Expanding the chat system: Multiple chat channels, tabbed chat window

This is something I've felt Roll20 has been sorely lacking for a while; the ability to have multiple chats going within the one campaign, in a manner similar to IRC rooms. A system like this would solve a few problems that I often find coming up in my games. The ability to split the party is only half realised in Roll20. You can split the party based on map, but everyone is confined to the same chat room, meaning you can't keep information secret between the two groups. Currently, engaging in private, one on one conversations with players can be a pain. It's all too easy to forget to put in the whisper command before your text, and then the whole party can see the private note you were trying to pass along. If you could create a separate chat between just you and another player, this issue would be alleviated (and it would make things a lot neater, to boot. A lot of players in IRC based games enjoy having one chat channel for OOC chatter, and one for roleplay. Currently, a setup like this is impossible with Roll20; all chat goes into the one feed. Implementing my suggestion would allow for the splitting of OOC and IC into separate chat rooms, which I'm sure many groups would appreciate. Because it's 3AM and I like going overboard with my suggestions, I've gone ahead and made a mock-up in case anyone doesn't understand what I mean. This is how I'd see things working, ideally. Just tabs like you'd see in any browser, with dots corresponding to player colours to show who has access to which room. Clicking the cog on a tab would bring up this screen, allowing you to set the details of that particular chat. Pretty simple, not a lot of details are really needed here. Any thoughts? I'd love to see a system like this in Roll20, the lack of the ability to split the chat is one of my biggest issues with the website.

+1 I like this idea very much. While we're working on chat, can the chat tab /please/ stop resizing itself just because I resize the browser window?

+1

This suggestion makes perfect sense as the fact we can split the group into different maps by just dragging them to a separate map now. This would allow my text games run very smoothly and would not require an outside program anymore. I would be willing to pony up the money for a subscription for this feature.

+1

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+1 I have a blind player that uses a screen reader to play. This would be a pretty awesome feature for him if done well.

If this happened I would love to see the tabs highlight instead of beep. Could you imagine the beeps if you had 3 or 4 tabs active?

+1

Pat S. said: If this happened I would love to see the tabs highlight instead of beep. Could you imagine the beeps if you had 3 or 4 tabs active? Possibly having an option to mute the beep on each tab, or choose a different (and possibly more innocuous) sound..

Pat S. said: If this happened I would love to see the tabs highlight instead of beep. Could you imagine the beeps if you had 3 or 4 tabs active? Well, I can't imagine it being TOO much of an issue. It is still the same amount of players in the chat, just divided more conveniently. Still, like Aaron said, the option to mute certain tabs would be a useful feature. No reason not to include it really, my limited web development knowledge says it'd be an easy feature to throw in.

+1 Very useful idea. I would definitely use this feature if available.

I really like it! +1 I would use it in a heartbeat, chat scrolls too fast and bogs down combat in the current system and we've taken to using Steam in one of my weekday games I'm in. Would it be possible to include a timestamp feature do you think?

+1

Holy sweet mother of +1.

Carn said: Would it be possible to include a timestamp feature do you think? The timestamp would be awesome in the chat archive but wouldn't it take up needed screen space in the chat box? I'm just thinking about how small some tablets are that users have and laptops, netbooks, and other small monitors. Screen space is a premium on those devices. I have a laptop with a 17in display and still use another desktop monitor on it so I can split screen as needed ( I can have up to 15 windows open during a game).

Please, PLEASE add this. I hate having to have skype chats open along-side my games, tabbing back and forth constantly when I have split parties. Which happens very frequently in my games. +1

Yerrrp, +1

Pat S. said: The timestamp would be awesome in the chat archive but wouldn't it take up needed screen space in the chat box? I'm just thinking about how small some tablets are that users have and laptops, netbooks, and other small monitors. Screen space is a premium on those devices. I have a laptop with a 17in display and still use another desktop monitor on it so I can split screen as needed ( I can have up to 15 windows open during a game). Make it a toggle, easy.

Somewhat related, but just letting me lock in the font size of my choosing would make my screen real estate more manageable in a big way. +1 for timestamps as well. I hope it is an option that can be turned on/off though. Again, it is a space issue, and I will prefer that space used for text for certain games. Also, a separate text column for only dice rolls I think would be a great option. So that the dice result is always in a predictable place, and not disrupting the text only column. I think it would aid readability, and help with consistent font size when a die result image is shown.

There is other software that does what you want, but I totally understand wanting it in roll20 and not another software. The trouble I have is with tokbox and connectivity issues, like a player not being not able to hear the rest of the group suddenly and without warning, and not realizing it until the long silence or dice rolls from others seem to tip them off. It is a consistent enough problem that I avoid tokbox. Until they can fix that problem in particular, I have no use for any new options from them.