Programming Language Community Forums Update 2/14/12

[David B]

Hello everybody!

Today, before I move onto today's excitement, I would like to discuss a minor update that was made on February 11, 2012. On February 10, 2012, we announced the creation of our LiveStream account. On February 11, we added a new button to the navigation bar that, when clicked on, opens, in the full window of you web browser, a LiveStream player that is playing that which is currently pre-programmed to play on, "PLCF Live!" To access this player, click on the button.

Okay, now that we got yesterday out of the way, let's move on to today!

Today, I am excited to announce the upgrade of our chat button from LGChat v4.4 to LGChat 4.5! So, with that in mind, let's take a look at what this new version has to offer! For starters, this new version has a new sticky message at the top of it that will allow us to tack important messages regarding the chat at the top. Only administrators can write sticky messages. As of this writing, the sticky message is currently set to, "This is the sticky message!" We will change this message later on, but for now, it will remain this way. Another great feature is the ability to send a friend request to another member directly from the chatbox! This feature uses the friend system that was already available on this forum. To send a friend request from the chat, simply type in the following command:

Spoiler:

. Where username is the actual username of the member whom you wish to friend. The chat will not display any sort of confirmation of this action, but the next time the member whom you included in the command logs in, they will see, covering up or logo, the new friend request alert which was added to this forum rather recently, and they will decide from there whether or not they want to be friends with you or not. Perhaps one of the greatest additions to this update is the new color picker, which is faster, loads inside the chatbox (instead of the pop-up, which could be annoying for those with pop-up blockers activated because then the color chooser would not load), has a new button that replaces the old one, and is just better in general. This new color picker should prove to be a wonderful convenience for everyone who loves to change their chatbox text colors! The last update to this button is the changing of title of the forum whenever a new message appear! The next time you are chatting, close the chat, wait for the next message by listening for the beep, watching for the color change, and yes, check the title of the forum at the top of the page, and you will see that it has temporarily been changed to, "New Message!" As soon as you open the chat, it will change back to, "Programming Language Community Forums." Below are some screen shots of the new chat features.

Here is a screen capture of the new sticky note.



Take a moment, and look at the old color picker ...



... next to the new one!



In this preview of my web browser, you see that I have two different pages on the forum open at once.



But look! When a new message is typed, both pages change their titles!