Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I think it's fair to say that the response to the new Neocom has been mostly negative - with a large amount of the dislike stemming from the way the Neocom handles things like chat.

Therefore I propose a partial solution to the chat issues: The Chat Watch List.

This feature would be a window which appeared in a similar manner to the fleet watch list. Users would have option to right click on a chat window and select to add it to said watch list, at which point its title would appear in the list.

From that point on the watch list would keep track of how many unread messages were in each chat channel, an unread message would be one that was posted to either a minimized window, or one present in a stack that was not the currently selected tab. This number would be displayed to the right of the channel name. Channels with unread messages would also have their backgrounds highlighted.

In addition, a text command !urgent would be added (client side only) that would cause the background of the watch list entry to temporally flash with a red background to indicate something of crucial importance (intel channels). This could be allowed / disabled on a per channel basis. Depending on time needed, I would extend this to allow an audio prompt to be configured as well.

Double clicking on an item in the watch list should bring up the relevant chat window - if it is in a stack it should be brought to the front. Right clicking on an item in the watch list should present the same right click options as on the normal chat window itself + remove from watch list.

A configuration option would be added 'Automatically add channels to the watch list'.

Possible Enhancements:

* Allow channels to be stored in a collapsible tree-view like hierarchy with custom labels i.e. "Intel", "Diplo", "Trade" etc.

* Allow a MSN / Skype style bottom-right popup for when !urgent messages are received.

I agree - but I did want to offer it as an easy-to-do solution.

IMO the best possible outcome would be a proper always-on-top horizontal system tray at the bottom of the screen, with the appropriate text and grouping of windows. But the old style was pretty horrible too. It needs the windows to always show regardless of if they're minimized or not, and allowing click to toggle / bring to front.