Suggestion for Chat Services

[Vehmic]

Hey everyone. I know none of you really know me, but I was hoping to bring a suggestion to you all. Currently the site is utilizing the built in proboards shoutbox. While it is getting the job done and allowing members to communicate a little more quickly, I was hoping to suggest that the site consider switching over to either a chatango chat or a c-box chat system.

In my opinion, either of these options are much better than the built in shoutbox. C-box are largely the same as the shoutbox (if you don't buy premium) with the exception that you have logs to go back and see what was said earlier and I believe even the free one has a larger character limit then the shoutbox.

As for chatango, it occasionally has some server issues where the chat goes down or runs slow, but last I saw it offered free auto-refreshing, a built in private messaging, larger character limits and even a friend list feature.

So, I hope you'll all at least consider potentially utilizing one of these two features. I feel at the very least that they'll give us some more options then the current shoutbox.

[Jenno]

Over the years we have actually used both of those chat box systems, we even had c-box on premium for a couple of years. The reason we've stuck with the proboards built-in system is because of the fact that it links forum accounts with the shoutbox, so if there are any issues you don't have to hunt down the IP of one of the many alternate accounts that get made/used to say things. It also makes it easier for people to keep track of who is who since a name change on the forum means it changes in the shoutbox.

For something that's free and comes with a function that no other chat box would have, it's actually quite good and as far as I'm aware we've not had any real problems with it so far. I know the number of visible messages is limited, an issue that was discussed when we decided if we'd keep the c-box or use Proboard's shoutbox, but in all fairness that also hasn't been too much of a problem.

[Juzt]

I do like shoutbox, only problem I have is I get no sound thing when messages are posted. I don't know what that is.

[Dutch]

Yeah, you're not alone in the lack of sound thing Juzt. I think it's an issue on the Proboards ends of things, cause we haven't found a fix for it yet. I'm sure they'll have it fixed up by some point

[Juzt]

oh ok so long as I am not the only one. Thanks for the info Dutch.

[Mara]

Or, you know, you could just go to Support and ask about it.