LBIChat News

New Java Chat Rooms and Games in Development
8 February 2004

Eagle is working hard to develop new Java chatrooms. Java is a programming language that allows programmers to write applets (small programs) for the web. You can tell if a web page has an applet if you see a gray box on your screen before the picture or text is displayed.

Java chat will have many advantages over the present web-based chatrooms. The most noticeable change will be the lack of page refreshing. Our web-based chat relies on the chat page refreshing every 5 seconds to display any new text that has been added. If you have visited other chatrooms, you probably have used a Java chat program. The words scroll smoothly up the screen and no refresh is needed. It'll be nice to get rid of that annoying flash every 5 seconds.

The new chatrooms will also allow you to Ignore other people in the room. The ignore feature is handy if you want to concentrate on your chat partners, or if someone in the room is causing problems that you don't wish to see.

Another nifty feature of the Java chatrooms will be the ability to change the color and style of your words. If you want your text to appear green and be bold or underlined, you'll be able to do that. Everyone's text can have a different look, and that should make chatting more enjoyable.

You'll also be able to display web links. Other people in the room can click on the link and go to the webpage. This may seem to contradict our policy of no advertising in the chatroom, but we've notice that many people like to share favorite web sites and/or pictures on the web. We'll try to keep the advertisers at bay.

And of course, the new rooms will have a new Private Messaging system. It will be similar to IM, where you click on a chatter's name and a separate box appears where you can chat privately with that person.

WE WILL NOT BE LOSING THE OLD ROOMS COMPLETELY!!!

While we cannot wait to use the new Java-based chatrooms, we know that many people cannot use Java because they are either on a TV-based internet provider or are behind a firewall. Never fear! We will continue to provide a couple of web-based rooms just for you. We are even looking into the possibility of combining the two technologies so that web-based and java-based chatters can participate in the same conversations.

If you were around when LBIChat.com first started, you know that we once allowed non-registered uses into the chatrooms. We've decided to create two new web-based chatrooms so that people who do not wish to give their personal information can participate in a chat.

This includes children under 13. United States law prohibits the requesting of personal information from children 12 and under, so we'll let them into these new rooms, also. Needless to say, this means the web-based rooms will be monitored.

Speaking of monitoring, our new monitors have been on the job for over 2 months now. They rotate terms, each serving for 2 weeks at a time. We have has so many sign up that there hasn't been a need for one of the monitors to serve two terms yet!

NEW GAMES!

With the advent of Java to LBIChat, we should be able to develop more games... including multiplayer games. We hope to have Canasta out very soon, and several other games should follow shortly.

When?

Eagle had hoped that all this could happen around St. Valentine's Day, February 14, but it looks as though it may take much longer. Small changes will be taking place throughout the month, and we're hopeful that the new rooms and games will be a reality by the end of February.

We would like to thank all of you long-time chatters who have stayed with LBIChat. And we welcome you newbies and hope you'll stay for a while.