If you could have a better chat protocol...

[Rinpun]

...what would you see on it that would make it better?

I've already considered several points, but please tell me what else you might see in a chat program.

*There must be ads. It's one of the only ways to fund a chat program. However, since it only adds a tiny income, you can fish out perhaps 5$ a year if you want them removed.

*HTML format. At least, you could type a tag and then the code afterwards will show up in the chat protocol as HTML, so you could write some div tags and display a button script to your friend.

*Smilies. Kind of obvious, but people should be able to add their own as long as the submissions are in a certain resolution limit...right?

*Beeps should be off by default. I figure it's a good feature to have on some occasions when I actually want to know when someone has talked to me and thus have a beep to get my attention. However, it should be off by default, instead of either being hard-wired in or, as I think it is in all the other messengers, just turned on by default.

*Large Messages. Also kind of obvious, but because MSN has a ridiculous 100 character or so limit on sent messages, it's impossible to display a good block of code for someone to see, because you have to cut and paste it continuously on.

*Message Recording, so you can look them up later.

*RAM efficient.

 

[emjlr3]

hmm, Trillian has most of this, however, is still limited to the text limit of msn and AIM

1 major thing I can think of is low Ram usage

cuz right now, Trillain takes a good 10 secs to load up on my comp, and uses like 100mb ram, that is a bit too much IMO

 

[Rinpun]

Ooh, good point. I'll add that in

And you are correct, that is a bit too much. The program I use to program in...Visual Studio...takes 2-3 seconds to load and 65 mb. And, MSN Messenger takes a half to second to load and 28 mb, much more in the realm of an instant messenger.

 

[King TonGoll]

your making a chat program?

I'll suggest peaple being able too host there own channels 24/7 on a user owned host.

umm, being able too have a name and Title. or be givin a nick name by another user soo that is what they see you as.

animated pics for avatars.

i know that adds more too the filesize, lol. soo maybe make the avatar thing only available too user hosted servers.

 

[XXXconanXXX]

The usual stuff. Avatars, (Preferably animated-allowed ones as well) different text sizes and fonts, as well as colors and the typical bold/italic/underline text.

I also like how AIM used text size - You could increase the size of each letter, making some cool effects. Unlike MSN, where changing text size changes text size for the person changing it, and for the whole program.

I also like simple, effective, and varied emoticons as well. The ability to import custom ones would be a nice feature as well.

Then you have typical stuff like clean, sleak interface, (Nothing like the old AIM - And nothing like the new AIM, something in between, know what I mean?) and a somewhat undermined feature, but the feature to arrange the friends list by however you like it - alphabetical order and vice versa, and to custom arrange them.

 

[Lord_Phoenix]

try gaim.

its AIM, IRC, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu, Groupwise, Jabber, Napster, and SILc all rolled into one program. I don't know what most of those are, but overall its pretty efficient.

 

[Rinpun]

I have tried GAIM. Everything has its flaws, no?

I'm asking because I'm going to be working on a chat protocol that can be used extensively with some school products I'm going to be developing. Naturally, they can be used separately since we want a larger user base, but we want to make a nice protocol that everyone can have fun with.

I'll make a note of avatars, and possible animation allowed in them. Because of allowing HTML, changing your text and stuff should be possible, but I'll make a specific note to support it.

As for hosting channels...maybe, I'll consider it