Hey, wanted to address the the downfall of our chat here. The support for that feature of the forum has regressed and they are just keeping it functional. For us, because it’s such a large part of the community, functional isn’t really enough.
I’ve got a plan to change it out. I’m hesitant to move us to a hosted chat by some other service because I really want to keep NNN separate and our own. So, my plan is to self host my own chat service and integrate it so that usernames go between the forum and the chat. It will also have more advanced features with the flexibility to use an app to access just the chat similar to Discord. If you just want to keep it simple, you can. It won’t look much different than what we have currently, but should be faster, more feature rich and allow you to keep it simple or use it like a more modern discussion/chat service.
If for some reason that doesn’t work out, the backup may be some other hosted service, but that is really last resort.
Thanks Mac. My only concern with making it possible to only go into the chat is that people will post even less in the threads. I enjoy the quick discussion in the chat, so I’m as guilty as anyone of this, but miss a lot of info and back and forth because people move on to new topics so quickly.
But whatever you think is best is good with me. I’m just happy to have such a nice place to talk Niner sports.
I agree wholeheartedly Ken. I don’t really plan on advertising that side of things that much to be honest. It’s there if people want it. The big thing is I want to continue to maintain a consolidated history here.
There will also be flexibility in what I have planned to store history of the chats.
But, the big reason I’m emphasizing simplicity and integration is that I really want it to feel like it is just apart of the site and not where everything goes. I like that we have the history here and you can look back nearly 15 years. It would feel bad to me if that just disappears.
Sorry for the little bit of downtime this morning. I got up early and was working on the chat install and accidentally borked one of the config files on the http server.
Bump… For those who haven’t seen it yet, this is where we are hanging out now. Will probably be taking the shoutbox link down soon and replacing it with this one.
As mac said, the chat is functional now, but he will be making a few updates to it as he has time, including skinning (dark theme I’d imagine), and such.
Spent time today working on integration with the site. I’m also taking the time to change some colors to match our new colors…
While I’m at it, I’m switching out our dark theme. The old one has been marked legacy by it’s developer. The new dark and light will be based on the same overall theme. So they’ll be a little more consistent. Anyway, here’s a sneak peak. The new chat will snap in to the left similar to the current.
I believe I’ll be making the chat dark regardless of whether the forum theme is dark or light.
When it comes to Avatars. My plan is to create a daily job to sync them between the forum and chat. I appreciate all the patience on all of this. I’m tackling it in chunks as I can get some time to mess with it. Today, I worked on it during the game.
