Online alert feature

[CrazyBerserk 0]

Another feature I miss in the current clients is something like an online alert for users. I know that there is an option to show joins of favorite users and all users, but that does not really do what I'd like it to do.

What I'm requesting is something like this:

[09:51:09] <CrazyBerserk> /watch prfx.testuser

[09:51:09] *** You just added prfx.testuser to your watch list

...entered in MC will result in a PM popup like this from prfx.testuser as soon as he logs in:

[10:26:21] >>>>>.PhantomDC Watcher<<<<<: <prfx.testuser> I have just come online.

This can be really useful especially - but not only - for OPs when you are waiting for a user to come online and don't want to miss him, like the ones that come online for 5 mins to download what they need and go offline again. With such popup one could at least notice it via the tray icon or the balloon popup.

It was a feature in .PhantomDC, a client I still use to date, but that by now is too old (NMDC-style filelist issue). Again the link to the source of .PDC: link1, link2

So, if it's not too hard to implement, and if also other users might find it useful... Would be great to have it back in ApexDC. ( I hope implementing this wouldn't stop Crise from implementing my other requests regarding features from .PDC... )

For me it's really hard to believe that all those good, useful and handy features have vanished from DC community with Phantom and finally Twink closing down their .PDC project almost two years back..

[ifmn 0]

U said u know that there's show parts/joins on fav. users (@ MC).there's also a feature to show a balloon popup on fav. user connected so u can notice it too .I think its even better than personal PM.If i misunderstood u please excuse me.

[CrazyBerserk 0]

If i misunderstood u please excuse me.

So you did...

I was not talking about favorite users. Especially as an OP you will not want all several hundreds or thousands of your users to be favorite users. (Otherwise I would doubt your ability to distinguish between real friends and people you talked to once 6 month back... ) And as for my example above, especially the leechers will for sure not belong to my favorite users.

No, I was talking about a feature to add an online alert to a certain user defined after e.g. /watch that will be deleted from memory as soon as the user logged in or once you close the client - without any entries to favusers or whatsoever.

Oh, one more thing as addition:

In .PDC there were altogether 3 commands for this feature:

• /watch user [online, away, chat]
  /removewatch user
  /watchlist
  

where /removewatch was of course used to remove an entry from watch list and /watchlist gave out something like this:

[11:24:03] <CrazyBerserk> /watchlist

[11:24:03] *** Watching for the following users: prfx.user1 prfx.user9

[Lain_13 0]

Some ideas about watch cammand:

/watch (add|remove|list)

(add|remove|list) - actions with watch.

Watch add:

/watch add "user" [(online|away|chat)] [send(chat|pm) "text"] [(period number[(m|h|d)]|static)]

user - user's nick or IP or mask. For example text "*Haxx?r*" we can understand as "-+=Haxxor=+-" or "////Haxx0r". String must be closed bu quotes. I don't know what characters forbidden for use in nickname... If this characters exists and can be easy typed from keyboard - we can use it for make mask.

[(online|away|chat)] - only one allowed. "|" - read as "or".

[send(chat|pm) "text"] - automatic send message to user in chat (sendchat) or as private message (sendpm). For marking begin and end of string used quotes. String can be multiline.

[(period number[(m|h|d)]|static)] - number is length of watching period. M is minutes, h - hours and d - days (default value if not present). Only one allowed. Static means - don't forget about this watch until user (online|away|chat).

For example:

/watch add "jack_the_sparrow" online sendpm "If you leech one more time I ban you..." static

This watch send PM to user when they appear online after any period of time.

/watch add "black_widow" chat sendcaht "black_widow: Happy birthday! [it's automatic message, but I'm far away and can't say it myself]" period 1d

This watch send message to chat after user type something in chat

Also [repeat N] key can be added, to automatic repeat watch command (max value limit?)...

... yes... script language needed...

Watch list:

/watch list (["user"] [(online|away|chat)] [send(chat|pm)] [(period|static|temp)]|all) [text]

["user"] [(online|away|chat)] [send(chat|pm)] [(period|static|temp)] - filter for watch list.

all - show all watches (default value, we can drop it).

[text] - show full text of pm|chat message if present

For example:

/watch list

or

/watch list all

or

/watch list "*"

/////// Watchlist:

| 1. jack_the_sparrow online sendpm static

| 2. black_widow chat sendcaht period 1d

/watch list static

/////// Watchlist:

| 1. jack_the_sparrow online sendpm static

/watch list period text

/////// Watchlist:

| 1. black_widow chat sendcaht "black_widow: Happy birthday! [it's automatic message, but I'm far away and can't say it myself]" period 1d

/watch list "*_the_*"

/////// Watchlist:

| 1. jack_the_sparrow online sendpm static

Watch remove:

/watch remove (["user"] [(online|away|chat)] [send(chat|pm)] [(period|static|temp)]|all)

["user"] [(online|away|chat)] [send(chat|pm)] [(period|static|temp)] - filter for watch list.

all - remove all watches.

[CrazyBerserk 0]

Oh, well, that's way more than I actually intended to ask for.. It would fulfill an offline PM feature, though, which for sure will be of use, but at least for hub owners, it could also be done by hub bots as in my case by GBot.

And again, I wanted it to be a reminder/notifier for me when a user comes online and than I would take actions manually. The offline PM stuff would probably not be so bad either, as long as the "original" watch mode is still available. I think if it was there, I would make use of it once in a while, though.

But anyway, I don't think that it needs to have so many options and parameters. IMHO that's only complicating it and I don't know if that is what we want ApexDC to be. And reading this forum it's already very surprising how many hidden and forgotten and undocumented features ApexDC already has to date....

Well, let's hear some other opinions (not only Lain_13, ifmn and me... I'm sure there are some more users in this forum, apart from us and the admins and mods. They just appear to be hiding recently...)

EDIT: One more think: I would rather disagree with the "*Haxx?r*" wildcards. Especially for sending an offline PM I prefer that only the user with the exact nickname receives it, including correct prefix aso. But well, I can only use hubs in an internal campus network, so I don't know about nickname excesses in the DC out there.

And as for the allowed or forbidden characters for nickname: In the end that depends on the hub software and it's operator. Even many chars that are not allowed in windows filenames can be allowed by the hubsoft. So for logs from a user with such nickname, those chars will be replaced (I hope this also applies to current client versions - couldn't test it right now...)

[Lain_13 0]

EDIT: One more think: I would rather disagree with the "*Haxx?r*" wildcards. Especially for sending an offline PM I prefer that only the user with the exact nickname receives it, including correct prefix aso. But well, I can only use hubs in an internal campus network, so I don't know about nickname excesses in the DC out there.

And as for the allowed or forbidden characters for nickname: In the end that depends on the hub software and it's operator. Even many chars that are not allowed in windows filenames can be allowed by the hubsoft. So for logs from a user with such nickname, those chars will be replaced (I hope this also applies to current client versions - couldn't test it right now...)

Hm... You right. Wildcards not needed.

Forbidden characters in windows client replaces by "_" and all work normal.

In my previous post I try to write as many options as possible. Not all needed. For example "period" parameter can be dropped. Or we can drop "send(chat|pm)" command (but I like it). Or we can drop all period|static section. But I think with all this options (w/o wildcards) this commands will be more useful for all.

Who have another ideas? What think admins and programmers?

[Greg 0]

I think it would be very useful, and it's not going to have a negative affect on the people who won;t sue it or anything... it's just the ease of coding and fact there so much other stuff to do which might have an influence of whether it get implemented or not.

[Zlobomir 3]

Or rather might have influence on when it will get implemented. ;)

[Lain_13 0]

When it's implemented I open topic about GUI for this function. :D

[CrazyBerserk 0]

Hey, I just asked for 3 tiny little commands accessible by / in MC and a prompt of the client that the actions have been executed... But well, one could sure make much more out of this feature...

Does the source of the client where it was implemented actually help? I sure took a look at this source, but I couldn't get a clue what to do with all those files in the .rar... :D