next »

[Vhab]

tl;dr: Yet another standalone chat client, scroll down for links

Vha.Chat and Vha.Net

The chat client
Vha.Chat is a new standalone Anarchy Online chat client that aims to replace AORC as the primary chat client.
I hope to achieve this by creating a solid and much more feature complete implementation of Anarchy Online's chat.
Already has Vha.Chat matched many of AORC's features and includes several AORC doesn't.

The main difference between AORC and this client:
- Significant effort has been made to display AOML and Info Windows just like Anarchy Online does.
- Full support for encoded messages (displays the tower and org msg. channel correctly)
- Full support for system messages (offline tells, inbox full, /cc commands)
- Completely open source with active development and a public roadmap
- Popup windows for a single channel or private conversation

The chat library
The library (Vha.Net) is a heavily cleaned and fixed version of VhaBot's AoLib.
Most notable is the addition of full support for remote private channels and system messages.
Additionally many shutdown/disconnect related bugs have been fixed.


The files

Latest stable releases: http://www.vhabot.net/downloads.php#Vha.Chat
Latest alpha releases: http://build.vhabot.net/ccnet/server/local/project/Vha.Chat/PackageList.aspx
Source: http://code.vhabot.net/svn/vhachat/
Roadmap: http://code.vhabot.net/vhachat/roadmap
Screenshot: http://dump.vhabion.net/images/VhaChat.png


Contributors

Developers
Vha.Chat wouldn't be the state it is in today without the help of the community.
Are you a developer and feel like helping out?
Simply grab a copy of the source from svn and make some enhancements.
Patch files can be submitted here: http://forums.vhabot.net/index.php/board,72.0.html

Alpha testers
But even as a user you too can help out. With Vha.Chat growing bigger we've increased our need for testers.
Among the links there is a link to a list of alpha builds (top one is the latest).
We'd be most grateful if you're willing to take the risk of taking these for a spin instead of the stable builds.
You can report bugs here on the forum, by PM or even on IRC (#coders @ irc.funcom.com).


Known issues

Weird characters
Output produced by certain bots (like VhaBot) may appear incorrect in Vha.Chat.
Unfortunately, this is related to a bug in these bots and a bug fix in Vha.Chat.
A fix has been made for VhaBot and will be included in its next release.

No colors
By default all colors are stripped from scripts and bots in the main chat window.
This is working as intended and often greatly improves the readability of bot output.
In 1.1 and earlier; this behavior can be changed by manually editing Config.xml.
In 1.2 and later; this behavior can be changed in the options interface.

Can't select
There are some known issues with selecting and copying text from the chat window.
I've been unable to track down the source of this and doesn't seem to be reproducible on my machine.
If you're having this issue, please reply with your OS and IE version. Also mention if the issue is constant or only at random times.

[Vhab]

Updated to RC3

- Fixed a possible race error (threading related)
- Changed the method of pre-loading the html template, should be faster and less error prone (should fix errors for some too I hope)
- Added addbuddy/rembuddy support
- Added support for /o to talk to the org channel

[Vhab]

Updated to RC4

- Beefed up the graphics in VhaBot.Chat a bit, a new top bar has been added and the forms have been given icons.
- Added support for itemref:// through Auno.org (will switch to Xyphos.com when the new version goes live )
- Changed closing/disconnect behavior to be more intuitive

[Vhab]

Version 1.0 up!

- Name changed to Vha.Chat to prevent confusion with VhaBot
- Added many pretty icons
- Added mute/unmute support for channels
- Added context menu's to the right panel as shortcuts to /commands
- Ordered the character selection list
- Added a small notice when a character is already online in the selection list
- Fixed a bug related to text window extraction

[Vhab]

Ooh dear, versions flying out of the door!

Version 1.1 up!

- Fixed a rather exponential memory leak
- Sorted characters list and right panel contents alphabetically
- Added input history (defaults to 25 last used commands/messages)
- Added encoded text support (tower channels will no longer display gibberish)

[Vhab]

A minor release today, 1.1.1
- Gave a few dropdown menus a more sensible default value than empty
- Fixed an input history related bug
- Added guests section to the right panel which displays all characters in your private channel
- Added an invite button to directly invite people to your private channel from your friends list

[Vhab]

Another minor release, 1.1.2:
- Implemented client side channel muting (in case the server forgets how to mute a channel again)
- Added /whois command
- Fixed encoding issues (some bot output will look weird, but unfortunately this is due to bugs on their side to which AO and AORC are less sensitive)
- Changed the way 'child windows' are spawned. This should prevent them from jumping to a different screen
- Made BrowserForm and InfoForm remember their position and size during the runtime

[Vhab]

Haven't had much time to work on 1.2 yet, so I bring you a small bugfix release.

1.1.3
- Embedded Chat.html inside the binary. This should prevent chat.html loading errors
- Forced Vha.Chat to run in 32-bit mode to prevent errors caused by badly written IE plugins (like Flash)

[Vhab]

I'm having some issues tracking a few odd errors users reported.
If you're one of those users, please upgrade to this release which contains improved error logging to help me find the error.

1.1.4
- Added error logging. If an error should occur, please share your error.log with us

[Vhab]

Since 1.2 and especially 1.3 is taking quite a while to get ready, I've decided to provide a work around for the biggest issue the client currently has; readability of scripts and bot output.

By default the client will now strip all colors from scripts and bots.
This behavior can be changed by editing Config.xml.
Changes to Config.xml won't be visible until you restart the client.

1.1.5
- Upgraded to Visual Studio 2008 (still using .NET 2.0 though)
- Fixed crash error related to FriendStatusPacket
- Implemented a really basic configuration system
- Moved MaximumMessages, MaximumTexts, MaximumHistory values to Config.xml
- Added support for stripping and inverting text colors in the main window (edit Config.xml manually to access these settings)
- Added color stripping as default text style to ensure good readability for new installations

[Vhab]

Today's late night release is almost entirely brought to you by Demoder.
Having found the ability to create .patch files she quickly filled up the forum with many patches ranging from minor bug fixes to entire new features.
During this process I mostly worked through the patches and tweaked/reformatted the new content a bit at most.
The credit for 1.1.6 belongs entirely to Demoder.

So much for the good news though
As this release contains several new features and some of which are a bit harder to test, we decided to not call this the newest stable release.
We'll move forward safely and release 1.1.6 as a beta first.

Now without further delay, 1.1.6:
- Added support for ignoring users
- Added caching of the last used dimension, accounts and characters
- Added support for connecting through socks and http proxies (see Config.xml for -details)
- Added support for system messages (offline notifications, etc)
- Added automatic focus to the input box after logging in
- Several bug fixes and optimizations to internal parts of the libraries supporting Vha.Net

ps. Take note of the "known issues" in the main post.

[Vhab]

Demoder's coding spree rages on and it's now time to rip off the beta tag

1.1.6
- Revamped the ignore system's storage method
- Changed default ignore method to 'per account'
- Added some fixes and enhancements to the proxy support
- Hiding/showing the connect/disconnect buttons when appropriate
- Added support for using enter and escape on the character selection screen

[Vhab]

I've been sitting on this one for a while as I figured it was a bit too small for a release.
But as 1.2 really has been taking it's time, I present you a small bugfix release.

1.1.7
- Fixed a crash bug related to system message parsing
- Changed source license of Vha.MDB and Vha.Common to MIT
- Improved the cleverness of 'remember previous account'
- Some internal fixes and improvements

[Vhab]

It's been silent for a while and no large new features seemed to show up, but this wasn't without reason.
I've been working on a large internal revamp of Vha.Chat to give the last burst of features a more proper place within the application and to prepare it for the future.

This revamp touched nearly every aspect of Vha.Chat and greatly improved it's flexibility and our ability to add new features to it.
However, this comes with a great risk of breaking existing features while the revamp took place.

I'm looking for people willing to test the new code base and report back errors or odd behavior.
Therefor, I proudly present: 1.2.0 Alpha

This version should hold all functionality 1.1.7 has to offer and a little bit more.
It however does NOT hold all functionality the final version of 1.2.0 will have.

1.2.0 Alpha
- Major code revamp in preparation of the future (configuration, extendability and robustness)
- Help command has been changed into something more dynamic and descriptive
- Proper support for multiple clients running at the same time
- Forms remember their position, size and state
- Proper support for system messages and anonymous vicinity messages
- Many small fixes and tweaks

For more information about upcoming features and versions, check out our roadmap at:
http://code.vhabot.net/vhachat/roadmap

[Vhab]

I've gotten myself a few new toys
I want to push out nightly/alpha releases faster without creating packages all the time.
I've setup a build server here: http://build.vhabot.net/
You can find the latest nightly releases here: http://build.vhabot.net/ccnet/server/local/project/Vha.Chat/PackageList.aspx

When reporting a bug, try to include the full version number from the About window. (especially the last number).

The previous alpha download will be removed shortly.

Latest changes:
- Some fixes related to private channel joins/leaves