The new DigiChat chat room

[MikeS]

Myriads, Marauder, et al,

You guys know I'm one of your biggest supporters - and will continue to be. But to be honest I'm a little disappointed in the new chat room so far. Maybe it's me and I haven't learned it, but to me it looks like the old chat room with a new coat of paint. Yes, I like the "coming and going" messages. That's cool, and an improvement over the old room.

BUT... hardly anything else seems to have changed. The profiles are still temporary - a MAJOR disappointment IMHO. You set all your settings to just the way you like them, profile information, font size and color, icons, etc., and when you leave and come back in, everything is ALL GONE! <sad face>

And still I can't seem to be able to cut and paste. I've wanted that forever, but I guess I can live without it. No "session capture" feature either. Oh well...

The emoticons seem to work only randomly. And where is a list of them, smilies, frownies, devils, grins, etc.?

Also, when you are in PC and flip back to the main room, and your PC partner enters something, you never know because the task bar icon never lights up like it does in Yahoo. You always have to keep looking back to see if he/she has entered anything yet. Maybe I just don't know how to make that work. But that's probably in the settings and they all reset back to default values whenever I leave and come back in again.

The Users' Guide still refers to the old chat room. We need some detailed instructions on this new room.

Also how do we identify a mod? That's a valuable feature.

And no whispering. (But no major loss.)

The new room doesn't have voice either. I personally don't like voice, but I know a lot of people do. I'd hate to splinter our audience between Yahoo and DigiChat.

I've got other questions but I'll shut up and wait for some response. I know this is a brand new room, and it will take some getting used to and learning how to do all the things it can do. As I said, I'm one of your biggest supporters and will continue to be. It's just that I guess I was expecting a lot more from this new room...

Got any encouragement for me?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Limeoutsider]

Myriads, Marauder, et al,




And still I can't seem to be able to cut and paste. I've wanted that forever, but I guess I can live without it. No "session capture" feature either. Oh well...


Also, when you are in PC and flip back to the main room, and your PC partner enters something, you never know because the task bar icon never lights up like it does in Yahoo. You always have to keep looking back to see if he/she has entered anything yet. Maybe I just don't know how to make that work. But that's probably in the settings and they all reset back to default values whenever I leave and come back in again.





Thanks,

Mike

FOr the cut and copy, you can use ctrlc and ctrl v, but you cant take anything from the room, as for PC, I thought it was always like th at ?

 

[MikeS]

Copy and Paste and PC

Hi Lime,

Yes, ctl-c and ctl-v are the stardards for copy and paste. However they don't work in the body of either the main room or PC. Yes, they DO work in the TYPING area, but not on the upper part. What that means is that you can't capture what someone else (or even you) has typed.

Regarding the PC, you are correct saying that it always HAS been that way - at least on the TMF. But most other good chat programs, Yahoo for example, a reply to a PC when you are not looking at that window, will light up the icon in the task bar whenever someone types a reply. That way you don't always have to keep checking for a reply. Just watch the task bar and you can always see when they reply. I was hoping this new chat room would do that too. That's a VERY handy feature.

Bottom line is that the new chat room is pretty much the same as the old one - except that it WORKS! <smile>

Mike

 

[Myriads]

Hello Mike,

Allow me to deal with your concerns as best I can.

You guys know I'm one of your biggest supporters - and will continue to be. But to be honest I'm a little disappointed in the new chat room so far. Maybe it's me and I haven't learned it, but to me it looks like the old chat room with a new coat of paint. Yes, I like the "coming and going" messages. That's cool, and an improvement over the old room.

I regret that you find the new room a disappointing expereince.

BUT... hardly anything else seems to have changed. The profiles are still temporary - a MAJOR disappointment IMHO. You set all your settings to just the way you like them, profile information, font size and color, icons, etc., and when you leave and come back in, everything is ALL GONE!

Some of the profile elements will eventually be passed into the room from your TMF profile when you enter. That is a matter of figuring out some codes. I've been flying solo on this instalation, and Mar is my guy who knows the forum side of the equations. Once he returns we'll figure out how to pass the profile info.

Setting font size, and such does vanish. There is simply no way for the room to remember everyones settings. It's hoasted not on our system, but the Digi peoples. It's one of the things that will need to be lived with. No earlier room remembered this stuff either.

In fact, neither of the earlier rooms allowed such flexability in fonts, colors, user icons and background colors. This room offers choices. I can force the room to impose a set of fonts, colors and sizes and icons on everyone so there is no choice. That would remove the problem of it not remembering.

Why don't you poll the users if they would prefer chioce they have to reset each time, or no choice they have to do no work for.

I think I've chosen which they would like, but I'm sometimes wrong, and if I'm shown thus I often make changes.

And still I can't seem to be able to cut and paste. I've wanted that forever, but I guess I can live without it. No "session capture" feature either. Oh well...

You can cut and paste to any dialog entry box. You cannot log your chat. It's not an option. It's how the place works.

The emoticons seem to work only randomly. And where is a list of them, smilies, frownies, devils, grins, etc.?

The emoticons work 100% of the time. It's just that some codes have none attached yet. So there is no issue here.

The smilies are going to be one of the fun aspects of the room. We'll add new ones from time to time, and people seem to enjoy figuring them out. Several users already have sussed out the basic ones. I'm sure someone will post it, and if not, then we'll post one in a bit of time.

Also, when you are in PC and flip back to the main room, and your PC partner enters something, you never know because the task bar icon never lights up like it does in Yahoo. You always have to keep looking back to see if he/she has entered anything yet. Maybe I just don't know how to make that work. But that's probably in the settings and they all reset back to default values whenever I leave and come back in again.

This room is not Yahoo. It does not act like yahoo. I regret that it causes you to have to pay closer attention to your chats then you might wish. I have no solution for this issue. The room has no option to show that people are typing to you.

The Users' Guide still refers to the old chat room. We need some detailed instructions on this new room.

It will get written when we have the time. We are doing as much as we can. Give us some time.

Also how do we identify a mod? That's a valuable feature.

The mods will be listed outside the room on the rules page. Just like they were with the first room. I will miss the * we had in room 2 also.

And no whispering. (But no major loss.)[/green]

Yes we lost those. I wish we had not, but so it goes.

The new room doesn't have voice either. I personally don't like voice, but I know a lot of people do. I'd hate to splinter our audience between Yahoo and DigiChat.

No voice is a choice I would have made if I had one (I didn't have one). I know folks like it, but I got more complaints about it in the yahoo room then anything else. I'm not worried about splintering the chat over this issue.

I've got other questions but I'll shut up and wait for some response. I know this is a brand new room, and it will take some getting used to and learning how to do all the things it can do. As I said, I'm one of your biggest supporters and will continue to be. It's just that I guess I was expecting a lot more from this new room...

Got any encouragement for me?

As I said before I regret it's not as pleasent a room as you had hoped for. We feel it is a big step up from the 2 older ones. Hope the answers help.

Myriads

 

[Myriads]

Update

Regarding mods names.

They show up in blue while users are in black. So it's easy to tell who's who.

Myriads

 

[TklDuo-Ann]

If I may add my two cents here.....

I was poking around a bit. While I'm far from a tech or anything, I did notice in the settings that you can choose to NOT have a seperate window pop up for PMs. They would simply appear in a different color (which I think you have a choice on) so that it's easily picked out from the rest of the room text. This may be one way of getting around the PM windown not flashing AND create something of a whisper function at the same time. That way those who wish to carry on more than one conversation may do so without missing things.

Just a thought. I think the new room is pretty cool. I've got to get back in there and learn how more of the goodies work. But, it's a fabulous start and will only get better with time.

Ann

 

[MikeS]

Progress!

Hi guys, Myr, Mar, Ann, et al,

Please don't misunderstand me. I CONTINUE to be one of the biggest supporters of the TMF! I LOVE this place! However I AM somewhat of a perfectionist and when things are not quite right, I do get a little irritated.

That being said, all my concerns are TOTALLY overshadowed by the simple fact that THE NEW CHAT ROOM WORKS!!! (Yeah, I know that some people continue to have trouble getting in, but I believe those will be individual issues, having little to do with the new chat room itself. Probably browser and Java issues that will be resolved over time. I can get in all the time with no trouble.)

Okay, now to the specifics: I still tend to be a little puzzled as why the profiles on the chat room can't be saved. For even 1000 members, that profile information should be minimal. If space is really a limitation, purge profile information for members who haven't been in the chat room for 90 days. But anyway... If Marauder can figure out feeds from the TMF profiles, that will do okay. I understand that not all information can be recorded (fonts, icons, etc.) but the main stuff (names, age, gender, email address, comments) ARE already there on the TMF. Heck, we do what we can do. Marauder, get busy! <smile>

No, Myr, I'm NOT in favor of going to one font and size. That's a good suggestion, but I think we probably ought to let members pick their own font, size, color, etc. It's a creativity issue. I think the current default is fine. I'll do a poll if you want, but I really think we ought to leave this issue alone for now. IMHO.

The lack of cut-and-paste is not a big deal either. We had it in TMF-1, but not in TMF-2. Since TMF-2 was installed, I've developed my own workaround which is acceptable. If we could develop a session save capability sometime, that would be cool, but not essential.

I continue to have some problems with emoticons. The smiley is , not : ). The middle dash IS necessary, and that takes a little getting used to. But no big deal. The frownie still is a hit or miss operation for me. What am I doing wrong? But again, this is really a nit... Sure would like to have some documentation here.

Yeah, I realize the room is not Yahoo. And that's good. I still like the lighted task bar segments like Yahoo Messenger, AOL IM (AIM) and MSN Messenger do, but if we can't do that, we'll learn to live with it.

The mods being blue is good! Even listing them on the cover page is okay. We just need some method of identifying help when we need it. (We've got a LOT of EXCELLENT mods by the way!)

Actually we DO have a cool form of whispering! As Ann pointed out in her excellent reply above this, the option to not have PCs pop up as a separate window (the default setting) is really cool! That way a person could "PC" someone and not cause a separate window to pop up in the recipient's browser. This is really a paradigm shift from TMF-2 where we used have to ASK to PC someone before really doing it. Now even a PC itself won't pop up a window unless the recipient has that box checked. This is really more of an education process than anything else. Don't change a thing! We've got what we need! <smile!> I certainly didn't realize this in my original post.

I'll still beat on you for the Users' Guide. <smile> The sooner we get something out there for people to read, the sooner we can get our members up to speed on this. Need any help? Just ask.

I think you are correct on voice chat. Forget it. If people REALLY want voice chat (or webcams) then they can go to Yahoo. I notice that when the TMF chat room is up, the Yahoo chat room empties out almost immediately! Hooray! Splintering our audience does not seem to be an issue.

I agree now that this new room is really a step up from the prior room. Get me the TMF profile feed and the Users' Guide and I'll be a really happy camper!

As always, we - and certain I - really appreciate what you guys do for us! Keep on truckin'!

Mike