Would people be interested in a Facebook-like IM?

[geldartb]

i was talking with Brad earlier and it seemed to work fine well aside from not showing everyone that was online but it looks like he's got that fixed.

im using firefox 3.5 and windows 7 rtm

[bszopi]

I works on my desktop running Ubuntu and Firefox, as well as here on the laptop running IE8 and Vista.

[ForcedFirebird]

It froze my FF earlier today as well.

[SappySE107]

reset

[bszopi]

Looks like we'll be going with the friends idea instead. Since it has to reload everytime a user loads a new page (since the site is not written 100% in AJAX like facebook), trying to load the entire user list (all 5000+) and then sorting through each time to figure out who is online at any given moment, it takes a lot of resources. By going with the friend route, it will only have to look up a user's friend list, which will most likely be much, much smaller. Once I get it all reworked, I will let everyone know... again.

Sorry for the inconvenience! Oh, and in the process of trying to get this fixed, I actually one-upped Ben. I managed to get my IP banned from the server, so I couldn't access the server at all - none of the sites, my mail, etc. Luckily, our host has an excellent support staff and I was fixed up within a couple of minutes.

[bszopi]

Ok, that was easy... To become friends with someone, you need to go to their profile page, click on the FRIENDS tab, and then click on the "Befriend username" link. This will send a friend request to that person. Once they have accepted your friendship, you will then be able to chat with them when they are online. Hopefully this works better than the last try...

[robertisaar]

this certainly could turn out to be beneficial...

[pocket-rocket]

So far it works. My only gripe is it re initializes every time you navigate to a new page, and it won't show up if you're in another tab (missed two of Ben's messages while on here and youtube). Reason for my gripe of it reloading on every page is my laptop is insanely slow due to its age, and I use it in the garage vs a full size desktop. I am betting that the only two gripes I have with it really can't be "fixed" because they aren't real big issues. BTW, newest Firefox here on XP SP3 with 1.3ghz Athlon XP and 256mb ram (let the flaming begin, I said it was old (2000) :P).

[bszopi]

Yeah, the refreshing sucks, but as I have mentioned (I think in this thread?) is that vBulletin in general is not built as a 100% AJAX software, therefore it has page loads, whereas Facebook is AJAX and therefore you don't do the page loads. Perhaps I can try to figure out how to be able to turn it off if not wanted.

If you are in another tab, you "should" hear a sound when a new message appears...

[SappySE107]

I noticed it is slow when I am typing into the text box. It catches up but its obviously delayed for some reason.

[pocket-rocket]

Yeah, I caught that Brad, but didn't realize what you meant until I actually had friends on my list and saw it in action, lol. I guess they shouldn't really be considered gripes, especially if it is all working fine and not hurting the server any. I still give the thing a two thumbs up though, nice find on this mod

EDIT: So will this thing update responses from friends in real time, or only when you update it by changing/refreshing pages?

[pocket-rocket]

Found a glitch. I tend to hammer the back button instead of scrolling up and clicking the root of the forum to go back. This messes with the IM and you don't see the last few messages you received up until the point where you were last at the root. So, just to avoid that now I guess I have to quit being lazy and scroll up and click the forum root. I still like it though, it's neat. Ben answered my question on how it updates. It's real time.

[robertisaar]

i believe thats why someone created the "home" button. i know i hit it enough..

[pocket-rocket]

My home takes me to google

[robertisaar]

My home takes me to google

not quite the home button i was refering to...