Chat room
A couple of thoughts I've had while using the SBR chat room.
1) The ability to carry a one-on-one conversation is woefully inadequate. If the chat room is busy, it is impossible to reference what has been said already without scrolling through many page lengths (which is itself interrupted by each new line posted in general). There needs to be a way of tabbed conversation (similar to IRC) where people can have meaningful conversations with each other without having to read it between the messages posted to the room at large.
2) The private message function as it exists is also extremely flawed. The Reply link at the end of each line is persistently covering part of the message that has been typed, rendering it unreadable. It's also impossible to PM a hyperlink to someone since clicking on a PM just opens the reply box to the sender. Said reply box is too small for more than viewing six or seven words, making longer messages quite unwieldy to convey.
3) The ability to embed pictures and videos in the room itself destroys the fluidity of conversations. When a single person has the power with one post to occupy half the viewable space it makes the room very difficult to read. These should be addressed by just the Hyperlink function, allowing people to enjoy the pictures and videos in a separate browser tab without interrupting a conversation that others may be having.
The point of a chat is to engage in conversations with others, and yet some turn the chat room into a slide-show of pictures and videos. This discourages active conversation because the messages exchanged are so quickly evacuated from the screen.
3) The relative aspect ratios used to apportion the chat screen into the chat itself and the participants list are often thrown askew by large images, even once they are scaled down. Sometimes the page width is increased two-fold, meaning that to look at the list or send someone a PM you have to scroll horizontally.
4) The code seems unstable in Internet Explorer 7, where it can sometimes freeze the browser or simply stop responding without notice. Even attempting to access the options panel to change one's font color in IE will freeze the browser.
5) The function of the Up Arrow retrieving previous typed messages has proved invaluable because the chat only picks up approximately 70% of the messages one types. This allows us to resend a message when it fails to appear in the chat window without retyping, and should be retained.
However, in editing a multi-line post in chat it is a reflex to press the Up arrow to edit the preceding line. In the case of the chat, this erases what one was working on and replaces it with the last sent message. Could this retrieve function be mapped to another key so that we can edit messages more fluidly?
I'm sure I've forgotten some things, but these would be my top 5 requests for improvements in the chat. I had some specific ideas on how to rectify each of the issues I mentioned, and would be happy to discuss them if asked.
1) The ability to carry a one-on-one conversation is woefully inadequate. If the chat room is busy, it is impossible to reference what has been said already without scrolling through many page lengths (which is itself interrupted by each new line posted in general). There needs to be a way of tabbed conversation (similar to IRC) where people can have meaningful conversations with each other without having to read it between the messages posted to the room at large.
2) The private message function as it exists is also extremely flawed. The Reply link at the end of each line is persistently covering part of the message that has been typed, rendering it unreadable. It's also impossible to PM a hyperlink to someone since clicking on a PM just opens the reply box to the sender. Said reply box is too small for more than viewing six or seven words, making longer messages quite unwieldy to convey.
3) The ability to embed pictures and videos in the room itself destroys the fluidity of conversations. When a single person has the power with one post to occupy half the viewable space it makes the room very difficult to read. These should be addressed by just the Hyperlink function, allowing people to enjoy the pictures and videos in a separate browser tab without interrupting a conversation that others may be having.
The point of a chat is to engage in conversations with others, and yet some turn the chat room into a slide-show of pictures and videos. This discourages active conversation because the messages exchanged are so quickly evacuated from the screen.
3) The relative aspect ratios used to apportion the chat screen into the chat itself and the participants list are often thrown askew by large images, even once they are scaled down. Sometimes the page width is increased two-fold, meaning that to look at the list or send someone a PM you have to scroll horizontally.
4) The code seems unstable in Internet Explorer 7, where it can sometimes freeze the browser or simply stop responding without notice. Even attempting to access the options panel to change one's font color in IE will freeze the browser.
5) The function of the Up Arrow retrieving previous typed messages has proved invaluable because the chat only picks up approximately 70% of the messages one types. This allows us to resend a message when it fails to appear in the chat window without retyping, and should be retained.
However, in editing a multi-line post in chat it is a reflex to press the Up arrow to edit the preceding line. In the case of the chat, this erases what one was working on and replaces it with the last sent message. Could this retrieve function be mapped to another key so that we can edit messages more fluidly?
I'm sure I've forgotten some things, but these would be my top 5 requests for improvements in the chat. I had some specific ideas on how to rectify each of the issues I mentioned, and would be happy to discuss them if asked.
