WinBoard WCRCC alpha version with chat windows

[hgm]

For those that feel adventurous:

I posted a new WinBoard version especially made for this tournament. It has the new feature of "chat windows" where you can have an uninterrupted quiet communication with a single discussion partner. You can open upto 3 such chat windows.

The windows have a "Chat Partner" field where you can type the ICS handle of the person you want to chat with. You have to press the "change" button next to it to activate any change there. After you have done this, anything you type in the input field at the bottom will be automatcally prefixed by "tell ICSHANDLE ", and sent to the ICS so that your discussion partner gets the message. Currently this only happens when you click the "Send" button. (Despite the fact that I defined this as "default button", it does not seem to react to "enter", in volation of MS docs.)

Any tells the discussion partner sends you will appear in the chat window's main output field. They will be kept out of the ICS interaction window.

I have been playing with this version since the beginning of the tourney, and it seems quite stable.

[hgm]

I just posted an improved version, (same link), where the messages you type in the input field of the chat window are now automatically sent when you press enter. The chat windows are now also resizable.

Any suggestions of how this could be further improved are welcome. E.g. would it make sense to recognize "say", "whisper" or "kibitz" in the chat-partner field as special cases, where sent messages would be pre-fixed with this "name" only, rather than with "tell NAME"? I guess this only makes sense if the incoming lines would intercept the incomming messages of that type, and then display the name of the actual sender together with the message.

You can already put a number in the chat-partner field, and then all messages you sent from it would go to the corresponding channel. Currently no incoming messages from the channel would be displayed, as they do not look like "64 tells you:", but rather like "ICSHANDLE (64):". I could also filter incoming chatter on that, in case of a numeric handle. But perhaps it is better to reserve the ICS interaction window for channel traffic.

Tell me what you think!

[hgm]

OK, "say" is apparently just a tel with an implied handle, and I now treat incoming says (which go acompanied by the sender's handle) as if they were tells.

I added "whisper mode": when you type "WHISPER" (capitals!) in the handle field (and press "Change"!), every line you type will be sent as a whisper command, and every whisper that comes in (including your own)will be displayed in the chatbox, prefixed by the handle of the whisperer.

[adams161]

hi,

If the idea of chat consoles could be extended it would be rather interesting. As i see it you have some sort of interface to the newly created chat window to place tells from a handle in the window. Blitzin 2 allows chat windows as well. you can like winboard indicate tells from a handle go there. An extension is to also allow tells from 1 or several channels to go to your creted chat window, bypassing them all strictly going to main window and allowing a partiion of channel chat two two consoles. For example imagine in the tournie that a person wanted to not only isolate some tells in a chat consoles. but isolate channel 64 in a chat window.

A further extension is a memory of chat consoles created and recreating them at login, so you need not input the customization that goes into these consoles each time you login. Blitzin simply saves the open chat windows specs to its ini file.

Mike

[hgm]

I already thought about the channel idea, but did not get to implement it in time. In fact I already used a chat windows to talk into a channel, which has the same syntax as talking to a handle. But on receiving a message, the syntax is different (something like "HANDLE(C) (64)"), so I would have to put in some code to recognize that if the handle field of the chatbox is purely numeric. Currently the channel traffic continues to appear in the main console when you do that, which wasn't too much of problem when there was only one busy channel. After all, there is no need for the console to stay completely empty.

The WHISPER pseudo-handle aso goes already a long way in the direction of what is needed (prefixing the captured messages with a handle). So when this feature will appaer in an official reease (4.4.1, likely) I will probably have implemented the channel idea.

I am not so sure about the usefulness of saving the chatboxes. A handle is easily typed. Next time you might be on another ICS (so you would have to save al parameters per ICS), other handles might be logged in...

[adams161]

the saving idea was stricly meant for channels. I.e. create a permament second console for select channels, say 1 2 and 64. What is saved is the windows 4 points on the screen ( left right top bottom ) and what channels it contains. An avid channel 64 person could always log in and see a second console appear ready for channel 64. I agree handles we want to talk to change and no point in saving them.

Anyway this was an idea to think about. I realize you have been finalizing winboard for release and the comments i'm making are more "toward the future, where do we go from there" than extortinos to rush rush rush and get yet more complexity into a build that should be near final now.

i wrote two tutorials years ago on channel chat consoles for blitzin. may be a source of ideas on how they work

making a channel chat console
http://adam16mr.org/start/consoles.html

making a tomato console
http://adam16mr.org/start/tomato.html

Mike

[michiguel]

I just posted an improved version, (same link), where the messages you type in the input field of the chat window are now automatically sent when you press enter. The chat windows are now also resizable.

Any suggestions of how this could be further improved are welcome. E.g. would it make sense to recognize "say", "whisper" or "kibitz" in the chat-partner field as special cases, where sent messages would be pre-fixed with this "name" only, rather than with "tell NAME"? I guess this only makes sense if the incoming lines would intercept the incomming messages of that type, and then display the name of the actual sender together with the message.

You can already put a number in the chat-partner field, and then all messages you sent from it would go to the corresponding channel. Currently no incoming messages from the channel would be displayed, as they do not look like "64 tells you:", but rather like "ICSHANDLE (64):". I could also filter incoming chatter on that, in case of a numeric handle. But perhaps it is better to reserve the ICS interaction window for channel traffic.

Tell me what you think!

Maybe the kibitzes and whispers should go to one separate window.

Miguel