I have been investigating various discussion/chat applications for usage in various community building sites.  This one looks nice, and more importantly is written on .NET.

Has a chat module been considered for integration with the InstantForum?

Infopop has such as module at: http://www.infopop.com/eve_platform/chime.php

which is very appealing.

Do others find they have the same need?  Yes we could integrate IM into our applications, but I'd rather buy a turnkey app which is supported.

Thank you for your post. Your quite right a chat module is indeed very attractive and something i personally would find very useful. This idea went on the list around 2-3 months back and is planned for the v4.0 release. I'm hoping to develop a product that integrates with the forums and also works as a standalone support chat system. Thank you for your suggestion and information. This will be added just a matter of time

Hope this helps,

Explore our products...
http://demos.instantasp.co.uk/

This request ALWAYS floors me. Why would a webmaster wish content to fire off and disappear when it could be of value to all visitors immediately as well as at a later date.

To me, chats are nice but you can do IRC or anything else for that matter. IF you're going to a website then the content and discussions might be valuable to others later rather than only those lucky souls that were online at the same time/date as the conversation.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your input. Very good point. I quite understand. I was thinking of adding the chat feature as almost like a bolt on to the forums. This way if a webmaster did decide chat was a integral part of the forums they could easily add this functionality. Thanks for your feedback. As always any further suggestions are encouraged  

Explore our products...
http://demos.instantasp.co.uk/

Chat integration is a superb idea.

More often than not, my chatrooms on chat.ateist.org is empty because no-one knows when someone else is *in* the chatroom.

It would be a great feature if there where a small text line above the forums, telling who (from the forum, using the forum aliases) where in the chatroom right now.

Then, with a simple click, one could join the chat.

Perhaps, when in the chat room, one could also see the subjects of the 5 newest posts in the forum and who where in the forums right now. Again, with just one click, one could wiz of to read the posts. Perhaps there could even be a way of turning a series of chat entires into a regular post - to capture an idea worthy a more formal debate! Or to start a chat session with the reference to a post!

That way, forum and chat could complement each other. One could hang out in the chat, without missing out on the forum action or vice versa. The community would benefit.

Hi Viod,

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I'll certainly use this thread as a basis for ideas when working on the chat module. I agree that a chat module is a must and i'll certainly be working on this for future releases. I certainly like the idea of linking chats to forum posts and i'm keen on the last 5 posts idea. I'll certainly keep this post upto date with any developments regarding the chat functionality. Thanks again for your input - greatly appreciated

Explore our products...
http://demos.instantasp.co.uk/

Hi Naatye - Nice suggestion. This would certainly add more value to the chat feature. I would have to consider some form of pruning as this could get quite large in terms of database size for shared hosting accounts. I don't see this as a problem however. I'm keen on this idea and do still wish to implement this suggestion. Your input is greatly appreciated

Explore our products...
http://demos.instantasp.co.uk/