Chat Features

Chat will be persistent on every page of your social network.
With this new release, chat will become a bar across the bottom of every page of your social network (see screenshots after the jump). It will start in “bar mode” and will expand into “window mode”.
You will be able to pop chat out of your network and keep it open as its own window.
This is something many of you asked for and we’re happy to provide it in this next version.
Sound notifications when messages are received.
Notifications start OFF by default, but can be turned on through the options menu.
Members will appear online more accurately. Because chat is now persistent across all pages on your social network, members will be displayed as online more accurately. However, there will still be the option for a member to make themselves invisible, if they choose.
Reconnections will be more graceful.
When a connection to the server is lost for some reason, chat will attempt to reconnect gracefully without requiring a page refresh, and if possible without affecting the member. There will be no more need to reload the page entirely and lose all your messages.
Chat will now load the entire scrollable list of people online.
No more clicking on ‘More’!. As a result, search will now be faster too.
Better support for firewalls.
This new version uses only port 80, the standard HTTP port.
There will be local message history. Your chat client will now remember the last ten messages sent and allows to look at them by pressing Ctrl+UP and Ctrl+DOWN (arrow keys).
Chat will now be in Flash.
This means that you need to have a minimum of Flash 9 on your computer. You likely already have Flash 9 and, if not, we’ll have instructions for how to add it.

This new version also puts us on the path to release language customization in early March. Specifically, the Network Administrator will now be able to customize your chat and support multiples languages.

Chat Design
Here’s the closed chat window at the bottom of the page:

And here’s the open version:

As you can see, it is the same simple, clean design. The new chat feature will replace your chat tab and the current display options for chat today. We’re happy to work with you on coming up with the best transition recommendations so that our members won’t have a shock to the system. Just drop us a line using the contact us tab to make suggestions. Thanks and we’d love your feedback!