JumpInChat update — Emojis and profiles

by vivaldi

A few new features have been added, and some improvements to existing ones too. Emojis have been added and profiles can now be viewed in a room as a pop-up. Icons used throughout the site have also been updated and I’ve added a basic media server reconnection mechanism, which should help those with flaky connections. Also a new pop-up shows when you get banned, so at least you’ve got something less terrible to look at while you contemplate your actions.

Emoji support

Emojis can now be used in chat, via the picker that is accessed by the smiley button next to the send button in the chat input. They can also be sent via colon-codes, such as :tada: if you can remember them. This is a first pass at adding emoji, and as such there aren’t some helpful features like displaying the actual emoji in the input or having any sort of auto-complete. This will of cause be added in the future.

Profiles can now be viewed within the room itself, rather than opening up a separate profile page. Selecting the “profile” option in the user list dropdown menu will now open this popup, which gives some basic information about the user, such as what kind of user they are, their profile pic, and a selection of trophies they have received. You can still open their full profile via the link at the bottom, which will link you to their full profile page.

Ultimately, this should give profiles more reason to be updated, as they can actually be viewed in a way that isn’t out of the way and annoying.

Media server reconnection

This marks the second attempt at media server reconnection, the previous one causing more problems and, moreover, not actually reconnecting you to anything.

This attempt simply reconnects you to an existing session if you happen to lose connection, such as if your computer falls asleep or you move the app to the background on mobile. Not all the connection issues will be fixed with this, but the most frequent and more annoying problems should at least be less irritating.

New icons

I’m beginning to move icons to use SVGs, rather than an icon font. This is thanks to FontAwesome 5’s improved plugins and should hopefully improve performance and might even look a little bit better on top. Nothing should be radically different, but icons might look a bit neater over all.

Other fixes

  • Moderators, room owners and admins can now bypass a passworded room.
  • New broadcasts while cams are closed will no longer infinitely show a loading spinner.
  • If you have been site-banned, a reason for your ban will show on the ban popup.

As always, go to https://jumpin.chat and make a chat room, invite people and have fun and stuff.

The only way I can make this thing better is having you break it! Or even better getting even more people using it who then also break it!

If you want to get more frequent updates and site news, be sure to follow the Twitter or Facebook feeds.