New member bar with chat functionality

[Dark0ne]

I have just enabled a new member bar feature on the Nexus sites and the forums that is going to be running through beta over the next couple of days. Before I say anything let me waylay your initial gulp reaction after you first saw it; you haven't picked up a malware toolbar off the internet! This is legit ;)

 

The toolbar will display for any members that are logged in to the sites or the forums and it syncs with the forums. You can turn the bar off in your preferences area if you don't want to see it or use it, or by clicking the red "Turn off" icon on the bar.

 

So what is it? It's essentially a rip of the Facebook chat bar that many people will be familiar with from Facebook with a few twists and differences here and there. It will allow you to see all the people in your friend's list that are online and also talk to them personally, one-on-one, if you like. You can make yourself visible to your friends, offline to them or show them you're busy and unlikely to reply. The personal chat also has a few gimmicky features, like the ability to play games with your friends (I've already had a game of chess with helpful member katashy) or send them handwritten pictures like on MSN.

 

In a similar vein there are also chat rooms that you can join and chat to others in (it's the third icon from the left). I'm in the main room most of the time (I know that's not much of an incentive to join in...) and you can also make your own rooms and even make password protected rooms if you want to have a little group meeting with your modding buddies or something. A word of advice if you want to stick around in the chat rooms for a little while: if you browse around the sites while in the room it will log you out of the room each time you move pages so my protip of the day is to click the "popout" option. It will put the chat room in it's own window and then you can browse around the sites to your hearts content while chatting to me ;)

 

Aside from the chatting features there's an option to view the site's Facebook fan page or, for our non-english friends, a button that can translate all the text on the site to a language of their choice. I only speak English unfortunately so I can't vouch for how good the translation is but it looks pretty cool none-the-less.

 

This is all gimmicky stuff and I know some of the people who use the forums and actively engage in the community are really liking the new features but some of you aren't going to be interested. That's cool, just disable the bar in your preferences and you won't see it any more.

 

So have fun with the new features. It can be slow at times, and sometimes it can timeout so if you haven't received any messages you're expecting in a while then try refreshing your page and it should sort the problem. I'm going to be monitoring how it performs on the server(s) over the coming 24 hours and I'll work from there. Who knows, I might be able to modify the bar so it can inform you when a new mod has been uploaded to the site. Now that would be cool.

[ChaironDeCeleste]

Ok, now for the ones who like it and use it and just don't want

it sticky on the bottom of the screen, please:

 

how to make it dockable / get it minimized to the bar on top

of the page when it is in the way?

[MASTABLASTA]

Oooh its shiny!!!!Sooo cool! Its...Nexusbook!Srsly though,I like it but it shows 0 people online lol o.O

[SavageArtistry]

Personally I don't like this new feature; I find it really distracting. Thanks for giving the option to turn it off.

 

Edit: Can we not turn it off in the forum too?

[TheVampireDante]

Edit: Can we not turn it off in the forum too?

 

I second this query, I'd like to switch this thing off completely, both file sites and forum.

[ChaironDeCeleste]

Edit: Can we not turn it off in the forum too?

 

I second this query, I'd like to switch this thing off completely, both file sites and forum.

 

Site Feedback Thread:

 

Yes, there isn't a way to turn it off on the forums, yet.

[TheVampireDante]

Must've missed that, ok. Thanks Chairon.

[Dark0ne]

Ok I've now modified the forum so that turning the bar off on the Nexus sites also turns it off on the forums.

 

Note: If you've already turned the bar off on the site you'll need to turn the bar off again on the site in order for it to turn off on the forums. Just change it back to "yes" then back to "no" again.

[RitualBlack]

I find the bar pretty cool. It gives you the option for live chat, and allows you to play internet games on the nexus site :)

 

(Also, it stays in one spot, some sites it follows your window, and doesn't stay put, and gets really annoying)

[Magirock]

I really like it, thank you!