Well, I decided that it was getting a bit too full of junk which as you can imagine is hard to moderate, it was also getting quite large on the database side of things and there were obvious downsides in it which, thank god, weren't really used.
I want to make it clear that I hope to have a new chat box up soon but I think a redesign was in order to make sure it is as efficient as it can be.
Some of the features I hope to include are as follows:
- Staff Integration: To allow all staff members the ability to moderate the chat box by deleting or modifying any posts made.
- Reports: A better reporting system which will let you as user's flag any posts which you think should be looked at by a member of staff if it breaks rules.
- Better BBCodes: Currently, certain BBCodes were allowed but some were glitchy - for example the chat box didn't like the use of the colon character (:) when using the URL tag and the fact that for smilies, user had to actually enter in the image path manually.
- Better AJAX support: Not only will the chatbox refresh in real time as it did before but also tasks such as submitting a new post or moderating the chatbox can be done without refreshing the page - thus eliminating chances that user's will accidentally double post when they refresh the page.
- Better Display: The chatbox sat on the right of the main homepage which was fine if you were only using the homepage, I want to allow the chatbox to expand into it's own pop-out window so that user's don't need to stay on the homepage to use it. User's will also then be able to resize it to view more content.
- Member Actions: If a user updates their status in the forum for example, the chatbox will display a small entry to announce that user's new status. May also display other info on user's too.
Of course, all of these are just ideas, whether they can/will be implemented we will have to wait and see, who knows, even more idea's may also come across during development.
