Chat and other features

Richard , did you ever think about a chat room?

Chat is one feature that will be coming. I'll use this as a "Whats to Come" thread. One thing to note I'll be integrating all the features below under one username and password.

Chat, but not just any chat. I'll either be installing a Jabber or IRC server. Both have chat and IM capability, the same as the chat you see for AIM or Yahoo except without all the annoyances. From what I'm reading at the very least Jabber can act as gateway for all the major IM/chat programs so you could login into to the nepadigital server and use it as a universal IM service.

Webcasting, I'll be adding a live radio show as was suggested during the summer. Possibly even a live video feed.

Mediawiki , this is the exact same software used by wikipedia. the only difference is you will have to be logged in to use it. I'll be using this for knowledgebase. I did install one in the spring but have since removed it but it will be returning.

File Gallery , this will be for albums and video. You'll be able to password protect albums or make them public. The password protection would be handy if for example you wanted to share some photos with your family and friends. This will have other features such as comments/rating/(and too many others to list) Basically its a forum for pictures.

Other smaller features, local weather, Google Maps, Business directory, .... Big long list, i may even add personal blogs.

Now I know some may be thinking "oh great, hes' going to make it more complicated" I know Greg will be thrilled. However one of the great things about phpbb3 is you the user can make it whatever you want to some extent, all these features will be extra. The main page will be undergoing some drastic changes in the future but you may have noticed the breadcrumb link specifically for the anthracite forum. If you're not interested in these extended features you can just bookmark that and never see them. The Anthracite forum will stay relatively the same as it is now. I'm hoping the new features will attract a wider audience and keep them here. The original idea behind this forum was just that, some of you may find this of interest from Oct 24, 2004.

http://web.archive.org/web/200410241918 ... roads.com/

There was little interest then so it morphed into the anthracite forum and the biggest problem was not enough people but that has changed since then.

i will look forward to it , thank you , ken

Richard S. wrote:

Chat, but not just any chat. I'll either be installing a Jabber or IRC server.

My vote is for Jabber. GoogleTalk uses jabber.

Mediawiki ,

Wiki's are cool. "just don't call it a wiki. " You probably know better than I, but a wiki needs a either a large group of editors or a few very dedicated ones. Plus many people just don't get it. I'll volunteer to help maintain if it gets rolling.

Other smaller features, local weather, Google Maps, Business directory, .... Big long list, i may even add personal blogs.

good luck with that. sounds ambitious.
pb

Chat is a good idea. A java based chat like addonchat works well and would take minutes to implement if you wanted to get the ball rolling sooner that later. A few large forums I participate on use it and it's one of the better Java chats.

My personal experience with this stuff is "less is more". When a good forum tries to do too much, things start to suffer. You have a good foundation here, thanks and keep up the good work.

Actually I'm looking at Openfire which is the server. Client side the user can pick from multiple client side programs such as spark from the same company:

http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/ ... nshots.jsp

We have a few folks playing with openfire at work. Seems to work well. The only downside I can think of in this implementation would be that folks would have to install a client and configure it. WIth java based, it should just work. Might be an issue with those less technically inclined. Either way...neat idea that might see some use on here. Chat definitely lends itself more toward a technically based forum like this.

One of the reasons I'm considering Openfire is because there is built in support for the the Jabber clients on the forum. For example, you can send topic notifications through it. I don't even need my own server for that feature. My guess is that as phpBB moves forward this support will only increase. I'm also intrigued by the gateways, as I mentioned it appears you could simply install the Jabber client and use my server for all your IM needs. If i wanted to go simple there are already shoutbox mods but I've found those pretty lame and the constant clicking as the page refreshes is annoying as hell. I'd also imagine the server load would get quite large if there is a lot of people online.

I'm trying to build a larger community, but I need to take small steps. I'm very conscience of trying to make things as simple as possible. I won't be adding anything that will take away from the normal forum. The only major change you will see is the addition of nav column on the left side,for example you'll have links to all the major features (forum, chat, wikipedia, file gallery). Below that will probably go the Google ads in vertical column. Eventually I want the user to be able to add features to his/her left nav panel. For example you will be able to go into you profile and add the local weather... Every addition I make will be extra, if you don't want to use these extras simply don't use them.

So any new in the works?

Still getting there, I "ll be working on the knowledge base to get it themed and things I want added first.

Not sure about chat yet, the one i mentioned above is ideal but i don't think I can get it running on my server because i don't have the resources. It uses Java which requires some heavy duty ram which I don't have. Still looking into it.