show me your demand for such a feature on PGD.
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  6. #16
    even if i'm an IRC user, i'm agree that IRC will cut off many people who don't want to use a 3rd party IRC software just for go on the channel. A web solution will be open for all and will be painless.
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  7. #17
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    Well I've setup a instance of AJAX Chat at http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/chat/ Feel free to test it out. I'm not done modifying the script and the layout yet, but this will serve as a testbed/trial to see how it will work for PGD Members.

    Comments/Suggestions welcome!
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  8. #18
    Looks good Will, but I think something integrated with the forum would be better. I'm sure there is a vBulletin plugin around.
    From brazil (:

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  9. #19
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    Well there is a shoutbox plugin that I can use as well, but I wanted to try out the chat windows first. See how it works.

    This one is the vBulletin version too. You'll notice it knows your account name and all the forum names upon loading. I can do more to tweak it and integrate things.

    I've tested it on my iPad and iPhone and it works pretty good on both. I can see it working well on the Android devices too. iPhone was a bit small and took effort to work with the UI, but iPad obviously was easier to work with. Anyone test it on other devices just for kicks?
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  10. #20
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    So what do you guys think?

    I'm not getting much feedback from at least 14 interested people. lol Stating interest about the chat app only in the Chat room doesn't help, because it's only a testbed right now. I have yet to tweak it and make it more PGD-ish.

    I can see some interesting things that we could do with this eventually. It's pretty lean which is the best part about this particular one. I can add on some pretty neat things such as Twitter integration, advanced chatbot stuff, announcements in chat, chat logs and live development discussions.

    Again it's at http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/chat/ so try it out and give feedback!
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





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