kmwill23
Sorceror
Knives' Chat v3.0
Summary:
Version 3.0 Beta 6
Supports RunUO 2.0***
***This version, due to command modifications between RunUO 1.0 and 2.0, will not work on previous RunUO versions!
Welcome to the third incarnation of my chat system! Amazing that a new major version seems to come along every summer, and I have to admit I don’t plan it that way. The original chat system began development in January of 2004. I released the second major version in May of 2005. Each new version is a near complete rewrite from the ground up, allowing improved performance and design, as well as the possibility for new features.
This update doesn’t disappoint! When I asked for ideas to include in the new release, many users suggested a way to create new chatting channels. I’ve done just that, and in the process streamlined the setup and options on those channels. Each channel is independent, meaning you can remove it and nothing else will suffer. Instead of an option to turn off Faction, Guild, Alliance, and other channels, you can simply remove or rename those files.
Many of the changes this update are improvements to existing portions of the system. Instead of just a private message received flag, players now get a friends list showing where those messages are coming from, kind of like popular instant messaging programs. On top of that, players have a Mail client from which they can browse and delete older mail. Staff can also go into player mail accounts to view offensive messages. To prevent overflowing mailboxes, players can require senders to be friends, and mailboxes have a maximum size just like the RunUO forums. Staff members can broadcast private messages to all players. Another minor feature is allowing players to break the normal text limit on composing messages.
Wow, that’s a lot of private messaging improvements! Thanks to some excellent advice from other RunUO users, I’ve also improved the connection to IRC servers. They should connect faster and connect to more IRC server types. Players can also now ignore IRC chatters almost the same way as in-game players.
For non-English shards, a localization file allows easy modification of all the text used for the system.
I streamlined the overall layout of the system, including the channel lists and selection, options, search, and setup. For example, if you want options related to private messaging, check the options in your mail or friends list. Related to searching, I finally re-added the phonebook style search from the original system!
Like always, I am soliciting all feedback, complaints and ideas you may have for the system. You should also report bugs, often!
It wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t include… this system requires no existing script modifications.
And of course… The IRC capability of this chat system does not handle nickname registration. You will have to do this for your shard using another client.
Features included in this system:
- Public or regional chatting
- Channel creation or removal
- Guild, Alliance, Faction and IRC chatting
- Channel listings with simple navigation
- Ignoring, banning, listening, global listening
- Filtering and spam prevention
- IM style Friends list
- Mailbox interface
- In-game integrated IRC client
- Localized text file for easy language changes
Commands included in this system:
- You control the commands for your public channels!
- Guild: G, Guild
- Alliance: A, Ally
- Faction: F, Faction
- IRC: I, IRC
- Channel List: L, List
- Private Message: Pm, Msg (Followed by a player’s name and text to include in message)
- Admin Chat Setup: CS, ChatSetup
- Mail: Ma, Mail
- Friends: F, Friends
- Staff: St, Staff
There are more commands available through the Utilities package, including the error reporting system (Errors) and the command changing system (Commands).
Interface details:
The major addition in 3.0 is the new Channel system. These channels are very similar to previous public chat, where players can turn them on and off and view the players who have public chat on. With channels, however, server admins can add more than one public chatroom! Players can join and leave these rooms by pressing the gold button next to the channel name on the channel list.
Let’s begin with the channel list. On your first login you will notice that no names display on this list, because you haven’t chosen to join any available channels. Through this setup you can join and leave those channels at will, including all public channels. Press the gold button near the top left of the menu to access the channel list. If you are in a guild, that option will be available to you. If IRC is enabled and connected, so will that. Once you join a channel, the gold button will spear next to it on that selection menu. When you press this, the list will reappear showing the names of players in that channel. If admins have allowed, staff names will also appear.
Next to the channel name at the top you will notice two small arrows. This allows you to change the number of names listed, for those players who want the smallest menu possible or be able to see as many names as possible. In the right corner is a minimize button, which does just that. At the bottom you’ll find Options, Search, Mail and Friends buttons, which open those different modules. Administrators will also see a button with a nice red ‘A’, which will open the Chat Setup menu.
The ‘O’ options will open to the list’s side, and have options specifically for channels and that specific channel. This same options button will appear on the Mail and Friend interface, and follow the same idea. They also all have the Search button, which allows searching players and mail based on text or a single letter “phonebook” search.
These options also provide staff members additional options. In particular, if they have Global Access, granted by administrators, they can listen to other players. When Global is selected, you will get additional options like Global Pms, Global Chat, Global World. When Global is not selected, you can select individual players to listen to, and all that player’s chats, messages, and world speech will be seen in your game window.
Each player will have a little gold button next to their name. Using this you can open up options specifically for that player, where you can friend, ignore or send them a message. Staff can also listen or globally ignore them, open their client information, go to them, and read their mail messages.
The friend’s list has many features I’ve just described. In addition, the minimized friend’s list will appear when you receive a private message, and you can check that message through the minimized interface. However, if you open that menu up you’ll be able to see exactly who sent you that message, and chose whichever you want to read first. Normally, only people you’ve identified as friends will appear on your list. When you receive a message from a non-friend, they will appear temporarily.
The options for friends allow you to limit who can send you messages, and who can add you as a friend. By selecting “Only friends can send messages”, only if you and the other are on each other’s friend list can you pass messages between. By selecting “Require friend requests”, players must request your approval before adding you to their friend’s list. Of course you can also have neat sounds for private messages from specific players.
Those private messages permanently appear in your Mail. Be careful, because there is a limit to the number of private messages your mailbox can hold! If it’s full, only staff can send you messages. Luckily Mail has an option to automatically delete messages that are more than 7 days old. You can also bug your Admin to change the max mailbox storage.
When sending a private message to another player, you can go beyond the normal message size limit by using the new recording feature. When you activate this feature, everything you say on the UO command line will appear in your private message window. When done, simple hit the send button!
Administrators have their own special options menu, opened through [chatsetup or the red ‘A’ button on the channel list. The first page you’ll see is the channel setup page, where you can add and modify new public channels. The second page contains a few misc options. The third shows all filter and spam options. Finally, the fourth page lets you setup the IRC connection.
It’s all so simple!
Installing:
- Remove all previous installations of Knives’ Chat
- Remove all previous installations of Knives’ Utilities
oNOTE: If you use RunUO 1.0, the current Utilities version is 1.02!
oNOTE: This system uses Utilities 1.03, which is not compatible with Non-2.0 Chat or TownHouses.
- Drop the new Knives’ Chat and Utilities into your custom folder.
- If you want to use the Localization file, move ChatLocal.txt to your ‘\RunUO\data\’ folder.
- Run the server! No existing script modifications required!
Contact Info: Send me an email day or night (Though I will likely be sleeping at night)! [email protected]
Summary:
Version 3.0 Beta 6
Supports RunUO 2.0***
***This version, due to command modifications between RunUO 1.0 and 2.0, will not work on previous RunUO versions!
Welcome to the third incarnation of my chat system! Amazing that a new major version seems to come along every summer, and I have to admit I don’t plan it that way. The original chat system began development in January of 2004. I released the second major version in May of 2005. Each new version is a near complete rewrite from the ground up, allowing improved performance and design, as well as the possibility for new features.
This update doesn’t disappoint! When I asked for ideas to include in the new release, many users suggested a way to create new chatting channels. I’ve done just that, and in the process streamlined the setup and options on those channels. Each channel is independent, meaning you can remove it and nothing else will suffer. Instead of an option to turn off Faction, Guild, Alliance, and other channels, you can simply remove or rename those files.
Many of the changes this update are improvements to existing portions of the system. Instead of just a private message received flag, players now get a friends list showing where those messages are coming from, kind of like popular instant messaging programs. On top of that, players have a Mail client from which they can browse and delete older mail. Staff can also go into player mail accounts to view offensive messages. To prevent overflowing mailboxes, players can require senders to be friends, and mailboxes have a maximum size just like the RunUO forums. Staff members can broadcast private messages to all players. Another minor feature is allowing players to break the normal text limit on composing messages.
Wow, that’s a lot of private messaging improvements! Thanks to some excellent advice from other RunUO users, I’ve also improved the connection to IRC servers. They should connect faster and connect to more IRC server types. Players can also now ignore IRC chatters almost the same way as in-game players.
For non-English shards, a localization file allows easy modification of all the text used for the system.
I streamlined the overall layout of the system, including the channel lists and selection, options, search, and setup. For example, if you want options related to private messaging, check the options in your mail or friends list. Related to searching, I finally re-added the phonebook style search from the original system!
Like always, I am soliciting all feedback, complaints and ideas you may have for the system. You should also report bugs, often!
It wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t include… this system requires no existing script modifications.
And of course… The IRC capability of this chat system does not handle nickname registration. You will have to do this for your shard using another client.
Features included in this system:
- Public or regional chatting
- Channel creation or removal
- Guild, Alliance, Faction and IRC chatting
- Channel listings with simple navigation
- Ignoring, banning, listening, global listening
- Filtering and spam prevention
- IM style Friends list
- Mailbox interface
- In-game integrated IRC client
- Localized text file for easy language changes
Commands included in this system:
- You control the commands for your public channels!
- Guild: G, Guild
- Alliance: A, Ally
- Faction: F, Faction
- IRC: I, IRC
- Channel List: L, List
- Private Message: Pm, Msg (Followed by a player’s name and text to include in message)
- Admin Chat Setup: CS, ChatSetup
- Mail: Ma, Mail
- Friends: F, Friends
- Staff: St, Staff
There are more commands available through the Utilities package, including the error reporting system (Errors) and the command changing system (Commands).
Interface details:
The major addition in 3.0 is the new Channel system. These channels are very similar to previous public chat, where players can turn them on and off and view the players who have public chat on. With channels, however, server admins can add more than one public chatroom! Players can join and leave these rooms by pressing the gold button next to the channel name on the channel list.
Let’s begin with the channel list. On your first login you will notice that no names display on this list, because you haven’t chosen to join any available channels. Through this setup you can join and leave those channels at will, including all public channels. Press the gold button near the top left of the menu to access the channel list. If you are in a guild, that option will be available to you. If IRC is enabled and connected, so will that. Once you join a channel, the gold button will spear next to it on that selection menu. When you press this, the list will reappear showing the names of players in that channel. If admins have allowed, staff names will also appear.
Next to the channel name at the top you will notice two small arrows. This allows you to change the number of names listed, for those players who want the smallest menu possible or be able to see as many names as possible. In the right corner is a minimize button, which does just that. At the bottom you’ll find Options, Search, Mail and Friends buttons, which open those different modules. Administrators will also see a button with a nice red ‘A’, which will open the Chat Setup menu.
The ‘O’ options will open to the list’s side, and have options specifically for channels and that specific channel. This same options button will appear on the Mail and Friend interface, and follow the same idea. They also all have the Search button, which allows searching players and mail based on text or a single letter “phonebook” search.
These options also provide staff members additional options. In particular, if they have Global Access, granted by administrators, they can listen to other players. When Global is selected, you will get additional options like Global Pms, Global Chat, Global World. When Global is not selected, you can select individual players to listen to, and all that player’s chats, messages, and world speech will be seen in your game window.
Each player will have a little gold button next to their name. Using this you can open up options specifically for that player, where you can friend, ignore or send them a message. Staff can also listen or globally ignore them, open their client information, go to them, and read their mail messages.
The friend’s list has many features I’ve just described. In addition, the minimized friend’s list will appear when you receive a private message, and you can check that message through the minimized interface. However, if you open that menu up you’ll be able to see exactly who sent you that message, and chose whichever you want to read first. Normally, only people you’ve identified as friends will appear on your list. When you receive a message from a non-friend, they will appear temporarily.
The options for friends allow you to limit who can send you messages, and who can add you as a friend. By selecting “Only friends can send messages”, only if you and the other are on each other’s friend list can you pass messages between. By selecting “Require friend requests”, players must request your approval before adding you to their friend’s list. Of course you can also have neat sounds for private messages from specific players.
Those private messages permanently appear in your Mail. Be careful, because there is a limit to the number of private messages your mailbox can hold! If it’s full, only staff can send you messages. Luckily Mail has an option to automatically delete messages that are more than 7 days old. You can also bug your Admin to change the max mailbox storage.
When sending a private message to another player, you can go beyond the normal message size limit by using the new recording feature. When you activate this feature, everything you say on the UO command line will appear in your private message window. When done, simple hit the send button!
Administrators have their own special options menu, opened through [chatsetup or the red ‘A’ button on the channel list. The first page you’ll see is the channel setup page, where you can add and modify new public channels. The second page contains a few misc options. The third shows all filter and spam options. Finally, the fourth page lets you setup the IRC connection.
It’s all so simple!
Installing:
- Remove all previous installations of Knives’ Chat
- Remove all previous installations of Knives’ Utilities
oNOTE: If you use RunUO 1.0, the current Utilities version is 1.02!
oNOTE: This system uses Utilities 1.03, which is not compatible with Non-2.0 Chat or TownHouses.
- Drop the new Knives’ Chat and Utilities into your custom folder.
- If you want to use the Localization file, move ChatLocal.txt to your ‘\RunUO\data\’ folder.
- Run the server! No existing script modifications required!
Contact Info: Send me an email day or night (Though I will likely be sleeping at night)! [email protected]
