[Feature] Shout Box

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This feature will simply allow members to write short messages to a site
wide 'shout box'. The messages can contain links and text. There will also
be a rss feed.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by gavinjo...@gmail.com on 13 Sep 2007 at 4:25

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This could be achieved with the cache only too, but I think that this is useful 
data
to persist. It may even turn into a ajax powered chat app.

Original comment by gavinjo...@gmail.com on 13 Sep 2007 at 4:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by gavinjo...@gmail.com on 13 Sep 2007 at 4:35

• Added labels: Type-Enhancement
• Removed labels: Type-Defect

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This might be nice to have between users too. You could send a user a message 
(which
would need to have an option in profile whether the user accepts messages or 
not).
Might need to spend some time moderating due to spammers.

Or you could have a user-level shout box. Facebook calls it a "wall", but its 
the
same thing. Other users could write on your wall or shout in your box or 
whatever.
That would need a profile option whether its enabled or not per user, etc.

Original comment by james.e....@gmail.com on 13 Sep 2007 at 4:51

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Nice ideas, I'll implement them so. I don't think the spam problem will be huge 
as it
is mitigated by the procedures that we already have in place.

Original comment by gavinjo...@gmail.com on 13 Sep 2007 at 4:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

You could probably use the same database table for this. If ToUserId is null, 
then
its site wide otherwise its just to that user, etc. 

You might want a flag for "private" or "public". So public messages would show 
on
user's profile page and private would only be seen by sender/receiver. But 
you'll
also probably need a way for users to delete messages sent to them especially 
if the
messages are visible to the public since a message could be not nice, etc.

Original comment by james.e....@gmail.com on 13 Sep 2007 at 5:08

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm thinking one table here too.

I'm not too keen on public/private messages for this iteration, maybe in the 
future
sometime.

Original comment by gavinjo...@gmail.com on 13 Sep 2007 at 5:12

[GoogleCodeExporter]

notes from testing today:

when not logged in, you see textbox and shout button, but can't submit.
if this is user only feature, might want to hide or disable it for usability

need to add max length attribute to textbox

need to fix overflow in display on long words or repeated characters, etc.

need to trap for all whitespace entries

need to trap for only carriage return entries are allowed

need to Trim entries and remove any double whitespaces so things like "1      
3" are
reduced to "1 3" since that's how browsers will render it and it just takes up 
extra
space in database

Original comment by james.e....@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2007 at 9:15

• Changed state: Started

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Just deployed revision 326 which adds a shout box to user profile pages.

Original comment by gavinjo...@gmail.com on 15 Sep 2007 at 4:58

• Changed title: [Feature] Shout Box

[GoogleCodeExporter]

How about adding a potential popup (hidden by default) to every page. In case 
you are
looking at an article and someone does a shout on your personal page, then the 
ajax
callback could check to see if a new shout has been added to your profile. If 
so,
then it opens the popup (non-modal, not really a popup, just an overlay layer). 

Sorta like how Gmail notifier does when you get new emails. It is like a little 
popup
in the lower left of your browser, but not modal. Can't find a reference for it 
now,
but I saw some example javascript to do it a while ago.

This would increase the server load, since every user will be having ajax 
callbacks
to check their shoutbox at whatever interval, so maybe it's not a great idea :)

Original comment by james.e....@gmail.com on 15 Sep 2007 at 6:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

In hyperlink to comments in the shoutbox the bookmark hash is outside of the 
URL. So
it looks like:

jamesewelch commented on [StringBuilder is not always faster]#2304: (6 minutes 
ago):

#2304 is outside of the hyperlink instead of on the href.

Original comment by james.e....@gmail.com on 18 Sep 2007 at 6:11

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Any chance we'll get an API for adding/retrieving entries from the various 
shoutboxes? Perhaps an API for reading which users are online right now as well.

I was toying around with the idea of creating a desktop app that would allow 
you to 
see who is online and post to their shoutbox while receiving notifications of 
posts 
to your own shoutbox, but right now it looks like it would require parsing the 
HTML 
page to retrieve data and would be fairly convoluted to submit data (via a fake 
form 
post).

Original comment by troygoode on 6 Jan 2008 at 6:55