Forum Announcements Instant Messages

Try out our new Instant Messaging feature by clicking the 'Instant Message' button under your friends' interact section. This allows you to send instant messages over the internet and participate in group discussions by inviting your friends to the conversation while your talking with others.

Let us know if there are any flaws and remember, only two weeks left to submit your work for the 2006 WritersCafe.org Anthology.

-Charlie

Hey, Charlie. melissa and I LOVE the IM. It's a chat room setting. Wonderful.

We've been goofing around (as we are both wont to do) and noticed that two symbols don't work. The & and the +. Everything else is fine. Just thought that was odd.

I also just figured out that the Instant Message option only appears under your friends' profiles if they are actually online. Otherwise, the option is missing. That makes sense!! ::cool::

Thanks for adding this feature!

[QUOTE=Belle]We've been goofing around (as we are both wont to do) and noticed that two symbols don't work. The & and the +. [/QUOTE]
I've believe I've fixed this issue.

I don't know if this has been said anywhere else, but many of us are having problems with the IMs, causing an insane amount of windows to pop up if we allow pop ups (and obviously, without allowing pop ups, IM cannot be used). It just cycles, and the messages never get through to the other person. I don't think this is limited to Firefox, because IE was doing the same thing (for me).

Do a hard refresh (F5) on the site, and then try out the IM system and let me know if you still have this issue.

[QUOTE=Patrick]Do a hard refresh (F5) on the site, and then try out the IM system and let me know if you still have this issue.[/QUOTE]

Sadly that doesn't help!

Last night, during my first IM session, the page froze up. The second time (a few hours later), it crawled by so slowly that it was taking 2-3 minutes between posting comments, so I gave up.

This morning, I had a chat for 4-5 minutes, and it went very smoothly. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the amount of people logged on to the Cafe at the time. There were a lot on Thursday night - not so many Friday morning.

(And Sacker, I'm sorry. I'm the one who sent you an invite to join Melissa and me in our first chat. :-( I didn't know it would be so problematic.)

I still don't see the IM system

It took me a minute to figure out where it is, too.

Go to someone's profile page. Toward the top right corner, you'll see links for 'message', 'comment', etc. If they are online at the moment, you will also see an IM link. If they are offline, the link won't appear.

When you click on that, it automatically opens up an IM window showing your avatar and the other person as 'pending'. You have to wait for them to notice the pop-up and click on it.

It's so new that I sent a message to the person to watch for the pop-up.

Oh, please fix this! I can't use the site at all now!

me neither.

[QUOTE=Belle]it automatically opens up an IM window showing your avatar and the other person as 'pending'. You have to wait for them to notice the pop-up and click on it.[/QUOTE]
Actually that's not true. It works like any other IM system; if you never send them a message then the window won't ever open up on their end. It will continue to say pending until you send them a message and the window opens. However, if you invite someone into a group chat then the window will open automatically.

[QUOTE=Sacker]Oh, please fix this! I can't use the site at all now![/QUOTE]
Can you please give me a detailed description of your problem?

Alright, problems abound and we apologize, but we think we have it now. We've reset the whole instant message system as well so, if you're having problems now, they're new ones and don't hesitate to let us know about them.

Thanks for all your help,
-Charlie

Charlie & Patrick,

You guys are great! Thanks for fixing this. It's so lovely to be back :D

This is awesome, cant wait to start chatting with some of these brilliant minds. =)

I just learned how to use the IM just now, thanx

Weeellll, now I'm not receiving notices that someone is IMing me. Nor is anyone receiving my invitation. ::mad::

Yes, I feared that with you, somehow someone managed to invite you to the same conversation twice. I'll fix it and try and figure out how you got double invited.

-Charlie

It's still not working. My IM's aren't going out to anyone. I tell people that I've IM'd them and they wait and wait and there is no notice.

Also, I still don't receive any IM notification. I've had a few people tell me that they IM'd me, but I never got it.

And - while I have your attention - while I get several messages and comments every day, I still cannot open any messages sent to me by Broadie (Hawksmoor). A blank screen stares at me. His comments come through just fine. It's only his messages that I can't get. And I just [i]know[/i] he's sending me the winning lottery numbers or the secret to youth.

Am I the redheaded step child or something? ::tongue::

So do the messages from broadie show up in your inbox, and then the link goes to a blank screen, or do they not show up at all?