Why we need the old chat back

Hey. If you know who i am, you have probably been in chat at least once. Because that's where i used to hang out. Since we moved, however, i don't really feel drawn that much to this place any more. That is, i feel drawn to a place that no longer exists. All the friends i made during my time here and who i have spoken to yet, agree with me on this: we need the old chat back. And that has several reasons i am now trying to collect. I will start with the ones that were most important to me.

Seclusion
The old chat was a real chatroom, with no possibilities of the content being read from outside the room. Some people may view this as a hindrance, I, however, do not. The other chat had more charme, because it was more private. You know exactly who you were talking to. The Temple has always been a place where people come to seek help, and it is far easier for some people to spill their guts in front of three or four people than to announce everything to the whole community.

Brightness
I detest reading black on white, especially at night. No uranium here.

Name visibility
Who am I talking to? i either have their avatars memorized, Or i have to look it up for every post. Horribly inconvenient! And what do i do when two people have the same avatar?

Design
Neither having a half-homepage full with the chat, nor having it as a small bar at the right side of the screen is convenient to me.

Tabs
With the old chat, if you used chrome or firefox, like most people do, you could open the chat in a different tab and continue your browsing and forum activities. Now, if i have multiple tabs open, every message blinks and beeps multiple times.

Options
This chat feels like it has a tenth of options for customization than the old one did.

Scrolling
With the old chat, you could stop the auto-scrolling, to give you the chance to read up on previous posts if you were afk for a while. Now, whenever anyone says anything, the chat jumps back down, and forces you to search for that one passage you wanted to read somewhere up there.

Red names
Yeah, the knights had red names once. You remember?

(might be extended)

Now, of course i have been focussing on the bad and the ugly. And I know fully well that the old chat had its flaws as well. And i do appreciate all the work and effort that has been put into this site. But this chat more seems like the old shoutbox to me.
I write this, because I miss the chat so much. Probably more than you would imagine. And when i am using the forum, you should now it's serious.

I don't think many people would disagree with your points as such, but my understanding of why we have the current chat (or any chat at all) is because of technical limitations of the current site.

The effort required (as far as I know) to incorporate a more robust chat function with the features you desire would be extensive, and beyond the means or inclination of the present staff at this present time.

I don't think anyone particularly "likes" the current chat - but we all agree a second class ride is better than a first class walk (ie, better than no chat)

There is room for both chats, though the ability to easily mute the one we have now would be great, it makes lots of noise when there are lots of tabs open.

Yeah, I'm with Joe on this!

I REALLY miss the old chat!

I think the new one is great for quick queries from new members, but one rarely finds the in depth (and occasionally just plain silly) discussions that occurred in the old one

Personally prefer the new one. The old one required physically going into it....and then remembering it was even open in the first place. Which I very often forgot while writing journal posts, or posts in threads or multi tasking with Just Jedi and gathering things......the window gets lost in all the other windows.

At least this new one is attached to the window im working on and gives me a nice little pop up notification when people talk reminding me its there.

Personally, I enjoy the new one. Its out of the way, automatically logs on, and as a result I find more people are using it.

I do agree the colouring is harsh on the eyes (white on black), but the same could be said for the whole site. If that could be corrected (Love the old site colour scheme, really easy on the eyes), then the chat would be perfect IMO.

I do agree the colouring is harsh on the eyes (white on black), but the same could be said for the whole site. If that could be corrected

Eh what?

Can you screenshot that? My site is blue on white...

Reply-time!
I can understand that automatic logon can seem practical, but I, and the people i work with in there value seclusion more. But also -



If this chat would lose its avatar-namelist, it would make an excellent shoutbox. It already has the option to recall past messages, even the ones you weren't actually there for. Make that option the new standard with a history of idk, a few days, and BAM! New shoutbox! And then bring back our beloved chat.

If the word seclusion sounds too negative in your ears, you can also call it privacy.

Joe wrote: Reply-time!
I can understand that automatic logon can seem practical, but I, and the people i work with in there value seclusion more.

Auto logon is not fun for anyone who doesn't want to log into chat every time... right now I am (by my own request) banned from chat because auto logon drove me crazy! Downside is I can't attend any knightings

Can you screenshot that? My site is blue on white...

Bright white is pretty harsh, especially if you only read the forum at night.

Edan wrote: Downside is I can't attend any knightings

Ironically enough, I couldn't attend Knightings or sermons in the old chat. It's only because of the new chat I'll be able to attend tomorrow's Knighting...

A couple months ago (at least?) I had disabled the auto-login. The only way I knew it would kick in for me though is if I actually logged off my account and then logged back in. Ever since, it hasn't automatically logged me back in, particularly when I actually click the chat options and click "turn off chat". It's been nice and quiet ever since. If you haven't tried that, try it. If you have and it still logs you back on, it could be a cache issue not recognizing your settings.

I like the idea of choosing to be banned from chat.. This new version is a pain on my phone.
Please ban me

Edan wrote: Bright white is pretty harsh, especially if you only read the forum at night.

I quite agree with you, there. For sites like this, where my eyes are blasted with a bright screen (hiss!), I use an extension for Chrome called "High Contrast". I get to choose between increased contrast, grayscale, inverted color (my favorite), inverted grayscale, and yellow on black. Plus, it makes things look cool and lessens the strain on my ocular muscles.

I do, however, both like and dislike the chat where it is. I much preferred the former one, but I soon got used to the current one. It's a nice feature, but nothing's perfect and we can't satisfy everyone (have you tried? Exhausting).

chat options > turn off chat switches it off.

ren wrote: chat options > turn off chat switches it off.

hahahaha :side:

For the visually set peoples

I turn of chat all the time then its back when I log in..
But as its now totally gone.. I assume someone helped so thanks

On the topic of colors and the like,

I'm currently using an extension for Chrome called "Care Your Eyes". It inverts the colors for the most part, but images are still maintained in their normal mode... for the most part. Some images (ie, on site icons, rank bars, etc) invert too, but most stay just fine. Much better over the stark white!

ren wrote: chat options > turn off chat switches it off.

I don't know about anybody else, but when I could still see chat, 'turn off chat' didn't actually turn it off, only minimised it... I still got notifications and if I loaded a new page it just opened again.

I'm not sure but I think that was because before I set the backend settings autologin to off, it wouldn't update the chat when using that button. It did that to me too until I configured the backend autologin. I think that feature would stay loaded in, "auto-logging in" on a regular basis until it was turned off. It hasn't done it to me since.