It's my understanding that the mere mention of a chatroom on GU is like opening a can of worms, so I won't go there.

Something that I feel would make the chatbox more inviting would be some sort of "Check-in System". It would give users who want to chat a way to see who is actively in the chatbox.

It isn't an impossible thing to code either. I don't know anything about vbulletin,but I do know a thing or two about program design. We already have built in modules that change the status of users to online, away, and offline. Another status could be "In Chatbox" and the list could be displayed below the chatbox.

Again I don't know how to implement that in PHP, but if it seems feasible... WHAMMO! Chatbox basically becomes a Chatroom!*is shot*

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aww. D: Well i totally agree with you on that. I would definitely like to know who's online in the "chatbox" and i would like to make the chatbox more active so that it becomes so much as a "chatroom". I definitely bet it'll be active during E3 but it would be nice if it was active on other occasions...

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Knowing who's chatting definitely seems like a much wanted feature from a lot of people!

Another option that I thought of that would make it a proper isolated chatroom. You could give the chatbox its own "thread" or page. If I'm not mistaken, one of vbulletin's modules is a tool that shows who is viewing a particular thread. If the chatbox was the only thing in the page. That module could be used to show who is viewing the chatbox.

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If your suggesting this it goes to show you that this community is really growing huh.

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(May 25, 2011 10:00:44 PM)hunterslasher13 Wrote:  If your suggesting this it goes to show you that this community is really growing huh.

I know right? It's exciting and makes me smile! ^.^ (pardon me if this is off topic).

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I think Brandens totally right- everyone here would probably prefer knowing who's actively wanting to talk in the chat box. It would just make the system work a lot more smoothly.

Also, kudos to you Branden for actually coming up with potential ways to implement this. Good work

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Has no image til he resizes his flaming squirrel lol!!

Bow down before the flaming squirrel army or prepare to face my flaming, furry fury!!!!!!

PSN: terals

Yup, I'd like to add my support to this. It would be a great way to promote spur-of-the moment discussion in the chatbox, if it's not to difficult to implement.

Edit: branden, if you go to http://www.gamingunion.net/forums/shoutbox.php this will display the chatbox "on it's own page" as you were suggesting, though it might be nice for this to be actually hyperlinked.

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(May 26, 2011 09:16:53 AM)gilburtgtr Wrote:  Yup, I'd like to add my support to this. It would be a great way to promote spur-of-the moment discussion in the chatbox, if it's not to difficult to implement.

Edit: branden, if you go to http://www.gamingunion.net/forums/shoutbox.php this will display the chatbox "on it's own page" as you were suggesting, though it might be nice for this to be actually hyperlinked.

I'd imagine it's not impossible to add a "who's viewing this page:" (just change the text to "who's chatting:" )module to that, and yeah a simple link somewhere would be nice. My best guess would be putting it in the "FAQ, Memberlist, Arcade" portion of the menu on the side. Just call it "Chatroom".

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I can look into this, but it'll be on the backburner for the time being.

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Shawn Collier
Software Engineer | Associate Editor