EvC Chat Room is Here!

It seemed okay, at least with mozilla tabbed browsing.I had connected to chat in a separate tab. Then I went to float. That allowed me to use my browser, with the float still present.The restriction: I had to keep the chat tab available, but it did not need to be currently visible.Presumably you could do the same by starting a second browser window, and going to chat on that. Then float. Then you could allow your chat browser window to be hidden behind your main browser window, and still watch the chat via the float.

What I would find more useful, is a private messaging feature (whereby I can send an individual message to another user).That would allow me to send a comment such as "message 23 is ambiguous, I suggest you edit to clarify".

It's connecting to port 8008 on the chat server. Maybe you have a firewall blocking that port.

I think it is going to turn out that the chat room is not very useful. This might change, if special topic discussions were organized.For example, if I want to say something to you (Brian) in the chat room, that would require that we both be connected to the chat room at the same time. Given that there is a time difference (Scotland vs Chicago area) that isn't too likely.At present, I am connecting to the chat room in the evening (from home), and keeping a window open which I occasionally watch. But I do have other things to do, so I cannot be glued to the chat screen.During daytime hours, I am normally at work. While I could connect to chat (to see if Brian is on line, for example), I really cannot stay connected. I have other things to do, and leaving myself connected would be misleading since I would not be watching most of the chat.That's why I would find a personal messaging system more useful. I could direct a message to Brian (to use the same example), and it would stay in a message queue until he was online to read it. However, I acknowledge that setting up a messaging system is more difficult than setting up a chat facility.

Chat seems a little buggy since that change.From home it works fine (java-1.4.2)From office (java-1.5.0), when I connect, sometimes it is impossible to type anything into the Send box, and there is no cursor there. I can use buttons (set colors, etc). When that happens, I logout, and try to connect again. The worst, so far, is two reconnects to get it working.I don't really know if this is a java version difference.Note: I can live with it. Just reporting the problem for your information.(edited to change subtitle)This message has been edited by nwr, 10-08-2005 10:33 PM

Scratch that comment about different java versions. I just had the same problem on my home system, with java-1.4.2.

At office, mozilla 1.7 (on solaris 10)
At home, I think it is mozilla 1.4 (and it is on solaris 8)

It might be a timing problem.My habit has been to click on the clock face as soon as that appears, so that chat lines are time-stamped. Today I tried waiting till the cursor shows up on the send line, before I click on the clock. So far that has been fine.

You might need a newer java. It doesn't work with java-1.4.2, but it works with java-1.5.0.

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