Chatroom

[Ildûrest]

My chat server is now, as far as I know, impossible to break. I've made a few revisions and improvements, and plan to do more.

Come and visit by clicking Start, Run, and typing
telnet www.autopack.com 9202

I'll hopefully be around between 6 and 9 pm EST. That's GMT + 10.

Just try it every so often and maybe we'll bump into one another. I'm hanging around there right now.

This post will self-destruct in a few days.

[newk]

Why didn't I think of that? Thats the most kick-ass thing EVER!

[Mikrondel]

Hey, it was a tough thing to write. Yep, I made it in C. And I'm still working on it and improving it.

The good thing about it is that it uses the ancient TELNET protocol; just about ever computer today has a telnet client on it. This causes the problem that you cannot easily see what you type; because TELNET was designed to supply commands and then receive responses, rather than be frequently interrupted by incoming messages.

(It's basically a streams thing: a succession of characters in fixed order. One stream is fed to the server and the other to the client. Telnet clients usually display only the stream they receive, and changing the character position, and worse, moving text around, is quite tricky.)

It doesn't yet log what you say; however I left a connection to it open, and I know what you said. Including a bad word.

Here's what you'd see if you were in the chatroom when Earl came along:
anEarl has just joined the chatroom.
anEarl: Earl
anEarl: arg@! stupid thing, can't see what i'm wriging
anEarl: exit
anEarl: quit
anEarl: how do i get out of here?
anEarl has just left the chatroom.

I'm around at the moment, come! Join!

[Ildûrest]

Tried to post this yesterday but some technical problem happened. Anyway:

Chatroom tip:
When in the chatroom, try pressing Alt + (numpad) 007
This *should* create a beep that will alert anyone else in the chatroom of your presence.

[Mikrondel]

Update:
Type
#LST
in the chatroom to get yourself a nifty list of anyone already there.

Also the chatroom is even more robust and attack-resistant (you know it's possible just to send a long stream of random characters to a port; that would flood the chatroom painfully. (Earlier on this would crash the chatroom) But now such antisocial connections get booted!) so I don't have to be around for it to work reliably (or have a need to restart it if it fails).

Enjoy!

[Mikrondel]

Update:
A few more useful commands! One of them needs a password which I certainly ain't going to post here. Log in and type #HLP for an idea of what's new.

Oh, and....
Something great's coming in version 3.00!

[Ildûrest]

I'd like to see both of NEWK and Earl's excuses for the following:
"Earl: well, that's all for now, too bad no one else is on now... probably should've posted this on the forum..."
"Well, I guess no one's here. Bye!"

The #LST command (mentioned only two posts up) tells you who's in. Salt was in the chatroom, and Salt was me.

Now RE Earl's comments:
"Earl: first, after \"Initiating chat system...\", display some sort of notice so that the user can sknow when it is possible to type something in"
Theoretically as soon as you get in, someone else says "Hello!" or just keeps talking to whoever else is already there. When nobody's there, well, hmm. I'll look into it.

"Earl: second, while it is quite possible that telnet's inherant limitations prevent the user from viewing the information they type, coudln't a
Earl: mthod be devised to circumvent this?"

Sure. Two things: The difficulty of finding good references for advanced TELNET stuff (actually it's console stuff, nothing to do with the telnet protocol except for being initiated by it) combined with the complicatedicityationness [sic] of implementing it all make it a pretty big task.
Secondly, I want this as a pretty light-but-strong thing. Doesn't take much of the server's processor power, hardly uses bandwidth, and works on practically any telnet client. (Which currently I think it achieves splendidly)

And
"Earl: perhaps a cache on the user's side?"
That's pronounced "Why not just make a client program for this?"
The answer, as you should more-or-less know, is that this was always a telnet chat thing; for which you don't need a special client, telnet clients being present on almost every computer these days; and of course, most importantly, I can't be expected to make a GUI for it. Because I just make the server.

[mopsy]

It dosen't work for me. I was going to be a good member mand test it out. But it wouldn't let me enter. I did the run thing copied and pasted this
telnet www.autopack.com 9202
and then it popped up a box then closed. Never to be seen again.

[Mikrondel]

Yep. Predictable, because I rebooted the router a few hours ago and forgot to start the chatroom again.

It's back up.

P.s. Don't worry so much about "testing" it; unless you're in the mood for connecting and disconnecting rapidly, sending it junk characters, etc.

Trying it out, however, is a different story. Invite some friends and enjoy!

[earlofqb]

I do apologize for not speaking to anyone, however no one was speaking at the moment. Before you ask, yes, I did "beep" when entering.

I sort of realized that creating a client would be a useless idea, as if you'd do that, there'd be thousands of commercial chat programs everywhere. Further, if you did that, you'd go insanely out of the scope of your program (ie light-but-strong).

Well, that's enough of my commenting, for I am n00b.

[Ildûrest]

Yes, but did you #LST ? then you would have discovered someone was logged in. In any case, no problem, just it would be nice if someone said either "w00t ur chatrum has 1337 commandz, how do u mak it wurk lik taht" or "Pfft, I've been to chatrooms with heaps of these command things" or some such.

Maybe if I host my code someone will either give more appreciation or more comments.

Anyway, farewell for now.

[earlofqb]

Well, I just logged in and posted what you wanted. If you hosted the code, perhaps we could help develop it. Of course, as it's in C, a lot of us (including myself) would be virtually useless until we learned C (I've a good excuse: I got bored and confused). However, some of the "oldies" and other 1337 out there might enjoy it.

[Ildûrest]

No, it's my code. I'm fine with releasing it, but not with accepting additions by other people.

It's my project and I want to see how far I can take it.

Still, www.autopack.com/aleks/hold/alkarus.c

Released under GPL.

[Mikrondel]

Now, I think I have a good method to let you see what you type. Should I take it, or leave the chat server in its "legacy" state?

Clearly if I do add this feature I'll keep a copy of the ancient version around. What do people think?

[earlofqb]

So long as you keep a version of the "ancient" one (meaning we can rollback if we want), why not? I too am inquisative as to what it'd be like.

Thanks for the code, I'll check it out later tonight (although since it would probably contaminate your creative process I'll refrain from commenting on it. I urge others to do the same).

[Mikrondel]

No, comment is definitely fine. Just don't expect me to adopt any modifications you present to me. (I might, if you see an obvious hole somewhere, or some such, but I ask that you don't go creating new features or anything)

[mopsy]

So, has the room been canceled? I noticed a lack of updates, and I just tried to connect and the servers down..

[Ildûrest]

Nothing of the sort. I'm just unbelievably busy. And that means I don't always remember to restart the server process when the server machine is rebooted, and the like.

Why the <expletive> would I cancel this project? I'm hurt now.