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  1. #1
    PGD Community Manager AthenaOfDelphi's Avatar
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    Talking PGD Live Chat

    Live chat was requested quite a while ago, but I'm not sure how far it went.

    Well, in case you haven't noticed, we now have a live chat facility. It was installed when I upgraded the site to the latest software.

    It lives at the bottom of the forum home page (in a compact form) or you can click the 'Chat' link from the forum sub-menu at the top of the page to get a full screen version. There are two channels... general and staff only. Most of you will only see the general chat, if you have access to the staff channel you will get two icons on the left... a G and an S. These will be greyed out if you aren't in the channel, but should flash to indicate there are new messages.

    You can PM people if you really want to, but be aware that it doesn't automatically open a new tab for the private chat. So if you want to use that facility you have to click the other users nickname and it will open a tab for you (I don't know why they elected not to have the system open the tabs automatically, but hey... I suspect it's down to the fact that you could be inundated with tabs) and they have to do the same.

    The chat box receives notifications when people post too.

    SilverWarior and I have used it quite extensively for chatting and it works quite well.

    Any problems, comments etc. post them in this forum.
    :: AthenaOfDelphi :: My Blog :: My Software ::

  2. #2
    A few additional notes that AthenaOfDelphi forgot to share about chat:
    The new live chat supports audio notifications for new messages being posted in chat and also audio notifications for new posts being posted in forum threads.
    So the chat could also be useful when you are anticipating a response in some forum thread.

    Also based on my testing the chat system uses site cookie for session validations. What this means? If you login to PGD site by using normal login the cookie that site generates expire 15 minutes after your last activity on site and therefore requires you to log in again. This will probably cause the chat system to stop receiving new messages and forum post notifications.
    In order to avoid this I recommend logging in with permanent login (checking the "Remember me" checkbox on login page). This way site creates a non expiring cookie so your session doesn't expire 15 minutes after your last activity. Also so far my testing has show that this way chat system keeps tracking the forum status all the time. It will still treat you as being away so your name won't be seen in "Users in chat box" area.

    Oh the default sound notification sound is a bit annoying but Athena haven't found suitable replacement in possible sounds that are supplied with chat system by default. So if you know for any royalty-free sound which might be more suitable for this do share it with us and we will try to use it if possible. Comment from Athena - As Silver has stated, the sound is slightly annoying, I did investigate using other sounds but they are packed up in some form (I believe a Flash file) and I was unable to create a file that worked... trust me it wasn't for the want of trying because after a while the sound is VERY annoying, but on the flip side you can turn it off
    Last edited by AthenaOfDelphi; 23-04-2014 at 02:48 PM. Reason: Added comment about sounds

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