Chat Module: Public Beta Submitted

Finally, way too long  after my previous blog post I can finally announce that version 00.05.00 has been submitted to the release tracker. Functionality hasn't changed much since the previous post, but some things in the background did. While working on a module like this, one always finds new places to improve the module . I'm glad we have been able to draw a line and get something out there at last. There's a few known limitations that you might run into:

• Borders on selectors for emoticons (and others) don't show up nicely in IE.
• ... (ok, well, there's one I can think of at the moment )

Currently it's a pretty basic chat module which facilitates a chat forpeople that have browsed to the same page on a website. A short summary of it's current functions:

• send / receive messages (duh)
• notify users when a user arrives or leaves
• allows some basic formatting of messages
• supports authorisation settings using standard module settings
• configurable polling interval
• uses DNN's builtin ajax library (so no asp.net AJAX needed)
• ...

For the future we (of course) have quite  few ideas what should be in the module. We believe there's quite a few functions  a chat module could have:

• List of people in the chat
• Allow storage of chat transcripts (and reading them of course)
• Downloadable transcripts
• Searchable (portable) transcripts
• Private chats
• Different "rooms"
• ...

And here's where we would like you to kick in: let us know what you like (or dislike, but be nice ) about the module and what you would prefer to see in a future release.