Live Chat Beta 2

Polling lesson received gratefully. Do you want to give me another one? What's 'Polling'? (no need, I've worked it out!)

I think you're probably right about the need to moderate. Shouldn't be necessary, and if it does happen a warning to the offender about being excluded should be enough and, hopefully, those in the Chat Room will make their objections known.

Final point I forgot to mention first time around - UK time zone not being allowed for yet.

Cheers

Reply

A few things I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Can we have a tone or ding when a new message is submitted?

Can the admin have control over the chat time zone setting?

When the archives are made accessible, will that be to admins only, or to all members?

Thanks! :O)

We had a session scheduled for 3 pm today, but when tried the live chat link, it would kick me back to home page. Has anyone else had trouble? A few times a screen would come up maintenance being performed. Has anyone else had this happen?

Hi Same thing here, maybe just a snag....Let me know if you find out anything. Nancy

System hit some performance issues this afternoon and as a result we're doing some unexpected Sunday maintenance. Welcome to beta testing. Hang tight, Dave and Rick are working on the issue now. One of the things we'll be doing over the next 2 weeks as chat rolls out to more people is monitoring system performance and making adjustments where necessary.

Chat's back.

Thanks Brad...

For anyone clicking on Live Chat and going to your home page instead of Live Chat, just press refresh on your browser.

Thanks so much for all your hard work, I'll pass the word along.

No ding planned at this time. Might make that optional in the upcoming Instant Messenger though. Most of the time in a Live Chat environment you'd have the ding dinging all the time.

We're going to add a site time zone control that will affect live chat, email, threaded forums and possibly other areas.

Chat archives will be availalbe only to Admins, but Admins can choose to share archives with other Classmates if desired.

Please add us!

Please sign us up.

Please add us, too. Thanks!!

Brad / Dave,

Can you please add my other reunion site, Buena80.com, to the Live Chat test... Thanks..Tracy

Please add us

Thx!

Thank you Brad... it finally occurred to me to do that. Duh!

Thanks to you and your programmers; CC is the BEST!

Best wishes... j

Hi Brad... when I announced our new chat feature, several classmates replied with statements like this:

"You are a genius! How do you find time for adding such a complicated feature to our wonderful site?" Or:

"People our age shouldn't know how to implement such a feature. Have you become a Brainiac?"

So, being the humble and unassuming person that I am, I just say, "Thank you" and go on about the business of Brainiacism."

Thanks and best wishes... j

Heh heh. As you should!

george, tracy, karen, stan, debra,

you should be added now...

you may need to go to your 'Edit Pages' section to enable live chat.

Cheers,
Dave

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brad,
Please sign us up Spring Valley Class of 1961!

u're added!

A few questions:

1. How many minutes of inactivity before a chatroom participant's session expires?

2. The chatroom remains active (and retains all
messages), even if all chatroom participants leave the chatroom. When do the messages get cleared?

3. Do we report bugs here or in the Report A Bug Forum? *No bugs found yet.

THANK YOU and it's a big hit with our class!

Sign us up please!

www.chattooga87.com

1) 5 minutes of inactivity will cause you to go idle. You will still be in and viewing the live chat, but the circle next to your name will turn red, indicating you are idle. We're going to construct a bottom bar for the chat interface that includes a key for what the circles mean, a pop out button to pop the chat into a separate window, and emoticons.

2) All messages get cleared when the last party leaves the chat room and there is no more chat. If that's not happening it's something Dave needs to know.

3) You can report any bugs right here, but the Report A Bug forum is fine as well. We'll get it either place.

4. Your chat session time's out after 15 minutes of being idle. i.e. not participating in the chat...you can always rejoin though if you timeout.

Thank you for the quick response.

So I guess I am reporting a bug:

After a chat with a few classmates, we all exited the chatroom ( I know because I was the last to exit). *And to me, exit means I click on another page on our site, since there is no exit button.

I then browsed other pages of the site, then I clicked on the Live Chat link again. Our previous chats were still there.

Thanks you. I'll look into that one.

Hoping you'll set us up with Live Chat soon... Just checking.

John, sorry I missed u in the long list. You should have access to enable this now in your Edit Pages section.

Thanks,

Dave

We're interested in Live Chat, but have a multi-year website. Plus my techno-savvy is moderate, so if you need someone highly technical to Beta Test, I may need some assistance. (Are we premium members?)

Sorry, this is all a little new to me....

Yes your membership type is premium, Dave will turn you on, give it a whirl.

Great. Let me know when it's turned on and what page it appears on so we can give it a try.

(Hopefully it won't change any current formatting we have on our pages?)

Nope it won't change any of your formatting.

Looking good so far, Brad. I've operated chat rooms in the past so a few comments and suggestions.

1. Is there a limit on how many can be in the chat room at one time?

2. The chat window opens in a new window or tab. Could it NOT include the top and side banners from the website? This would make it easier to pop it out and keep track of the chat while navigating elsewhere in the other window. (The top and side banners take up a good chunk of real estate.)

3. Will there be a way to click on the link from "Who's Online" and invite them to the chat? OR to have something like the "You have 1 Message" appear that instead says "Live Chat Underway - Click Here"?

4. You've mentioned the FAQ coming. Another idea would be a small instruction above/below the chat window with mini-instructions:

1) Click in the one-line space to the left of SUBMIT and type your message, then click SUBMIT
2) Your green light will turn red if you haven't participated in the last 5 minutes - you must type a message or you will be dropped after 15 minutes of inactivity.
3) If you are dropped, you can rejoin the chat and the conversation you missed will still be there -- unless the chat is over.
4) You are in a public space. Chat logs may be archived. Don't give out personal information or make comments you wouldn't want anyone to read later.

I tried using the left-angle bracket and the bracket and the word that follows it doesn't appear (the words after the first do appear.) We used to use that as a way to "point" to ourselves. "Where you from?" And everyone would respond with something like: <-Phoenix AZ

I thought maybe it meant that we could use HTML tags to do bold, italic, colors, etc. But that doesn't seem to work.

It would be nice if the admin at least could submit clickable URLs to point people to new features on the website.

BTW I'm using Google Chrome as my browser - no problems yet (unless the above < is a problem.)

now that we have live chat, i guess i thought it was going to work like instant messenger---but if your online and try and talk to someone -they do not know it unless they click on live chat also?correct?

or am i doing something wrong?

another problem i am having is that i have added a reverse counter to my site, and after a day it just shows up as a box and an "x" in the corner---does this have something to do with activX or something...

thank you in advance for your cooperation

John Harmelink wrote:

That's right, John. For now anyway. One way around that would be to post a day/time for chats on the home page. And let those who want to participate see it there or email selected members through the website.

See my suggestions above - "Active Chat Underway" message similar to "You have 1 Message" when you log in.

is there an instant messenger coming?

and what about the X thing?

John Harmelink wrote:

I am not seeing an X. Which website is it on? http://www.floydvalley79.com/class_index.cfm

Which page is it on? On the Home Page?

Reply

Instant Messaging is the next major feature on the dockett, hang tight. Before we even start on that we want to get through some Live Chat tweaks and additions.

i have deleted it, i have tried it 2 or 3 times with the same result

thank you -- live messenger in the future--

Please add me to the list

Thanks

We would like to us chat.

Please add highlandsclassof64.org and stcecilia61.com

THANX

Priscilla,

I believe the bug where messages weren't clearing after the last person left the room should be taken care of. Please let me know if you still have this problem.

Thanks,
Dave

Priscilla Diaz wrote:

Welcome to our Live Chat Room!

Will give it a test this weekend and give you an update.

Brad,I have one classmate that has emailed me saying she hasn't been able to get on our website for 2 or 3 days. (temporily down for maintenance). I haven't experienced this since Sun and have noticed several others are on each day. Could you please help us solve this.
Thanks, Carrie

Class Creator is almost never down, although you're correct about last Sunday, a 2 hour issue in the Texas Data Center caused a little commotion around here. Apprently it was some type of denial of service attack, but all is well.

Make sure the person is typing in the correct site address. Make sure they're not clicking an old email link. Make sure the classmate is typing in the address in the address bar and not into something else, like a Google search box. You'd be amazed how many times that's the case.

I implemented Live Chat tonight and 'spoke' briefly with one class member. I only see myself online in chat, but the class member was shown on the home page. Also, how do you know if someone responded when not on the Live Chat link? There is no pop-up or sound to indicate. Perhaps it needs to go to another window or tab. Good job so far. This is an exciting feature and much needed as I am competing with Facebook now which is garbage in my opinion.

I think there's some confusion in general we're seeing between Live Chat, Instant Messaging, and the Who's Online box. So let me shed some light on all 3:

1) Who's Online box: The Who's Online box shows who is currently logged into your web site, whether or not they are in the Live Chat session.

2) Live Chat: Only the people who have actually clicked on your "Live Chat" link and entered the discussion will show up as actively chatting.

3) Instant Messaging: Not currently a feature of Class Creator, but the next major feature that will be released. With Instant Messaging you will be able to invite other Classmates who are online, but not currently in the chat room, to the Live Chat session.

Bottom line: The only people you'll be able to Live Chat with right now are the Classmates who happen to wander into the Chat Room at the same time you're in there. For now you might want to schedule Live Chat sessions. Once IM is released you'll be able to see and invite other logged in members into the chat, which will make using all of this easier.

Hello Brad... I noticed that when I return to the Live Chat page, previous messages remain in my SUBMIT field. Shouldn't this clear when I have exited from my last usage?

We are really enjoying Live Chat and appreciate all the hard work you and your staff provide.

Best wishes... j

Jimmy,

I would guess that one of two this is happening.

Either you are pressing the back button in your browser to go back to the live chat and so your browser still had what you last typed in the message box.

Or, you have an 'auto fill' option enabled on your browser and it is populating the message box.

I would bet that if you clear your browser cache and restart it and then go the the Live Chat page, you will not have anything in that box. If that is the case, then, it means that your browser was filling in the message box for you.

Which browser do you use?

Thanks,
Dave

I would like live chat

Please click your Edit Site Pages link, and then activate your Live Chat.

Hi Dave... I use Firefox on a Mac with Leopard. I clear the cache and see if that helps.

Best wishes... j

We would like to be included.

Everyone is on.

We had a first trial with a few members last Wednesday and it all worked great. (I'm using Google Chrome BTW).

We've posted a regular day/time for chats with a note that individuals can arrange their own times/days if they wish. I can envision former "Math Club" members and "Varsity Football" team members might like a 'get-together' at some point.

I saw somewhere in here that the idea of a mini-list of instructions will be added. Like where to click and type and hit return to get started. It's not obvious.

And there is a log kept? How do admins get to see that?

Thanks, this should be a great tool for us to get people 'talking' well before the reunion.

John Chidester wrote:

The "Log" is part of the enhancements for Chat Room. It isn't available yet. When it is, instructions will be posted here in the Admin Forums.

Reply

Count us in!

We had a nice group (7) tonight. It works great. The only question I have is that one classmate's picture showed next to her name and none of the others did. Any thought on this. Thanks so much for this new feature.

If you have a Master Photo set under your Edit Photos page, it will display in your Live Chat. Apparently 6 out of 7 of you don't have a Master Photo set.

YES.... we would like to try the Live Chat !

I guess I thought that it would default to your class picture like it does for the message forum. Is there any way to get it to do that in the future?

Some people will want that and some people won't, but yes, that's an option Dave can add so you can turn it on or off.

Thanks Brad. Again - you make us look so good and all we have to do is go along for the ride.

i would like to be added to live chat

Don Stump wrote:

Don,

If you are a Premium member, it is already on your site. ALl you have to do is activate it through the Edit Site Pages, and click the checkbox next to Live Chat.

Reply

Brad,

We are looking forward to our second Chat Night, tonight. Last week we had 7 and it worked Great! We hope it grows and we will add another night.
Looking forward to the enhancments.

Great Job,
Dave