The NEW GPL Chat.

by **Jupiter** » Mon 10/31/11 4:36 pm

Okay gang.... We have a new chat for GPL. I know you like the old flashchat, but it is just too much of a resource hog. So I was forced to make some changes.

The new GPL chat is as basic as it gets. It's an IRC based chat. Currently only registered users can get to the page where the chat is located... Now sure it's basic and has no frills, but it is fast and uses an outside server. So it will not upset my provider and it will not bring the site to a crawl. You can also access the chat via an IRC client on iOS or Android.

You can get to the chat via the "Community" menu up top. (must be logged in)

A few things: (Updated 11/3)

Only registered will be able to access the chat page. In fact, you will not even see the "Live Chat" selection in the community menu unless you are logged in.
When you go to the chat page, it should automatically enter your username. Just click connect and you are good to go.
I am guessing you can use chat with a browser on Android or iOS, but I recommend using an IRC Chat App on those platforms. It will just work better. Send me a PM if you want connection information for an IRC App.
If you want to have a private chat with someone that is online, just click their name in the online list and select "query". This will open a separate tab up top with the person you want to have a private chat with.
In the upper left corner there is a drop down menu. In the options menu you can make a few changes if you like. I recommend checking the boxes that I have checked in the attached photo, including the color. I highly recommend checking the "Automatically color nicknames" box.

by **Kelor** » Mon 10/31/11 6:55 pm

Most important. Can you do the rouser?

by **Jupiter** » Mon 10/31/11 7:18 pm

Sorry... No can do.

by **Jupiter** » Mon 10/31/11 8:40 pm

FYI... The background color of the chat will be a light blue the first time you go in there. But you can go in to the options to make the background any color you want.

by **gator** » Mon 10/31/11 9:52 pm

Checked out the new chat tonight and Jup happen to be on as well. It'll take time getting use to, but it'll work.

by **Jupiter** » Tue 11/01/11 12:11 am

Anyone still awake to help me test something?

Go to the chat link via the Community menu up top. The system SHOULD autofill your username in to the IRC chatname. It should not let you enter a name. Can anyone awake join me in chat to test this feature?

EDIT: I am particularly interested to see how it handles a username with a space in it.

by **Jupiter** » Tue 11/01/11 12:25 am

Okay... That will NOT work for people who have spaces in their username. Oh well.

by **Jupiter** » Tue 11/01/11 9:51 am

Thanks to some help from the users at phpBB.com I was able to figure out the login problem with spaces in the username. So if you are a user with spaces in your GPL Username and you login to the new irc chat your spaces will be replaced with underscores. So for now I think we are good to go for the new chat.

If you want to access the chat with an Android, iOS app or even an IRC client on your computer, send me a PM and I think I will be able to help you out.

by **Jupiter** » Tue 11/01/11 10:04 am

A few more things...

- One thing I have not been able to do yet is test to see if this new chat works on all browsers and platforms. If you cannot access the chat, let me know what OS and Browser you are using.

- The chat may work on Android and iOS browsers. But I am guessing that you would have a better experience using a dedicated IRC Chat App instead of the browser.

- When in chat I recommend going to the options in the upper right and changing a few things. I would CHECK the "Automatically color nicknames" and I would also adjust the color interface hue to make it look a bit better. Moving that slider to yellow seems to look the best.

- If you want to have a private chat with someone that is online, just click their name in the online list and select "query". This will open a separate tab up top with the person you want to have a private chat with.

by **dxmnkd316** » Tue 11/01/11 10:59 pm

I got it up and running on the phone. Thanks for the help.

by **Kelor** » Wed 11/02/11 7:06 pm

Jup. As much as I appreciate the effort, I sure like the old chat better. Is there a different platform available?

If not, Im torn which one I like more. The new one since i can access OR the old one since its better?

by **Jupiter** » Wed 11/02/11 8:01 pm

I know this new chat does not come close to the old chat, but the old chat was really bringing the server to it's knees. So much that my provider suspended my account... So I needed to make a change. Since the new chat is IRC based, it is extremely fast compared to the old chat. The old chat would hit the database every 7 seconds looking for new post. When you have 30+ people in chat, that really makes the server work hard... The new chat does not affect the server at all. So we could have hundreds of people in there and it would keep working with no problems at all.

So it is going to be an adjustment, but it for the best.

by **Jupiter** » Thu 11/03/11 10:01 am

I updated the first post of this thread with more information on the new chat.

by **Jupiter** » Thu 11/03/11 2:59 pm

I am going to need a few people who regularly chat to be a moderator in the new chat. Basically you would just kick people out when they misbehave or ban them if they continue to cause problems. So send me a PM if you are interested in helping me out with this.

by **Jupiter** » Thu 11/03/11 9:48 pm

I will try to login to the new chat from my iPod Touch during the game tomorrow. If I don't get that chance, can a few of you let me know how things go? I will be curious how many people are in chat and how smooth it runs.

by **Jupiter** » Thu 11/03/11 10:03 pm

"g_manpucker" will be the moderator for now.... We have never really had any problems, so I don't see us having too many issues now. I will add more if it is needed.

by **Armadillo** » Thu 11/03/11 10:26 pm

Do you mean "g_manpucker," salt of the Earth, god among men, chiseled specimen of all that is right with the world?

That oughta buy me some latitude around here.

by **Kelor** » Thu 11/03/11 11:10 pm

Suck up

by **Armadillo** » Thu 11/03/11 11:21 pm

Shh. You're gonna blow my cover.

by **g_manpucker** » Fri 11/04/11 5:29 am

I was going to fly under the radar with this

I just wanted to help out around here a little, its not like mods really have to do anything in chat anyway. Like Jup has said, there is no ''ringing the bell" or the fancy things that the old chat could do so really it's like be an editor of a book. See everyone later today in chat! :laptop:

by **Dances With Gophers** » Fri 11/04/11 11:26 am

My only request is that g_manpucker be banned from moderating the Gopher Football thread. For obvious reasons.

by **g_manpucker** » Fri 11/04/11 11:34 am

Dances With Gophers wrote:My only request is that g_manpucker be banned from moderating the Gopher Football thread. For obvious reasons.

I only have chat moderator status not GPL Board mod status...lucky thing huh? :biggrin2:

by **Jupiter** » Sat 11/05/11 2:45 am

So how did chat hold up Friday night?

by **Orion** » Sat 11/05/11 7:55 am

Jupiter wrote:So how did chat hold up Friday night?

The little bit I was in there it seemed to run fine. It looked like some people were having time out issues and dropped out of chat once in a while though.

by **g_manpucker** » Sat 11/05/11 8:03 am

The chat ran fine, DX was about the only one that was bouncing in and out but he was on his phone at the game. I would say there was a total of around 25 people most of the game in the chat. Of course people miss the rouser but the bigger thing was that it was faster than the old chat with no problems since that the website had over 200 people on it which would have crippled the old chat I would imagine.

by **Orion** » Sat 11/05/11 8:05 am

g_manpucker wrote:The chat ran fine, DX was about the only one that was bouncing in and out but he was on his phone at the game. I would say there was a total of around 25 people most of the game in the chat. Of course people miss the rouser but the bigger thing was that it was faster than the old chat with no problems since that the website had over 200 people on it which would have crippled the old chat I would imagine.

So, he should have gotten an

by **dxmnkd316** » Sat 11/05/11 11:54 am

No, it has to do with the fact that Mango doesn't stay active when the phone is locked. It's actually quite frustrating because I would have to kill the app manually and restart it to log back in...

Sorry about that.

by **ScoobyDoo** » Sat 11/05/11 12:46 pm

Chat ran fantastic and I bet it didn't even blip the server CPU.

by **Jupiter** » Sat 11/05/11 1:22 pm

dxmnkd316 wrote:No, it has to do with the fact that Mango doesn't stay active when the phone is locked. It's actually quite frustrating because I would have to kill the app manually and restart it to log back in...

Sorry about that.

Well... Mango is free, so I guess you get what you paid for with it.

by **dxmnkd316** » Sat 11/05/11 1:25 pm

Oh, I know. I'm just trying to explain why I was popping in and out... :oops:

by **Jupiter** » Sat 11/12/11 11:49 pm

The new chat is working out just perfect!

I know it's very 1995 in how it works, but we had a ton of visitors to GPL during the games this weekend and the site held up VERY WELL.

by **Armadillo** » Sat 11/12/11 11:51 pm

Well, that's good! If the team keeps playing as well as they have, I'd expect busy weekends to become the norm around here, especially Sioux weekends, Badger weekends, and March.

by **Kelor** » Sun 11/13/11 12:09 am

The screen makes me think I'm playing a game of Taipan!

(see if anyone remembers that one)

by **The Rube** » Sun 11/13/11 3:07 am

Like the chat, even though it's really basic. I have been trying to get more involved this year, even though I'm pretty committed to the Score Update thing on that other board.

by **Composer** » Sun 11/13/11 11:28 am

dxmnkd316 wrote:Oh, I know. I'm just trying to explain why I was popping in and out...

Seems like you still had trouble with that on Friday! :ahhh:

by **Jupiter** » Sun 3/11/12 9:14 pm

So I am not sure what is going on with the GPL Chat. It appears that the "Central Chat" website has been down for a while. It was down Friday night, but the chat servers were still working. But they have been down at least since Saturday. If they don't get their act together in the next few days I will have to move to a new IRC chat.

by **Jupiter** » Sun 3/11/12 11:54 pm

I have a temporary solutions to the chat problem.... So as of right now it is working.

I am using a different IRC Host/Server. It may look the same but it does have one big issue... If your GPL username just happens to match a username already registered on their IRC network there will be a problem. After 1 minute it will force a username change and your name will be changed to "Unidentified" with a bunch of numbers behind it. So if that is the case for your username, you are pretty much screwed.

I will keep looking for a permanent solution, but for now this will have to do until I found out what is going on with the CentralChat IRC servers.

by **The Rube** » Sun 3/11/12 11:56 pm

Jupiter wrote:I have a temporary solutions to the chat problem.... So as of right now it is working.

I am using a different IRC Host/Server. It may look the same but it does have one big issue... If your GPL username just happens to match a username already registered on their IRC network there will be a problem. After 1 minute it will force a username change and your name will be changed to "Unidentified" with a bunch of numbers behind it. So if that is the case for your username, you are pretty much screwed.

I will keep looking for a permanent solution, but for now this will have to do until I found out what is going on with the CentralChat IRC servers.

Whatever works. We appreciate anything you do to run the site. BTW, I better run into you this year, so I can give you my annual donation (no PayPal for me; rip me at will).

by **Jupiter** » Mon 3/12/12 12:01 am

I may drop this new irc server already..... They won't let me register the GPL channel. So I may just take it down for now.

by **The Rube** » Mon 3/12/12 12:03 am

Jupiter wrote:I may drop this new irc server already..... They won't let me register the GPL channel. So I may just take it down for now.

I'm guessing most users are:

"Chat? Cool." login

Simple as that. No fancy features, etc.

by **Jupiter** » Mon 3/12/12 9:16 am

CentralChat is back up, so we are back to using it.

There still seems to be some issues with CentralChat though. I think the GPL "channel" is not longer registered with them, so we have a few problems when it comes to moderating. But it's not a big deal. At least it's working again. I am still hoping to see what is going at CentralChat so I can get a few the issues resolved.

by **Kelor** » Fri 8/31/12 10:18 am

Hi Jup.

Any new chat capabilities for this upcoming year?

Just curious.

by **Jupiter** » Wed 9/05/12 10:40 am

I won't be making any changes with the chat.

Sure the old flashchat was nice, but it just brought the server to a halt. The IRC Chat has zero bells and whistles, but it's fast and none of the load is put on the GPL server.

by **Jupiter** » Thu 9/06/12 12:19 pm

I am working on adding a live streaming twitter feed to the chat page. It's based off of a follow list on the GPL twitter account. Basically it will allow you to chat and have important wcha/ncaa feeds showing up on the same page.

Still working out the bugs, but if you guys could head over to the chat page and give me your initial thoughts, that would be great. Right now since it's a new list, it's not refreshing correctly. But I have found that is pretty common with new "lists" on Twitter.

Also.... Let me know who's twitter accounts should be added to the list. I would like to keep it WCHA based for now, but a few outside feeds would be fine.

I think you can see that list here:
https://twitter.com/#!/GopherPuckLive/w ... ey/members

by **gopher6** » Thu 9/06/12 12:51 pm

Jupiter wrote:I am working on adding a live streaming twitter feed to the chat page. It's based off of a follow list on the GPL twitter account. Basically it will allow you to chat and have important wcha/ncaa feeds showing up on the same page.

Still working out the bugs, but if you guys could head over to the chat page and give me your initial thoughts, that would be great. Right now since it's a new list, it's not refreshing correctly. But I have found that is pretty common with new "lists" on Twitter.

Also.... Let me know who's twitter accounts should be added to the list. I would like to keep it WCHA based for now, but a few outside feeds would be fine.

I think you can see that list here:
https://twitter.com/i/#!/GopherPuckLive ... ey/members

I clicked on it and got a message does not exist

by **Jupiter** » Thu 9/06/12 1:00 pm

Try this link instead.
https://twitter.com/#!/GopherPuckLive/w ... ey/members

It looks like it had something to do with me being logged in to Twitter.

by **Jupiter** » Fri 9/07/12 4:11 pm

Okay.... I trashed the "new" widget that I was using from Twitter. It just was not updating in real or near real time. So I decided to modify the twitter widget that is on the portal page to work on the chat room page. It's an old school widget that allows for more customization.

Let me know what you think of the twitter part of the chat page.
gplchat.php

I think I will like having a live feed from all over the WCHA & NCAA while people are in the chat room during games. But we'll see how it goes.

Remember..... I still need your recommendations on the twitter feeds that should be added to the stream. You can see that list here: https://twitter.com/#!/GopherPuckLive/w ... ey/members

by **dxmnkd316** » Sat 2/23/13 7:59 pm

Anyone else having issues connecting?

by **Greyeagle** » Sat 2/23/13 7:59 pm

dxmnkd316 wrote:Anyone else having issues connecting?

Locked & loaded.

by **dxmnkd316** » Sat 2/23/13 8:01 pm

Can you provide the server info?

by **Greyeagle** » Sat 2/23/13 8:04 pm

I have no idea.
I can provide a link.

gplchat.php

by **dxmnkd316** » Sat 2/23/13 8:07 pm

Is it still on zoidberg.centralchat.net in channel #gpl?

by **Steve_MN** » Sun 2/24/13 10:38 am

dxmnkd316 wrote:Is it still on zoidberg.centralchat.net in channel #gpl?

Not necessarily zoidberg, I have my IRC client set up to point to irc.centralchat.net I think it's typically been zoidberg, but by using the irc.centralchat address, you have a better chance of connecting if there's ever a server problem.

by **Jupiter** » Mon 2/25/13 12:02 pm

Was chat working this weekend at all?

I ask because there CentralChat.net is completely down right now, so maybe that was the problem? I just don't have the chance to check it out anymore.

by **Tanner** » Mon 2/25/13 12:06 pm

Jupiter wrote:Was chat working this weekend at all?

I ask because there CentralChat.net is completely down right now, so maybe that was the problem? I just don't have the chance to check it out anymore.

Yes it was, I was briefly on Friday and Saturday and everything seemed to be working smoothly.

by **Steve_MN** » Mon 2/25/13 1:02 pm

Jupiter wrote:Was chat working this weekend at all?

I ask because there CentralChat.net is completely down right now, so maybe that was the problem? I just don't have the chance to check it out anymore.

Worked fine for me both games this weekend from my phone's IRC client, and I just logged on again now.

by **Jupiter** » Mon 2/25/13 1:12 pm

Yeah... It's back up now.

by **Beauner** » Mon 2/25/13 2:19 pm

I was in it all night Friday and it worked with no issues.

Who is online