Elgg Bottom Bar v0.2 alpha
Release Notes
Note: This plugin is still in alpha stage, and most likely has quite a few bugs in it .. you have been warned! ;)
** First chat version - very alpha release for those interested in helping bug test **
Welcome to my first attempt at a plugin!
The bottom_bar plugin adds a fixed bar at the bottom of the browser with an auto updating notification and friends list.
The notification button will show red when there are new notices to be seen. When the button is clicked, the notice is cleared ready for the next update. The friends list auto updates with a list of online friends.
As of v0.2, basic chat has been added to the system, including persistant windows between page loads, chat history, sound notifications and smiley and url translation. There are now some settings for both admin and user to enable/disable chat and a few other bits.
I have tested this with Internet Explorer 7, Google Chrome 2.0 and Firefox 3.0 & 3.5, and as far as I can tell it works ok. If anyone can test against other browsers/OS I would appreciated it. Also, please let me know if you come across another plugin that this conflicts with.
Known Bugs:
- Occasional chat messages are lost - still looking into this one.
- Chrome doesn't cache the sound files for some reason, so can block for a second or two when a notification sound is triggered.
- Message delivery speed is not always consistant, but that might be due to my sandbox server ;)
Some screenshots ...
(yes I know the notification area is showing the same as the main page .. it was kind of the point to show the notifications were in sync ;) )
All constructive comments welcomed.
Like this code? Consider a donation ;)
The Mad Professor
Stats
- Category: Uncategorized
- License: GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2
- Updated: 2014-11-17
- Downloads: 17140
- Recommendations: 16
By the way - I am away most of this weekend so I won't be able to reply to any comments straight away :)
is this based on the same code of Jeroen Dalsen's elggchat?
@lord - no, all of this has been written from the ground up as I didn't want to run into problems with trying to integrate other people's code into my own :)
great work TMP. I'm itching to get home and try this. I'll let you know how it turns out.
@Trajan - Thanks, but be aware - it will have bugs in it! ;)
i am just wondering, about the notification area. It shows mainly whats on the dash board which is fine as you have mentioned that it is the point. Is there any chance you can show highlights of the site rather than just whats on the dashboard. like who joined what group, who received an invitiation, and so on,
thank you
@TMP report from first usage:
Running on 1.6.1, Mozilla 3.5.3
Looks good so far, one slight problem. Process is as follows:
1) post link into chat.
2) click on link (open in new tab)
3) chat also opens in the new tab but the input box has become the tnymce editor and is wider than the chat screen itself. Plus in this mode can't send messages. When hitting return/enter it adds a new line in the input box, doesn't send the message.
Otherwise working great so far. Nice job.
Sorry forgot to mention:
when refreshing the page from this situation:
1) correct style box appears for about 5 secs then returns to corrupted one.
Finally with this situation, it is impossible to close the chat window. The link at the bottom is unclickable and if the chat has been long enough the top of the chat window extends beyond the top of the screen.
Hope this helps.
@The_one - Once I have nailed the chat a bit more, I will be looking into the notification area. This is purely an alpha chat release to hammer out the bugs ;)
@Trajan - Thanks for the bug report there. Can you tell me if you were opening another page on the same elgg site, or on an external url please? I will see if I can track it down.
your CSS fails with IE5 :(
@cim - IE5!? I'm not sure how I would even test that at the moment. I can barely go back to IE6! lol
I will look into it and see if there is anything I can do for that, but bearing in mind Microsoft's way of ignoring standards, it might be a bit tricky ;)
@Professor
haha true but hey contrary to belief, people still use IE5! i'm a perfect example haha.
@Cim
There is no support for IE5 anymore. So why create something what not even microsoft supporting.
@TMP apologies I'm on 1.5 not 1.6.1
I was opening another page in the same elgg site.
Also when logging off and logging on again in quick succession the chat windows appear again if they haven't been closed. Thus if the problem I mentioned occurred it will continue to occur.
@Trajan - Ok, thanks for that. I have some ideas around that, and will look into it. It's good to know it works with 1.5 as well though.
@Mad very nice. I have tested this new version and found I love the chat feature, however it has many bugs and I will be waiting to see this plugin evolve very excellent idea for elgg, my users loved the idea.
@goof - Thank you. If you have a list of any bugs you and your users have found I would appreciate it so I can look into them please?
for the next version can you please add ability to add more links with images. ie. images,video,groups,blogs,gifts etc... at the left hand side. like facebook
@sam1 - The things you ask for there are beyond the scope of this plugin i'm afraid.
@sam1
you could add that kind of features on the chat bar, just hack into the files ;]
I have one major issue with the pluggin atm and thats it won't display any online members as online. So I've not been able to test out the chat feature yet.
@omaolain - it will only display people in your friends list who are online and are active.
@cim which file am i looking at??
@sam1
i'm not sure, i haven't checked it out yet but i'll get back to you when i can.
@cim
In regards to you saying that IE5 is still being used... I beg to differ on that..
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp