If you want to roll your own chat clients now there's XML you can easily get your hands on to get all the information you need. Only grab the other users XML every 90 seconds or less often that's how often our other users updates... yours shouldn't be any better... or unnecessarily bog down our server.
As for the other two I wouldn't suggest grabbing the regular messages more often than once every 10 seconds and private messages more than once every minute.

We'll set those arbitrary guidelines for now and see if that lightens our server load a bit.

vroom | Tim Vroom | vroom@cs.hope.edu

  • Comment on XML available for chatterbox and other users

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RE: XML available for chatterbox and other users
by Corion (Patriarch) on Jun 01, 2000 at 21:32 UTC

    Wow ! That's real user service ;)

    But on the other side, I have to admit, maybe it would be better to go away from the "specialized client" thing and have an irc <=> perlmonks gateway that echos the stuff both ways (it could also announce new nodes as soon as they become available). But that would obvioulsy leave the chatterbox open for attacks by non-registered users.

    The other alternative would be a private irc server operated on perlmonks.org with user authentification through the database - also not really a viable option ...

    I really find this polling mechanism for chat updates clumsy - maybe there is some Java applet available that we could use for the chat ? Except that this creates browser problems with at least Netscape, but that could maybe be fixed by using the user settings ...

    On the other side, I really like the chat feature and there are many people here with whom I like to chat, so the chat is really a feature and not a gizmo ;)

[reply]
RE: XML available for chatterbox and other users
by mt2k (Hermit) on Jun 01, 2000 at 22:21 UTC
    Now this is good, vroom!
    You know all those complaints you've been getting?
    "Make it popup in another window"
    "Have it at the top of the page"
    "Why can't you use html brackets?"
    Well, way to go! Now everyone can make it how THEY want.
    Talk about great for the users.
    You've been doing a hell of a lot for perlmonks lately, and I just want to say congratulations!
[reply]
      maleteen2000, did you just post a "good job" comment? I thought you hated that?

      Seriously though, thanks vroom. At the current rate of improvements, PerlMonks will gain sentience in about a month :)

[reply]
RE: XML available for chatterbox and other users
by ZZamboni (Curate) on Jun 01, 2000 at 22:17 UTC
    Wow. You really rock, vroom. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

    --ZZamboni

[reply]
RE: XML available for chatterbox and other users
by Anonymous Monk on Jun 02, 2000 at 10:03 UTC
    this is cool vroom. but i have one question: what URL should the chat clients post to?
[reply]
      I guess the same one that everything in this site posts to: http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl, with the appropriate arguments to indicate the action to take. Look at the source for the chatbox nodelet to see all the fields needed.

      --ZZamboni

[reply]
Re: XML available for chatterbox and other users
by demerphq (Chancellor) on Feb 13, 2006 at 15:20 UTC
[reply]

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