View Full Version : AJAX Chatbox for Pascal developers?
phibermon has reached out to me and proposed the idea of starting a means of a live chat system designed just for our little community that will allow PGD and non-PGD members who use Pascal to chat live among each other.
I believe his key point was best said...
"I'm hungry for realtime chat but find a lot of game programming rooms often shun pascal developers and find the pascal related rooms devoid of game coders."
Obviously referring to the existing #FPC and #Lazarus-IDE rooms over on the Freenode IRC servers.
IRC was mentioned, but we tried this a while back and I don't think that it lasted too long. Besides this seems a little bit old of a concept in this day and age of digital communication. We later discussed another idea that I liked.
One of the ideas he presented to me was something that caught my eye the most and that was a seemingly simply, yet sleek looking web script called AJAX Chat (https://blueimp.net/ajax/). Use of Flash and Ruby is optional, but I doubt that we'll make use of Flash so that it can be run on all your iPads and iPhones. Also there can be multiple rooms where a different category of topics can be discussed to prevent congestion if traffic picks up among a group already in discussion. It'll be up to you guys how you want to organize the rooms.
Does this idea seem to interest you? Would you stop in for a chat and like to discuss issues with others live? Would integration with the PGD website make this more attractive than old and dull IRC clients?
Who would be interested in having a live Chatbox on PGD that people can talk with each other live kind of like IRC, but a bit more modern and in more of a Web 2.0 way of chatting?
Matthias
09-08-2011, 01:41 PM
This is an interesting idea. I'd prefer an integrated chat (against IRC). I'd avoid flash. For me probably the forum based discussions are still more interesting just because they aren't live.
Nevertheless it's worth a try.
phibermon
09-08-2011, 05:27 PM
Naturally I'd like to see it but I lack the history to state if I believe it would be extensively used or not. I'd certainly be keeping a session open, chatting or answering questions but with that said, I shall have to play devils advocate with my opinion :
A real-time chat, if utialized by people to answer questions; may potentially rob the forum of the discussion.
Chat logs would be inherently more difficult to browse for answers, being only partly mitigated by having topic specific rooms (which would in turn divide up the locality of chatters)
If 'chat happens', it would most likely be better, in terms of the PGD forums as a resource; to encourage on-topic questions to be asked in the forum.
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Fighting the other side of the coin, I believe that real-time communication can paint a stronger picture of community and it may serve to turn more guests into members or to strengthen the participation of existing members by making PGD feel more 'alive'.
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Hopefully the poll will collect enough data to provide a statistically signifigant result. I've taken to pretending to be a C coder on IRC just to avoid being flamed :) "You're writing a game? in Pascal?!? hahahahah" etc etc
Did I mention that there is a Demo that you can try? Check it out if you are interested: https://blueimp.net/ajax/
code_glitch
10-08-2011, 04:05 PM
I was looking for a 'Maybe... Depends on implementation' option but then I realized the only two where 'yes' and 'no'. I said yes, simply because the IRC during the Ludum Dare compo has a great feel (any LD competitors, you know what I mean, sleep deprived coding and helping each other out on there - a real sense of community) so during compos or other events based on a fast(er) timescale, a live chat would be great - but while IRC is great, pretty much anyone can log on including spammers etc, flash is just, well, horrendous but AJAX sounds good or a regulated IRC would be perfect IMHO.
Just my two cents.
phibermon
10-08-2011, 07:26 PM
I've experimented with the demo (https://blueimp.net/ajax/) and it looks good! Perhaps there are alternatives but should an implementation be pursued, this looks perfectly suitable (their statement of VBulletin intergration is promising)
code_glitch : I've been a fond user of IRC in the past but yes I agree, spamming is rife. Regulated IRC unless supported by some custom bot would add a layer of complexity to site admin tasks.
Such a solution as the proposed, given it could be configured to use VBulletin authentication; would provide an uncommon spam-vector and would have minimal impact on the sites administrative tasks (a ban in VBulletin is a ban in AJAX Chat). I'd wager that the uncommon combination of VBulletin + AJAX Chat is unlikely to be targetted by existing spamming scripts but then perhaps I under-estimate the persistance of spammers!
chronozphere
14-08-2011, 08:08 PM
+1 for IRC. :)
Some kind of chatting facility would be really great to have. I didn't know about any IRC channels for pascal (game) developers and if there are any, they are not well promoted IMHO. It should be a piece of cake to create a new channel for PGD on some server. ;)
Yes IRC is old, but it has earned it's place in cyberspace a long time ago. It's simple and effective! All kinds of clients have emerged during the years, including webbased ones. At Delgine they use a java applet to connect with DeleD's IRC channel. The community has been really quite over the last year but still I had some interesting conversations over there.
I don't see why we should use a web-only client. It forces you to go to a single place and chat, while on IRC you can use the client you are allready comfortable with. I'm pretty sure that there are good IRC clients that can be embedded into our community website. There even are IRC chat plugins for vBulletin, so this should be really easy to do. (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=246787)
Finally, I personally prefer IRC because I have my own linux server which would allow me to stay logged in into any IRC channel (24/7) so I can read through any interesting discussions that passed by, join any if I'm behind my desk and possible act as a moderator in the channel. :)
Just my $0.02
code_glitch : I've been a fond user of IRC in the past but yes I agree, spamming is rife. Regulated IRC unless supported by some custom bot would add a layer of complexity to site admin tasks.
I could play a role there. If the 10 most active PGD members all get sufficient privileges to kick spammers, I don't see the problem. It's just a small group of people chatting anyway.
+1 for IRC
Why try to reinvent the wheel when the end result would be nothing as good?
phibermon
15-08-2011, 07:07 PM
Why try to reinvent the wheel when the end result would be nothing as good?
Right, I've been waiting for this :) Please excuse the length of this post as I want to make sure I cover a majority of factors :
IRC is getting old in the tooth. No uniform way of displaying colours, no uniform ways of playing sound, no font control, no HTML formatting , no easy way to tie in user administration to an existing authentication mechanism (like VBulletins).
An AJAX chat system would be far easier to extend/modify with PGD specific features (link to peoples profiles, profile-images etc)
An IRC room would require an extensive and complex bot written just to do barely any of these things plus It's not good relying on external dependencies that you can't control. The bot crashes on an empty room? you could potentially loose the room.
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Check out AJAX chat, as a system for people to chat with its far more attractive than an IRC session, it fits very well with VBulletin, you can post images, use BBCode, it's easily extended to support embedding YouTube videos, special formatting for code-snippets etc
As a user experience it's far superior and as an admin experience (from the perspective of current administrative duties) doubley so.
IRC is instantly an issue for people that don't know how to use it, is filled with spam bots and script-kiddies of the worst kind (they think they're in some way 'L337' because they've downloaded some script that writes their name in big ASCII Art fonts)
AJAX Chat is instantly usable with no previous experience and is also very familiar to anyone that's used a forum (like all of the PGD members).
It will require pretty much zero admin because it's already covered in existing VBulletin processes and in turn will be restricted to members without having to write a custom bot to take care of the room.
IRC only trumps Ajax chat in two areas : Vast numbers of rooms/users and File Transfer. Neither of which are needed in this scenario and certainly not worth abandoning all the modern benefits for.
My apologies for attacking anyones beloved IRC but I just don't see it as the best potential solution to the above proposition. Peoples love of IRC stems from it's long history and it's status as the domain of warez and HAXORZ. lulz.
It's got nothing to do with it actually being the best chat solution.
Just look up any 'Talker' or 'MUD', they're all far better than IRC with far more features, better commands etc while still being used by telnet clients or IRC-like MUD clients.
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But wait! there's more! ;)
An IRC client requires a direct TCP connection so instantly will not work on any network that does not allow this. That includes most peoples work places, libraries, internet cafes and many public WIFI networks. AJAX Chat works over standard HTTP and will function quite happily through any proxy server.
Anywhere you can browse the web, AJAX Chat will work.
And finally, the number of devices that have web-browsers is far greater than the number that you can install an IRC client on plus there are *many* devices that do not support Java in a webpage (for a Java IRC Client).
Some examples include Web enabled TVs, numerous phones (Including the IPhone), Nintendo Wii and the Playstation 3.
Although granted, you can get IRC clients for the IPhone/IPad you'd still be throwing out many devices by using IRC.
Why restrict anyone at all just to use an old 90s chat system when you can choose to restrict nobody and get a bunch of modern features as well?
+1 For AJAX Chat.
code_glitch
15-08-2011, 09:36 PM
I'm sorry to say this, but that it, to some extent 'reinventing the wheel'. If you intend to do so, at least please do it properly and thoroughly (my $0.02 of wisdom) and if you are one of those believing IRC is old (I agree) then find a solution: A new protocol. And before anyone goes and says WTF are you smoking, why do something so big for something so mundane etc... And that there'd be no client apps and whatnot then let me demonstrate a simple approach to this:
1.) A stream based on Meta tags (html style type things) that way its just as versatile as your AJAX toy - and is extendable.
2.) By all means, come up with a web client (I'm all for it, cross platform, quick, open source goodness)
3.) Publish the protocol standards for GTK, QT and console developers. I'm working on a similar data transmission system over TCP/IP and UDP for a Prometheus experiment and networking in my programs (I want to get into data management and databases from scratch) - I'll write you an (or more than one) app thats cross platform and looks nice - console or GTK or whatever you like: we have a few delphi and lazarus developpers if I recall - both support networking do they not?
4.) Publicise it to the IRC communities with open source clients and whatever - it proposes all the benefits of IRC and all the things we love from that system plus the versatility of AJAX and yada without being a gizmo. Effectively, let the pascal community overhaul an international standard on its own - plain and simple.
I'll put it in a quote often overused (once more now:) 'No pain no gain' - this bit of effort could really help the greater community if anyone here has some ambition. Doesn't anyone ever get the feeling Pascal and related technologies is often dismissed as not fit for the real world by the C/C++ world and should stay educational only. Its a little 'unnerving' if you ask me.
code_glitch, what are you smoking?!=)
+1 for AJAX chat.
chronozphere
16-08-2011, 09:12 AM
@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?
code_glitch
16-08-2011, 11:42 AM
@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 :)
phibermon
16-08-2011, 06:27 PM
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.
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.
farcodev
20-08-2011, 04:54 PM
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.
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!
arthurprs
27-08-2011, 03:46 PM
Looks good Will, but I think something integrated with the forum would be better. I'm sure there is a vBulletin plugin around.
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?
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!
paul_nicholls
31-08-2011, 06:55 AM
I would be interested in the chat feature :)
It seems good from my tiny play...
cheers,
Paul
code_glitch
31-08-2011, 09:27 AM
Oh sorry. Its definitely useful and I have a decent chat with it (the updating could be a tad smoother ?) and a few more people to use it too could be good.
I was thinking of holding regular chat sessions. Or perhaps a mini-webinar of sorts. Would anyone be interested in that taking place in the PGD Chat?
code_glitch
08-09-2011, 09:12 PM
Yes indeed, count me in ;)
Colin
30-09-2011, 07:39 PM
i think a live chat system for a forum is a very bad idea .... it simply defeats the point of a forum - the point being that answers can be searched and found from the site and search engines - live chat can not, which means people repeat the same questions/answers over and over, and in the future when no one posts useful information - knowledge is lost....
wodzu
02-10-2011, 08:57 AM
Hi guys.
I think that the chat feature is great. We are a small community and I think we need to search new ways for sticking out togheter :)
Sometimes I feel the need to talk with somoneone about some problem and I preffer it over a post in a forum. It gives me a faster feedback, I can make jokes with other person and have more fun from it. It is just more interactive ;) I agree that some of the knowledge might be lost because of that, but we can save the logs and made it avalaible for futre searching.
Regards:)
SilverWarior
08-10-2011, 03:01 PM
i think a live chat system for a forum is a very bad idea .... it simply defeats the point of a forum - the point being that answers can be searched and found from the site and search engines - live chat can not, which means people repeat the same questions/answers over and over, and in the future when no one posts useful information - knowledge is lost....
That is partialy true. But when you see that pepole are asking the same questions over and over again then you know what interests pepole the most. So we can use this information for instance to go and prepare some useful tutorials wich would provide answers to theese questions.
Many other sites and different comunities use similar aproach. The difference is that most of them use IRC chating system.
Also live chating with other pepole can easily point you in the right direction.
I remember the time when I was live chating with one of my friends (a begginer programer) with the use of Windows Live Messenger. As a newbe programer he usualy didn't even know how to properly adress a problem and therefore didn't even know how to properly ask for help. He only knew what he likes to do but had no idea of how to do this. So many times I helped him just by pointing him to search for right topics.
And do you know how we became friends? He was posting his questions on Delphi-si fomunity forum but becouse his questions were poorly defined he didn't get any useful answers to them. So one day when I was trying to answer on of his topics (we exchanged a lot of post in just one day) I asked him to use Messenger instead. And with that I gave him an opurtunity to actualy explain me what exacly he wanted to do. So now I was able to point him in the right direction for solving his problem. And a few days later he solved his problem almost on his own by using the documentation and various articles that I pointed him to.
If we want to improve Pascal Game Development Comunity we must at first make it newbe friendly. I don't mean for a newbe programes but for newbe game designers. Why? Most newbe game designers won't know how to ask question in the right way for us to easily find the soulution to their problems just as it was with my friend. And I belive that Chat system can help a lot on this area but it would require more active participation from the comunity. If there is noone online then it doesn't serve its purpose.
I also found a workaround for AJAX Chatbox frequent logouts. When you are loging into a PGD forum you must chek RememberMe checkbox. This creates a permament sesion and thus doesn't log you out from checkbox after some time of inactivity (forum browsing inactivity, activity in Chatbox doesn't count). Last time I was able to stay loged into the chat system for about three hours this way (noone else was present at that time).
Not to knock anybody's point of view, but from what I can tell the AJAX Chat box does seem to continue to be voted up as it goes along. I'm getting more and more inclined to keep it and promote it more on the site as a viable solution for members wanting to connect with other Pascal game programmers.
Now of course I don't think it'll replace posting in forum threads and I wouldn't want it to either as the PGD forums provide an important role for many many things. It does however give us new opportunities with specific regard to online gatherings. With such technology in use, we could organize talks, Q&A sessions, conferences and meets to connect the community better.
Such ideas are being discussed behind the curtain so stay tuned to see what we come up with. :) And please... keep testing it out! http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/chat/
cairnswm
25-10-2011, 11:21 AM
I have never found browser based chat sessions much use, unless arranged for specific things (like the during race chats on GPRO.net).
I do however use skype and MSN as they run on my desktop and actually tell me that there is a new message, instead of me having to page to a specific browser page to see if anyone has said anything.
As we are a bunch on programmers should we not be creating our own chat protocal that everyone can then use in their own way?
code_glitch
25-10-2011, 04:14 PM
@cairnswm: Guess what my suggestion was...
@everybody: Still, now I look at the proposition from a 3rd party standpoint - its not half bad. Even if we don't come up with a revamped IRC protocol which (wait for it) could be legend - a simple chat protocol solves everything: we have the code - pascal as we are now discussing is web capable, and cross platform so Windows, Linux, mac and web/smartphone users are satissfied. Further - its our own protocol: spam wont even know how to access it in the first place, let alone flood it... Although the AJAX chat is nice and yes ticks most of the boxes -I do find it a ruddy big pain in the... workflow (for the record I was going to say workflow) and I hate wasting my resources by having all my 300tabs in firefox open just for a chat page if you know what I mean...
and I hate wasting my resources by having all my 300tabs in firefox open just for a chat page if you know what I mean...
Yes and no. If you are referring to a situation like me where you abuse the amount of tabs and windows you should normally have open at a time, then yes. However a solution could be to use an alternative browser for the chat page, be better organized and not like this hippocrite and stop abusing your poor web browser or load it up on your iPad or tablet and set it beside your dev rig as a second screen.
Those are the simple immediate solutions. I would like to eventually build an actual chat client/app that allows access to PGDs login system and acts as part notification system, part IM/PM messaging and chat management software. Such spinoff ideas could be akin to Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer plugins. Maybe even plugins for other popular chat clients if a PGD community API were to be made.
SilverWarior
31-10-2011, 07:25 PM
I would like to eventually build an actual chat client/app that allows access to PGDs login system and acts as part notification system, part IM/PM messaging and chat management software. Such spinoff ideas could be akin to Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer plugins. Maybe even plugins for other popular chat clients if a PGD community API were to be made.
I think that making a standalone chat application is great idea, and it isn't even so hard to do. All you need is special purposed web application wich runs on PGD server and Client application that runs on Clients computer. With this we also get the ability to design our own protocol and thus prevent spaming. But comnining this system with existing PGD comunity site and forum, might not be so easy. It largly depends on what technology is used for PGD site and forum.
As far as browser extensions are consirned I'm personlly aginst them. Why? Browser extensions run at the same time than your browser. This means that PGD chat will run even when you might not it to (quicly looking something on the web wich isn't related to programing or PGD comunity). Another drawback of broser pliguns is alck of space for any decen UI.
So having standalone application alows you to have full control off when you want to use it, and would alow us having much better UI.
As for notifiications why don't we just use RSS feeds. Most browsers nowadays already have RSS news reader support integrated in them. Also it is posible to get RSS reader application for just any mobile phone wich supports web browsing.
SilverWarior
31-10-2011, 07:36 PM
As for the current AJAX chat box I think that to litlle pepole even know about it. Why? Whenever I'm online in chat I see that just a few different pepole ever tries finding sombody online there.
Also as I have been writing already in some posts before I found solution for constant loguts from chat. All you have to do is that when you login to PGD comunity site you check the Rembember me Checkbox. This creates permament sesion so you don't get automaticly loged out from the PGD comunity site. And since AJAX chat uses the same sesion this means that you can also be premamently loged into the chat. Offcourse if you want you can still log out from the chat itself with the logut button and still remain loged int to PGD comunity site.
About a weak ago I managed to be online for more than 14 hours without any interuptions by using this means.
So if you want this chat system to be trully tested put a permament link on the fron site and do post instructions of how should pepole login so that they won't be suffering off automatic logouts. This is the only way we can get more pepole using it.
I would like to eventually build an actual chat client/app that allows access to PGDs login system and acts as part notification system, part IM/PM messaging and chat management software. Such spinoff ideas could be akin to Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer plugins. Maybe even plugins for other popular chat clients if a PGD community API were to be made.
Actually, this would be a fantastic idea. I myself try to stay away from AJAX/JS based chat systems as they tend to slow down and even crash browsers; even though such systems are sometimes provided with forum software and/or as an add-on. A PGD notification system and chat would be interesting to try, especially if it could run on iPad.
code_glitch
01-11-2011, 04:41 PM
I'd tried messing with the sql support in the FPC fcl a while back - with the values supplied by blueimp in their implementation except that the challenge then is to get it to talk with the vBulletin login information or at least be able to query the PGD database for info in order to talk with it... If anyone is up for something like that maybe it'd be worth putting together a small team and get a community app driven - something nice which involves a bit of everyone and gives the community more of a 'open source' type working together team feel thats so nice about some of those open source initiatives ;)
cairnswm
02-11-2011, 06:12 AM
vBulletin is written in php. The easiest way for a thick client app to talk to a web page is for custom php services to be created that return the info you want. For example we create a hallo world call like this (psuedo code)
helloworld.php
<?php
$name = getParam("name");
echo "Hello $name";
?>
and this can be called from a browser like http://localhost/helloworld.php?name=William
and it returns a text string contianing "Hello William\n".
This can the be included inside a Delphi/Freepascal program as an HTTP call to the server. The result comes back as text and can be loaded into a TStringList to interpret.
These services can be created as needed for example
logincheck.php?username=cairnswm&md5password=klh54lkjh3kjndklj43
fetchlatest.php?username=cairnswm&chatroom=pgdchat&lastid=1243
addchat.php?username=cairnswm&chatroom=pgdchat&comment=Hi guys, long time no see
etc
I currently run a software deployment and discovery system covering about 200 servers using this system. Each server every 5 minutes asks for a list of new deployments that are relvant for it. If a new deployment is identified it asks for details and then does an FTP of the required files. After that it again tells the server if it was successful or not and what the new version is.
I have also written a full website for my GPRO.net team where each persons data is loaded to the website using services like this.
My examples above are not good examples as the whole system should work on session tokens rather than usernames.
Anyone making regular use (or trying) of the AJAX Chat?
The test version is still up in case anybody was curious or is still interested in it's use.
I was interested in using it for talks and the like. Having a virtual PGDCon or something.
Andru
19-03-2012, 11:14 AM
I think main problem of this chat is using a browser... As for me it will be better to use jabber conference(because my Pidgin is always online when my computer is on), but unfortunately not everyone have a jabber account(as I can see - Skype is more popular :)).
Would a kind of app that hooks into the DB work better for you? I sometimes turn on my Safari App on my iPad and set it beside my computer while I'm working.
There are solutions like this we can explore. And it would be especially useful should we design a series of webinar-like talks if we ever get that going...
SilverWarior
19-03-2012, 02:52 PM
Here is an idea!
Why don't we use Smart Mobile Studio to make instant chat system of our own. Its capability to make Html5 based applications could come in werry handy. We can use it to make server core application, web acces aplication wich can then be integrated into PGD site itself and even standalone clients.
Unfortunatly I have werry litle expirience on this field therefore I can't offer much asistance but I'm sure there are PGD members wich have expirience in making multiplayer games and network based applications. They can come werry handy in development of our own chat system. And becouse of Smart Mobile Studio they won't have to learn new programing language to do this.
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