-2

On my browser, I use the tabs that always load on start to join chat rooms. I usually have 2 - 3 of such tabs. Now when the browser is opened again after some time, I am in two chat rooms but not in all the others I was in before.

This is where it gets tedious as I have to do at least three clicks in order to get into all chat rooms again:

  1. Go to the front page where the rejoin all button is listed, because it isn't listed in the current chat because I already joined 2 - 3 rooms.

  2. Click the button which takes me bad to the chat, I have to be lucky to get to the right chat.

  3. Refresh the other tabs so they properly load the "other chat rooms" section.

This results me in either spending a lot of time when opening the browser, or not being in the chat rooms.

So, there are two solutions I see to this:

  1. Make the rejoin all button available on the chat itself when in some but not all chat rooms.

  2. Boost the chat loading by 9001% so that I can use a single chat tab.

Could this be made more efficient?

Improve this question
10
  • 1
    Join ALL the chats!
    – Zelda
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 4:29
  • Perhaps it's time you chatted less?
    – Lorem Ipsum
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 5:09
  • Have to admit, I agree with deep fry all the things =/
    – Yuck
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 7:14
  • @MaceWindu: I'm chatting less these days because I'm not in all these rooms by default, I would like to chat more. I want to be available to all relevant communities and chat rooms I visit... ;)
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 16:19
  • So your use case is that you have multiple chat tabs open because switching between rooms in a single tab is too slow, but you don't have enough tabs open for all of the rooms that you'd like to be in?
    – Tim Stone
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 17:18
  • @TimStone: Too much tabs would 1) slow down opening the browser 2) send too many requests at once to Stack Exchange and 3) waste space.
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 17:28
  • The second one is untrue, but while I don't have any problems with 1 & 3, I could see how others might.
    – Tim Stone
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 17:31
  • I don't know, I think I'd like this. Even with two or three rooms open (idling, not necessarily chatting) plus "actual" work tabs then the browser tends to get a bit crowded. I'll see if I can mock-up a suggestion.
    – tombull89
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 18:09
  • @TimStone: The second one depends on the amount of chat rooms, I would say that requesting the text and images of 15 rooms at once is a bit over the top. Worst case I could write an user script myself that tries to integrate the button / form of the join favorite page, but I guess that'll be a lot more work than the small change (case 1) that they have to do. Yeah, I'm on kind of an edge case with my usage pattern... :(
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 21:10
  • As a side note, I've got 18 rooms open in separate tabs at the moment, and it's never been an issue (except that one time...)
    – Tim Stone
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 21:18

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

I don't really know how your proposed solution #1 would help, and #2 is silly -- I'm pretty sure they aren't making room switching slow because nobody has thought "hey, maybe it should be fast instead". There are two easy solutions to this, both of which I use:

  1. Middle click the rooms you want to join on the room list. Each one opens in a separate background tab
  2. Make a bookmark folder with all the chats, right click it, and select "Open All Bookmarks"
Improve this answer
5
  • Proposed solution #1 would require me to click one button that's on the screen without any wait before I can see that button and before it has effect, that button is already there when you are in only one chat room but it disappears when there you are in two chat rooms.
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 16:13
  • Proposed solution #2 is surely not silly, look at what they load back and look how they load everything including an image I have to scroll up for. Lazy loading is key here, take an example of YouTube where the image thumbnails aren't loaded until you scroll down. That page is way more heavy and yet loads way faster...
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 16:15
  • Your suggested solution #1 doesn't put me in all the rooms, so people wouldn't know that I'm online / available in those. It still requires me to click back to the main chat page and doesn't reduce any loading times or work, which is really tedious...
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 16:17
  • Your suggested solution #2 induces a request flood and even longer loading times, also not a solution. Workarounds are silly when simple code can be changed to make the chat more efficient for everyone.
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 16:18
  • Try it yourself: Open up two applications tabs in your browser, put both on a different chat room and make sure you have joined all the other chtas. Now, close down your browser and at a later point open the browser again. Look at how many time you have to waste in order to get into all the chat rooms without doing things like request floods or tedious clickig...
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 16:22
0

While the current system isn't perfect, I'm at lost on how to implement a better system, especially when taking into account cost/benefit. The current crop of chatrooms are fairly easy to keep track of IMO. Anytime you are mentioned, it pops a big overlay icon. And transcripts of chat are kept.

The only gripe I have is that the SO chatrooms aren't integrated as tightly.

I also only keep one tab open for chat, as I have too many tabs open as is. And Google Chrome SUCKS for when you have more than 15 tabs open. . .

I hate my life.

Improve this answer
1
  • SO integration is a small pain indeed, the problem I have with getting mentioned is that I don't get mentioned if I am not consistently there. Having to do the same actions again and again is tedious; so, I often forget to do them. It makes me wonder where the simplicity is we had with chat systems like mIRC...
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Dec 18, 2011 at 16:44

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .