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Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

Some security updates. If your forum login session expires for some reason, the Chat will display a login screen for you to use to restart your session. This is the ultimate in prevention to make sure that the bots, spiders and spammer don't get in and make merry with our new toy.
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Dennis The Bus Dweller
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Post by Dennis The Bus Dweller »

I got a vision of you standing at the door of the chat room with a helmet on and bandoleers of computer diodes draped a crossed your chest and some kind of high-tech stun gun :twisted: with no other goal then to protect our new fun place at whatever cost :evil: You’re a great cyber soldier :wink:
Peace along the way
Dennis the bus dweller N.Y.
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

Just when I thought that there was nothing more I could do to make the Chat more feature-rich, I got the idea after posting a bunch of URL's this evening "Wouldn't it be great if those addresses were "clickable" like they are in the rest of the forum?"

A few minutes of code searching and a copy/paste later, and they are! Now Rudy won't have to try and remember them to type them into a browser window to see what they are about!
Rudy
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Post by Rudy »

Thanks Sharkey. You are very kind.
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

I know what everyone is thinking, will he ~ever~ leave that thing alone and call it finished?

New feature-of-the-day: Formatted Text

It's now possible to make the text in your messages formatted. The three possibilities are:

Bold
Italic
Underlined

...or all three at once:

Underlined Bold Italics

As in the regular posting window, a set of buttons is provided to assist you in inserting and the closing the tags that make the formatting work. If you have any questions about how the buttons work, see the Userguide.
Jones'n4chrome
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Post by Jones'n4chrome »

I have a question that is not in the user guide...

Do you ever sleep? :D

Thanks Sharkey, I'm going to check it out.

Chuck
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

I think I have enough energy to describe this evening's work on the Chat, and then it's off to bed.

I reworked the code on the Chat so that the times displayed in the message list are corrected for each user's time zone, regardless where they are in the world. When Dusty logs in, his browser shows his "join date and time" as (for example) 7:52 pm, while the same message for me will display 10:52 pm. This will make it a lot easier to figure out when users have been on the system because all times displayed will be your local time.

There is one caveat: the "time zone settings" in your forum profile must be set correctly for this to work properly. The default time zone when you registered for the forum is Pacific time (either -7 or -8 GMT depending on whether or not we are in Daylight Saving at the time). Unless you have changed this in your profile, your times will be displayed in Pacific time.

To check to see if your profile is set to agree with your correct local time, type "[time]" (without the quotes) into the message box in the Chat and hit "Send". The next message from you on the message list should display your correct local time. If it doesn't, go to your Profile and make the necessary changes. (Note that the resulting time of your test in the Chat is the time your message was sent. If you want to check it again, you need to enter the [time] command again to get the new current time.)

The phpBB time zone feature isn't very intuitive, in fact it pretty much sucks. Unless you know what the offset from GMT is in your area, it will be very confusing. I'll try to find some kind of conversion utility or chart to help you discover what the correct offset is for your locality. There is also a modification to the forum called "Dates for Humans" which I have yet to install that makes these choices much easier.

The Userguide has more on setting time functions, but don't plan on fully understanding it even if you do read it.

Any changes you make to the time settings in your profile will affect ALL of the time displays in the forum for you, so choose wisely.
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

Upon reflection, I've decided that it's unnecessary to display the time as a full date and time. The Chat database retains only four days of past messages, and at the rate it's getting used, even a user who opted to see the maximum number of 999 archived messages can only see back two days. It doesn't make a lot of sense to display the date as "Wed Jan 21, 2010 9:41 am" when Wed 9:41 am will convey the full amount of needed information.

So, the dates in the Chat are now restricted to the day of the week plus the time. If it says "Mon", that pretty much means last Monday, etc.
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Post by Sharkey »

All right then. I've installed a modification to the forum profile scripts that eliminates the need to know anything about GMT or offsets, or anything else of the nature. Now all you have to know is the current time when you edit your profile. Select that time from the pull-down list, click the "Submit" button at the bottom of the profle and you're done!
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

More is better, right?

Just got done spending three nights writing a "Help" page for the Chat. I did this mostly because this topic thread spans the entire life of the Chat system and it might be confusing to try and separate what got tried in develpoment from what got left in the finished production version. Not having to read thought all the posts in this topic thread to find out how the Chat works is better I think, all the current info is in one place now.

Here's a link to the Chat Help File.

I'd like everyone here who uses the Chat to take a few minutes to read through the help file, partly because you might learn something, partly because you will then know where to direct new users with questions that need to be answered, partly because I want you to help proofread it and give me feedback, but mostly because I spent so damned much time writing it, I want to make sure someone reads it eventually.

If you see any glaring typos, bad grammar, or incorrect statements, let me know here. Also, if you have any new ideas for things that should be included, or see omissions that I should have covered, bring them up as well.

There are links to the Help file in both the live SharkChat and Archives left-hand pane, just below the other links on those pages. I'm contemplating a link in the left-hand menu on each forum page, just under the list of users who are on Chat, but I haven't decided for sure if I want one there. I'm soliciting opinions on that.
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

I got a 404 error looking for that link sharkey :(
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stuartcnz
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Post by stuartcnz »

Can't get to the help page yet:

You've taken a wrong turn!!!



The document you requested could not be found

Use the menu to return to the charted waters of Sharkey's Site!!!
-or-
Go to the Site Map and select your page of interest there.

Found the problem. The link is: http://www.mrsharkey.com/forum/chathelp.php chathelp.php instead of charhelp.php.[/i]
Rudy
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Post by Rudy »

Sharkey, I just finished reading the entire Sharkchat help file. I found it to be comprehensive and well organized. Thanks for developing it and including the "set of instructions".

You asked for proofreading. I did that, and found a few errors in spelling, and a missing comma.

In the table of contents, (Typing Skillz) Skillz = Skills

Section 6.1 2nd paragraph 1st line (To make chosing auser name...)
chosing auser = choosing a user

Section 6.2 3rd paragraph 1st line (...can make a dig difference...) dig = big

Section 7.2 1st paragraph 2nd line (...to start out with just a sinlge other user...) sinlge = single

Section 7.3 Title (Typing Skillz) Skillz = Skills

Section 7.4 4th paragraph 2nd line (...mates, chores, food and sleep.) A comma is missing between the words: food and and

Section 7.4 5th paragraph 4th line (This has kind of transmorgified...) I love this word. Few people know what it means. transmorgified = transmogrified.

Sharkey, Ordinarily, I am not so picky about peoples' spelling and grammar, but you did ask for proofreading. This is all I found.
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Sharkey
Original Founder
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Post by Sharkey »

The New Zealand Chat team gets first place for link verification, the correct address in indeed http://www.mrsharkey.com/forum/chathelp.php , of course, I threw that bad link in there on purpose to see who would be paying attention (yeah, right).

As for Rudy's sharp observations, all of the intentional errors have been corrected, and the rest left in. Guess you'll have to read it again to see which ones are there on purpose. :D

I've decided that I do want a link to the Help page in the menu so that new Chat users can get some idea of what to expect without having to open a Chat window to read it.
Rudy
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Post by Rudy »

I can see that the z

is there for you and me

So pleaze leave it there,

for all of us to zee. :)
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