Greasemonkey Script: Download
The Chatroom itself is hosted on my server. So the Greasemonkey script acts as a "bridge" between the forums and the chatroom, AKA Ben's server and mine. The first thing you'll notice once you install the script, is an additional icon (whipped up by me in GIMP
) and the word "Chat!" next to Usergroups. This ONLY shows up when you're logged in. Additionally, the chatroom will only let you in if the referring page was from from BenHeck. These two things combined mean that only registered members can log in to the chatroom. 
The script also has the ability to "read" your username from the forum (searches the page for "Log out [ " and takes whatever comes after it and before the " ]") and transfer it directly to the chatroom! It's amazing the kind of stuff you can do without server access when you have Greasemonkey, isn't it? 
Disadvantage: This means ONLY FIREFOX USERS can use the chatroom. 
Sorry, but Greasemonkey is the only way to do this stuff.The Chatroom:
Once you click the "Chat!" link, you will be directed to my server. The first page checks the referring page, makes sure it's from here, grabs your username, and then instantly redirects to the main page. If you try to log into the chatroom without a username or not from these forums, you are presented with this page. The main page has a large left frame which will contain the forums (whatever page you were on when you first clicked the "Chat!" link), and a smaller, 200px (by default) wide right frame, which contains the chat window. You can resize the frame simply by clicking and dragging the bar between the frames to the left or right. This way, you can browse the forums as you please, while staying in the chatroom and keeping it visible at all times. In the chat window, from top to bottom, you will see the Chat Log Box, the Message Box where you type messages to send, and the Extras Box below that.
Chatroom Functionality:
Consider this a beta release. There are still a couple of bugs, and it's very bare-bones at the moment. The Extras Box, by default, shows the users that are currently in the room. Wondering what the three buttons that coincidently spell out "SUE" to the right of the message box are for? The "S" stands for "Send". Use this to submit your message, or you can simply press enter. The "U" stands for "Users", and is used to display the "Users Currently Online" panel in the Extras Box. The "E" stands for "Emoticons". Clicking this will display the Emoticons Panel (with all of the emoticons currently on this forum, in addition to the 4 featured in my Additional Emoticons Greasmonkey Script, also for these forums), in the Extras Box. These work just like they do on the forums. Click them to insert the ASCII symbol into the Message Box, or you can manually type the ASCII symbol if you know it. Either way, the symbol is turned into the GIF emoticon it represents once it hits the Chat Log Box.
There's really nothing else to it. Nobody has "Mod" powers, so there's no kicking or banning. Everyone is equal in this room.
There's no language filter... please don't abuse this fact too much. 
No individual user PMing either. Basically, none of that IRC "/command" crap. 
But we don't want something like that, do we? We want something that "just works" without too many bells or whistles. 
Oh, also, this does use a flat file database (.txt file logs), which apparently is "fail" for reasons unknown to me.
But, it's simple and it works. Advantage: Chat logs are stored in the .txt files indefinitely. This means that users just logging into the room can scroll through previous conversation to get caught up on the current topic. Or, users that got kicked out (lost internet, computer froze, ect.) can come back in and read over what they missed while they were gone. Disadvantage: There's one log for each day. Every day at midnight, the log stops, and a new one is created for the next day. This means that if you're in the middle of a conversation, come midnight, the log will appear to "reset," and any previous conversation will be stored away in the previous day's log. However, I'll still keep each day's log on the server until they start cluttering things up. Eventually, I'll add a function that allows users to look at chat logs from previous days, but I don't think this is a priority in most of your minds. Let me know what you all think!
P.S. Someone needs to re-lock the "Chrono Trigger on PS3" and "Apology to several members, my sister hi-jacked my account." threads.
P.P.S. I recommend that you guys all back up any important posts (such as this one, for me) until these server issues get worked out! Like I said, I lost nearly 50 posts from the server revert, and I had some valuable information in some of them.
