Latest IRC conversation logs now avaliable on board index and other additions

[DJ Omnimaga]

As you can notice on our forum index (if you are logged in), now there is a new section between the latest downloads and latest active topics (which was reduced from 15 to 9) where you can see what's currently happening on #omnimaga IRC channel. Since we prefer to keep a certain focus on the forums regarding activity (as you could see with the recent addition of a Board posting notifier bot in #omnimaga), any feature allowing chatting directly from the board index will require a certain amount of forum posts. However, this, combined with the new IRC bot and the old logs history (now split by year, the latest of which is avaliable on the board index below the log fetcher. See Misc section for previous years.), should connect both Omnimaga forums and #omnimaga IRC channel more. Thanks to Netham45 for making most of this possible!

Besides that IRC-related addition, Omnimaga now has a radio, which can be listened 24/7 on any music player that supports m3u streams or radio URLs, such as iTunes or Winamp. The link to the radio is avaliable in the Misc section. This radio is provided by Geekboy1011 (who also setup the music player added last month) and juju2143.

We also moved the Latest Downloads and Board Statistics sections of the board index at the bottom of the page, the first at the top and the second between the Ltest Members and Choose Your Theme sections.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Some minor formatting changes were done to the log fetcher. Now it shows the last 15 lines, so no scrollbar appears unless people most long lines of text. Also, the logs now auto-refreshes every 10 seconds so registered members can see IRC activity in real-time without reloading the page manually.

[Zera]

Not to nitpick, but I really like the "Latest Post" display in the forum index. I use it all the time to keep an eye on threads I've participated in. Now that the list is much smaller, it's a bit harder to ascertain many threads at once. Usually, there are a few other posts or threads appearing between threads I've been active in. The larger display was just the right number for me, based on how often I participate in the forums.

Could there be an option to expand the list to its larger view again?

[DJ Omnimaga]

I could maybe make it to 15 again, but you can also view it on front page or the new posts links (the later shows 100 instead of 10).

However, if I make it 15 I feared everyone would start complaining that the box at the board top is too huge. Do you think I could maybe get rid of the latest files added to the archives on board index? My only fear about removing that is that people would no longer pay attention to our download section. Before we add this box on our board index, a bunch of members didn't even know we even had a download section at all.

[meishe91]

I kind of agree with Zera on this (partially because I can't access the IRC anyways so I don't really need it there ) but mainly for the following posts reason. But I would maybe suggest you could move the latest posts box to the front page and then leave the IRC there (if not make it a little bigger). Just a thought.

[DJ Omnimaga]

I thinkZera actually liked it on board index, since on front page you need to scroll down all the time. To access IRC, you could actually try this. You just need to select a different server, where you would type irc.blessed.net or irc.servercentral.net, for example. Or use another IRC client like Y-Chat or mIRC, providing your parents allow you to install stuff. Or if you're lucky, when you open the Java client and get disconnected, type the command /server irc.blessed.net . Hopefully this might work. Otherwise there are other servers on http://www.efnet.org .

[meishe91]

Well I just meant like if you did put it on the front page you could put it between "Recent Files Added To Our Archives" and "News and Updates" because its there and easy to see but can still see everything too. I just suggested that because the IRC thing kinda clutters the board page (I prefer the latest posted thing there too) at the top to me some, but again that is just me. It was just a suggestion.

Thanks for the IRC things, I'll try those out tomorrow sometime (granted I remember ).

[Geno]

Woah, that's pretty neat.  It's even up to date o_o.  Also, reguarding space, if people think the stuff on the top takes up too much space, couldn't they press the minus button on the top left of what they don't want to see?  It even seems to save the setting, which is nice.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Oh It migth make news less visible, though

Idk, then

Also I think I will make the irc box invisible to guests, kinda like on Cemetech with TI-Sax. Otherwise, newbies may be tempted to use java IRC thing to ask questions, and it's harder to get awnsered there than on the forums, since sometimes people don't pay attention to the channel and then only IRC'ers get the awnser. If asked on the forums, a question with awnser may end up useful for future members too, if viewable easier. The IRC channel is more some sort of place where Omnimaga members hang out to chat and sometimes share minor calc projects updates, anyway. As for if anyone is worried about the people hostmasks showing up this is not a big worry because it's an IRC standard since the '90s and no #tcpa, #ti, #omnimaga and #cemetech members got laid by going in a calculator channel before. It's also much easier to detect imposters this way too. Plus if someone is really paranoid about sharing his IP address/hostmask he can either set him a vhost or not go to IRC altogether.

[SirCmpwn]

^I agree with making it invisible to guests.
Also, i think you should move it underneath the recent posts.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Mhmm good idea.

Also now I decided that the latest files and that "86127 posts in 4413 topics since May 12th 2005  •  29726 posts in 1287 topics since August 25th 2008 by 322 members" thing are moving down the page, now. If people start forgetting about the downloads section I will just try to figure out another solution.

[Zera]

Actually, I already do minimize the "Recently Added" section. I don't really use it. Minimizing other sections doesn't expand the ones you have open, though. (as far as I know)

When I logged-in today, the "Latest Posts" section was expanded again. I like how this currently looks; although, it would also be fine to place the IRC activity log above that section. People who don't use it can just minimize it so it doesn't obstruct their view.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah I decided to finally make it 15 topics again. But now I am in a dillema: some ppl want the IRC block above the latest posts and some other ppl want it below

[Zera]

Personally, I don't mind where the IRC section is positioned, either way. As long as I have my standard "Lastest Topics" list, I'm a happy camper.

[DJ Omnimaga]

On Ezportal site, I posted a feature suggestion:

A scrollbar for the latest topic list. I wonder if they would add this, but it would be nice, because I would like to make the list show 6 or 7 topics at once, but have a scrollbar so it shows more. Basically I could show 50 while still not having it take too much height.

EDIT: I finally moved the irc log thing above because the anchor making them scroll all the way to the bottom on page load caused the entire forum page to automatically scroll down there on page load. I'll let things like this until netham45 figure out a way to make the logs show most recent lines first so I no longer need the anchor.