Chat Features

[Emryys]

Here is a list of possible chat features that you may or maynot wish to persue...

Alot of the features presume the a voice connection is not being used for roleplaying, although many would still be handy anyways. I use a voice connection for OOC talk and rule/tech questions, but stick to chat for roleplaying as I find this enhances the immersion of roleplying online. This may differ for others

* /me output as an action. "/me checks his backpack", would come out as Gorath (character name) checks his backpack. It's in a set color (purple?) and is italicized to designate action. This way actions that cannot be shown "visually" on the map can be expressed, including facial gestures and body language. Gorath shruggs...

* Be able to choose each characters output color

* Have a dropdown menu for the ref to output chat as an NPC

* Be able to right click on an NPC and choose some available preset chat output that is input by the ref. Bartender- "What are ya drinkin' you swines"

* Have a dropdown menu to select "narrations", which are bits of text like room descriptions

* Have a whisper ability with dierolling ability for those special rolls

* Have the chat feature as a floating window that may be collapsed to the tray and hilights like an IM when someone enters something. Maybe an option to have the text appear on the map itself

* /<1-9> Have 9 preset dice rolls that can be accessed via the chat feature.

* Be able to send hyperlinks via the chat so Refs could have online data/web sites that the players could access during play

* Be able to cut/paste/copy to/from the chat feature

* Be able to scroll back the full chat session for reference during play (dierolls, etc)

* Of course have the complete text auto save or right click to save for the campaign journals

Just a few

I originally posted these to BGRP, but theirs seems like it is intent on being a Klooge Klone

[Emryys]

I hope this isn't intimidating! Consider it the "Chat Features Aisle "

Are any of these interesting? Doable?

You guys make good decisions... we trust ya

[trevor]

I'll take a stab:

* /me output as an action.

This even goes way back to muds and irc, called an emote. I love the idea and will implement it in M9

* Be able to choose each characters output color

This is certainly do-able. I'll see if I can squeeze it into M9. I'll put in a tracker for it

* Have a dropdown menu for the ref to output chat as an NPC

The current plan is to support the 'as' directive for each chat type, so the GM could actually speak as a PC. For example "/say as Bob hi there !" would show up as "Bob says: hi there!". Or perhaps "/whisper jack as Bob let's kill the small one" would only show up to jack.

* Be able to right click on an NPC and choose some available preset chat output that is input by the ref. Bartender- "What are ya drinkin' you swines"

Interesting idea. Certainly would help those who pre-setup their campaigns. I'll put in a tracker for it. It might end up being implemented slightly differently, but the end result would be the same. You know, it would actually be pretty cool to have a speech bubble pop out of the token for a couple seconds. That would be nifty (and sounds fun to implement), hmmmmm ....

* Have a dropdown menu to select "narrations", which are bits of text like room descriptions

We have a couple ideas on this one. One of them is to be able to put info markers on the map that only GMs can see. The info markers can contain canned text, or GM notes, or whatever. The GM can then have the details broadcast to the players by selecting the text, or something. That's kinda the direction we're headed.

* Have a whisper ability with dierolling ability for those special rolls

There was an idea posted recently (I think from you) to support arbitrary die rolling from inside of any text. I like that idea, so this would simply boil down to a /whisper with an embedded die roll

* Have the chat feature as a floating window that may be collapsed to the tray and hilights like an IM when someone enters something. Maybe an option to have the text appear on the map itself

This defines exactly what we are thinking. In fact there is a tracker in M9 for it. The idea is to put the chat panel in a collapsible panel at the bottom that pops up when hovered over. It can also be "pinned" so that it doesn't auto hide. When it isn't displayed the idea is to post the text up in the top left where the notifications are shown (such as JoJo has connected).

* /<1-9> Have 9 preset dice rolls that can be accessed via the chat feature.

I've got what I believe is a nifty extension that would support this, I'll post the idea in a different thread post 1.0

* Be able to send hyperlinks via the chat so Refs could have online data/web sites that the players could access during play

This would be pretty sweet. We fully intend to support links in the chat.

* Be able to cut/paste/copy to/from the chat feature

We're going to make the chat panel a regular text area (that renders html marked up text), so copy/paste will be available by default

* Be able to scroll back the full chat session for reference during play (dierolls, etc)

This will be fully supported, as well as the ability to save the chat to disk

* Of course have the complete text auto save or right click to save for the campaign journals

Oops, got ahead of myself on the previous one

(Sourceforge.net seems to be having significant issues at the moment, so I'll create the appropriate trackers when it becomes available again)

[Emryys]

* Have a dropdown menu for the ref to output chat as an NPC

The current plan is to support the 'as' directive for each chat type, so the GM could actually speak as a PC. For example "/say as Bob hi there !" would show up as "Bob says: hi there!". Or perhaps "/whisper jack as Bob let's kill the small one" would only show up to jack.

* Be able to right click on an NPC and choose some available preset chat output that is input by the ref. Bartender- "What are ya drinkin' you swines"

Interesting idea. Certainly would help those who pre-setup their campaigns. I'll put in a tracker for it. It might end up being implemented slightly differently, but the end result would be the same. You know, it would actually be pretty cool to have a speech bubble pop out of the token for a couple seconds. That would be nifty (and sounds fun to implement), hmmmmm ....

These two kind of go together... If you made chat as a seperate tool (dare I say ChatTool), or maybe combine it with dicetool, since using dice macros in chat would work well for RPGing, then "right-click on the token" menus make it easier (and faster for the GM) to send text/dicerolls as NPC's. In GRiP the GM would click on the NPC in the sidebar to "become the NPC, then when he did "/me" commands it would be action text as the NPC. For a GM, less typing is time that could be spent on evil planning

* Have the chat feature as a floating window that may be collapsed to the tray and hilights like an IM when someone enters something. Maybe an option to have the text appear on the map itself

This defines exactly what we are thinking. In fact there is a tracker in M9 for it. The idea is to put the chat panel in a collapsible panel at the bottom that pops up when hovered over. It can also be "pinned" so that it doesn't auto hide. When it isn't displayed the idea is to post the text up in the top left where the notifications are shown (such as JoJo has connected)

I really am starting to think that combining Dicetool with the chat features would work best for the modular plans. People who are chatlite could turn off these features or not use the module at all, and some might just use Chat/DiceTool all on it's own....

[Mr.Ice]

Canned chat output is another reason I like DiceTool as a chat client. The programmable buttons are perfect for this.

It'll take some work, and of course the other improvements tcroft has planned for the chat interface on maptool will be important for Dice/Chat tool to take advantage of.

[KingMonkey]

I like the idea of separate tools and mentioned one time on the SourceForge forums about keeping the tools separate and pumping chat and other information across a localhost socket between the chat program and the MapTool. That idea was received favorably (I think).

Keeping the programs separate will allow each program to focus on what each program would do best. If needed, a ChatTool could communicate with MapTool and do most of the chat related stuff including display, DiceTool could inject rolls into chat, and if someone decided to write a fancy CharacterSheetTool it could send bits of character sheet information, including skill rolls, to the chat.

I'd be willing to work on building a ChatTool or help with DiceTool if someone would like my help. Is there a protocol definition in place for an external tool to interact with MapTool's chat? Whats the best way to proceed?

[Emryys]

CharacterSheetTool could send bits of character sheet information, including skill rolls, to the chat

This would be a great idea...

New tool perhaps...

[Mr.Ice]

I'd be willing to work on building a ChatTool or help with DiceTool if someone would like my help. Is there a protocol definition in place for an external tool to interact with MapTool's chat? Whats the best way to proceed?

My suggestion would be to dig into the code, bite off a medium sized enhancement or bugfix (!!), and submit patches to us.

[trevor]

I'd be willing to work on building a ChatTool or help with DiceTool if someone would like my help. Is there a protocol definition in place for an external tool to interact with MapTool's chat? Whats the best way to proceed?

My suggestion would be to dig into the code, bite off a medium sized enhancement or bugfix (!!), and submit patches to us.

Oops, sorry, thought I had responded to this one, but apparently didn't. We should post the appropriate steps to the website.

We're very selective who we let have cvs commit access.

Here's the process:

- Pick a feature out of the tracker list for the current development effort (currently M9) that you would like to implement.
- Let me or giliath know and we'll check out the tracker for you (so that no one else works on it).
- Then check out the source from sourceforge and implement the feature/bug. (We recommend using Eclipse, it makes creating patches really easy.)
- Send us the patch via [email protected] (we can walk you through it when you get there).
- At this point we'll review the patch and ask for adjustments, and finally apply it and close the tracker

If you supply a couple high quality patches we would be happy to add you to the committer's list and to the project proper so you can check out your own trackers and implement them when you want