Releases

[The chat client]

tl;dr: Yet another chat client and lib, scroll down for links

The chat client
So I can already see you thinking, there's already AORC and other chat clients, why use this one?
The main difference between AORC and this client:
- Significant effort has been made to display AOML and Info Windows just like Anarchy Online does. (VhaBot users, you'll love to use this to configure your bot )
- Full support for encoded messages (displays the tower and org msg. channel correctly)
And of course, a fresh new code base means new opportunities. Be sure to let me know what you think!

The chat library
The library (Vha.Net) is a heavily cleaned and fixed version of AoLib that powers the current release of VhaBot.
Most notable is the addition of full support for remote private channels.
Additionally many shutdown/disconnect related bugs have been fixed.

The files
Chat client: http://dump.vhabion.net/vhabot/Vha.Chat%201.1.5.rar
Source: svn://code.vhabot.net/vhachat/
Roadmap: http://code.vhabot.net/vhachat/roadmap
Screenshot: http://dump.vhabion.net/images/VhaChat.png

Known issues
Output produced by certain bots (like VhaBot) may appear incorrect in Vha.Chat.
Unfortunately, this is related to a bug in these bots and a bug fix in Vha.Chat.
A fix has been made for VhaBot and will be included in its next release.

By default all colors are stripped from scripts and bots. This is ensure readability of text at all times.
This behavior can be changed by manually editing Config.xml.

Updated to RC3

- Fixed a possible race error (threading related)
- Changed the method of pre-loading the html template, should be faster and less error prone (should fix errors for some too I hope)
- Added addbuddy/rembuddy support
- Added support for /o to talk to the org channel

Updated to RC4

- Beefed up the graphics in VhaBot.Chat a bit, a new top bar has been added and the forms have been given icons.
- Added support for itemref:// through Auno.org (will switch to Xyphos.com when the new version goes live )
- Changed closing/disconnect behavior to be more intuitive

Version 1.0 up!

- Name changed to Vha.Chat to prevent confusion with VhaBot
- Added many pretty icons
- Added mute/unmute support for channels
- Added context menu's to the right panel as shortcuts to /commands
- Ordered the character selection list
- Added a small notice when a character is already online in the selection list
- Fixed a bug related to text window extraction

Ooh dear, versions flying out of the door!

Version 1.1 up!

- Fixed a rather exponential memory leak
- Sorted characters list and right panel contents alphabetically
- Added input history (defaults to 25 last used commands/messages)
- Added encoded text support (tower channels will no longer display gibberish)

A minor release today, 1.1.1
- Gave a few dropdown menus a more sensible default value than empty
- Fixed an input history related bug
- Added guests section to the right panel which displays all characters in your private channel
- Added an invite button to directly invite people to your private channel from your friends list

Another minor release, 1.1.2:
- Implemented client side channel muting (in case the server forgets how to mute a channel again)
- Added /whois command
- Fixed encoding issues (some bot output will look weird, but unfortunately this is due to bugs on their side to which AO and AORC are less sensitive)
- Changed the way 'child windows' are spawned. This should prevent them from jumping to a different screen
- Made BrowserForm and InfoForm remember their position and size during the runtime

Haven't had much time to work on 1.2 yet, so I bring you a small bugfix release.

1.1.3
- Embedded Chat.html inside the binary. This should prevent chat.html loading errors
- Forced Vha.Chat to run in 32-bit mode to prevent errors caused by badly written IE plugins (like Flash)

I'm having some issues tracking a few odd errors users reported.
If you're one of those users, please upgrade to this release which contains improved error logging to help me find the error.

1.1.4
- Added error logging. If an error should occur, please share your error.log with us

Since 1.2 and especially 1.3 is taking quite a while to get ready, I've decided to provide a work around for the biggest issue the client currently has; readability of scripts and bot output.

By default the client will now strip all colors from scripts and bots.
This behavior can be changed by editing Config.xml.
Changes to Config.xml won't be visible until you restart the client.

1.1.5
- Upgraded to Visual Studio 2008 (still using .NET 2.0 though)
- Fixed crash error related to FriendStatusPacket
- Implemented a really basic configuration system
- Moved MaximumMessages, MaximumTexts, MaximumHistory values to Config.xml
- Added support for stripping and inverting text colors in the main window (edit Config.xml manually to access these settings)
- Added color stripping as default text style to ensure good readability for new installations