Last modified: 2014-06-05 09:17:36 UTC
Mediawiki should have a floating chat toolbar that is displayed at the bottom of the page when users login. No installation is needed. The floating toolbar will show a list of usernames that are viewing a specific wiki article,how many new messages a person has, and there will be a blank space for Multiple chat windows. Facebook has a floating Chat toolbar and you can see an example of it here: http://sonicage.com/btan/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/facebook.jpg (look at the bottom of the screen) The floating chat toolbar should be aligned right at the bottom of a user's screen and make sure it spreads completely to the right and left edges of the screen. Multiple chat windows should be able to be open so people can chat to an unlimited number of ppl and if all the chat windows cannot fit on the toolbar, then there should be an ARROW so users can scroll the toolbar to find the chat windows. The Chat Window should show whether a user is still online,timestamp on messages,emotion icons,etc. Of course file transfer would not be possible because this wouldn't work because users don't have to install the floating chat toolbar. People should be able to minimize the chat Window and the FIRST message from someone should ALWAYS popup on screen. There should be a button to DISABLE chat if users don't want to chat and to others it shows the person as online but also show a DISABLED sign so they can't send them any messages. If a person wants to ENABLE chat then there should be an ENABLE button. The last ENABLE/DISABLE setting a user chooses should be SAVED and set to it when the person next signs into Mediawiki. The floating Chat toolbar should work in Internet Explorer 6,IE7 and IE8
Changing to an extension request. I don't see a chat feature ever going into core.
Update to this, if it's implemented: A lot of websites have live chat support, "click here to chat to a customer service agent". A software method supporting a *"click to get help from an experienced editor"* button, along with the reverse ("An experienced editor would like to talk to you, click to accept"), would probably allow us to refine newcomer support and could work wonders in terms of support, wiki-knowhow, and perceived friendliness.
If someone just wants to embed chat on their wiki, they can use tlk.io: <div id="tlkio" data-channel="PAGE_NAME_OR_WIKI_NAME_HERE" style="width:100%;height:400px;"></div> <script async src="http://tlk.io/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script> Found while searching for information on talk.io -- another chat thing I heard about recently.
