AJAX Chatbox for Pascal developers?

[phibermon]

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]

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.

[Dan]

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

[chronozphere]

@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]

@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]

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.

[WILL]

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]

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.

[WILL]

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]

Looks good Will, but I think something integrated with the forum would be better. I'm sure there is a vBulletin plugin around.