So, do you want to chat?

Over the years we have had numerous requests for a chat room. We even built one at one time, but it never took off. As anyone on Facebook knows, they have created a great chat bar at the bottom of the page which allows you to chat with any of your online friends. Several attempts have been made to recreate this feature for vBulletin, but all have had problems until now. A new add-on has been developed called Cometchat which has been getting excellent reviews and seems to have solved all the issues other attempts have had. The only issue is that this is a PAID addon, meaning we would have to pay for it, and can't get it for free. In most cases like this, we would just buy it and add it, but donations have been pretty slim so far this year with us having a number of months where we haven't reached goal. The TDH bankaccount is slowly dwindling... So, with that in mind, I want to leave it to you the members to decide if you want this feature and if you are willing to donate to get it. The product is $49 and you can learn more about it at their website.

http://www.cometchat.com/

Any donations made between today and July 17th will go towards purchasing this addon. If we have enough on the 17th (minus) what was previously donated for the month, we will get the add-on. I leave it in your hands.

Interesting. There doesn't seem to be a group chat feature, at least I couldn't find it. Having a room where everybody could hang out all day seems like it would be fun. This particular software seems like PMs with a slightly better presentation. Looks handy, though. Thoughts?

I could see where this would be a handy feature
Like when i am discussing ideas with people & playing PM tag
a Chat would be so much easier

Is te $49 a onetime fee, or monthly gouging?

Rich, I would liken it more to IM than PM, but you are right that it isn't actually a "chat room"

The $49 is a one time fee with one year of upgrades and support. At $49 a month, we wouldn't even consider it.

Wow... you know what? This is why I love TDH. I made this post less than an hour ago... and bam... One donation. Issue over. BIG thanks to terminal fettler for his generous donation and giving us all the ability to chat on TDH!!! Will be out buying the software today and getting it in place!

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I'd pay a couple of bucks for that. Like mentioned before, playing tags with PM's can be a bit annoying at times.

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EDITED due to rapid response.

Great!!

I'll still donate though:) There is still that goal to reach:)

By all means, if you would like to donate, we still haven't hit our goal for this month and a lot of money has gone out for flyers and other swag for our SDCC table, so every little bit helps!

It's the least one can do, it's just kinda been forgotten by myself in all the cashing out for Fett-stuff. But with all the help this board is to people making accurate costumes, it's almost a "must".

PP sent ;)

Chat is up and functioning. So, here is the deal. The chat list works off of your friends list, only your friends on TDH show up on your chat list.

Man, now I need some friends...

You can add me for free:) Hehe

Couple issues I don't like about the "chat" thingy
The search /Forum jump Bar at the bottom of the screen pops up in front of the chat
when you scroll down the chat toolbar jumps alot
no timestamp to see when somebody hit you up
and finally, there is a delay on it when you type

Have you guys thought about trying to use a Ajaxchat instead? It's free...fully customizable (you need someone with CSS and minor PHP/SQL experience) and allows for moderation by usergroup or even individual users. We've been working on one for almost a month, to roll out in the next week for those who need quick armor help (for Mercs it's not a social tool.) from 5pm EST to 12am PST. We're gonna see how it goes fully moderated, then if it seems to take off we'll open it 24/7.

Obviously TDH has a web-team to keep this stuff going, have them hash out something for free...because if it's "open source" then it's usually 100% customizable and has a fairly good support group via a project forum.

That's just my opinion, but I think it would be better than a *paid for* alternative. There are so many open source add-ons that really do the trick once you get into them.

hmm... that ajaxchat thing looks neat. probably worth experimenting with.

We can always try it, but in the meantime, this is working!

stormtrooper guy, let me know if you have any questions about it and I'll forward over what we've done with it and maybe that'll be helpful. I know it does work with Vbulletin, I'm pretty sure there's even an package installation for it. It runs off the forum SQL, so members log in with their forum accounts. It's pretty nifty once you get it all customized out!

Just a suggestion to throw out there, have you looked at Metaplace for a chat room?

i think we have 2 discussions going. there's this thread, about the instant messenger style chat, then there's the talk of a group chat room.

i think this works really well as an instant messenger client. it's just like facebook, so many of us are familiar with using it.

if there's interest, i think it may be worth looking at a chat room type thing. past experience has shown those to be really popular for their first few hours then taper off, but if it's free there's no harm in trying it out.

This is pretty cool! Thanks TF for stepping up. I just gotta add a couple more friends now. ;)

I'm not really into the group chatroom idea, but this new IM FB style thing could be very useful. There's so many times I've had to PM back and forth with people over things that could be discussed much faster.

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Originally Posted by Foxbatkllr

I'm not really into the group chatroom idea, but this new IM FB style thing could be very useful. There's so many times I've had to PM back and forth with people over things that could be discussed much faster.

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This is EXACTLY the kind of issue we are hoping the new feature will take care of... that painfully slow back and forth for quick questions with short answers. PM is still great for lengthy discussions, but for quick questions of comments, this rocks.

this si AWESOME!!!

rock on terminal fettler!


yes! this should end useless PMing back and forth

Glad you guys are liking it. There are some annoyances (as slave1pilot noted) but overall, I find it very helpful already. Again, big thanks to Terminal Fettler for making this possible and thanks to everyone else who sent donations anyway! We have the $$$ for another months of service!

You know what I'd like better than this chat? An actual and working web 2.0 Wiki in here.

Thanks terminal fettler. and used it last night.
wow you can get to know people a lot better and have better conversations. So often I get bored of the threads that are up and like to just say hi or thanks. This also lets me ask immediate questions like how is this part of the kit supposed to go together again?
Lots of uses

I agree this is a better way than the pm way ,btw thanks to terminal fettler

I also agree that this could be very useful. I'm looking forward to chatting with people whom I don't all ready have on MSN :)

Really cool idea :)

the little box on the bottom of the page drives me crazy how do i get rid of it????

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Originally Posted by the_ hunter_of_bounties

the little box on the bottom of the page drives me crazy how do i get rid of it????

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Ditto.
Used it and liked it but the slow typing/response time almost makes it too much of a hassle to deal with. Plus the automatic chat bar covers up the "next/previous" links I'm trying to view pics that someone's posted. Any way to change the settings to get rid of the bar that automatically pops up?:wacko

For those who want to turn the chat feature off (and not talk to your fellow members because you are anti-social... j/k) the feature can be turned on and turned off through the "My Hellmet"/ Go to my helmet then in the left collumn under Settings and Options choose Edit Options. Scroll to the bottom of the Messagin & Notification field and choose "No" from the drop down menu where you are asked to Enable the Chat bar. Scroll to the bottom and click save... Bye, bye chatbar...

Like the chat feature...just don't like the annoying little bar that covers my screen.:D

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Originally Posted by Flettch

You know what I'd like better than this chat? An actual and working web 2.0 Wiki in here.

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what constitutes a "web 2.0" wiki?

that's a term that's sufficiently vague that i never quite know what people mean.

what does that offer that the current wiki doesn't? how would that compare, to, say wikipedia?

Don't play dumb Brian.. A web 2.0 wiki... you know.. with the roundy corners and the glossy plastic sruface... Kinda has a 3D look with a slight drop shadow... geez... everyone knows that! They have far superior info than the stinky web 1.1 wikis... all blocky and dark.. one color... no gradients... :lol

I miss my bar!:cry
Seriously though, is there a way to keep the chat option on with no bar so we can chat it up?:D

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Originally Posted by Cruzer

I miss my bar!:cry
Seriously though, is there a way to keep the chat option on with no bar so we can chat it up?:D

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me too!:(

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Originally Posted by ART ANDREWS

Don't play dumb Brian.. A web 2.0 wiki... you know.. with the roundy corners and the glossy plastic sruface... Kinda has a 3D look with a slight drop shadow... geez... everyone knows that! They have far superior info than the stinky web 1.1 wikis... all blocky and dark.. one color... no gradients... :lol

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LOL.

You kids and your glossy surfaces! Why, I remember when I put my first background image on a web page. That was RADICAL! I couldn't even see it on my own computer!

Why, we used to have to keep entire PAGES to under 50Kb so that they wouldn't take a week to load!

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Originally Posted by Cruzer

I miss my bar!:cry
Seriously though, is there a way to keep the chat option on with no bar so we can chat it up?:D

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My chat bar disappeared, then when I went to "My Helmet", Edit Options, set "enable chat bar" to Yes (it was already set that way), then clicked Save changes at the bottom of that page, the bar came back.

How do you access chat Room?