Multi-line sends in Chat rooms

[knightca]

Greetings everyone,

Versions: The problem comes from a registered Power tools 12.037 and AOL 9.0 (bring your own access).

System: The installation is on a new computer which has never had AOL or Power Tools before. All the latest windows updates have been done to bring it to Windows XP 2nd edition (with all security patches).

Problem: When using the chat rooms with Power Tools turned on, any send to the room of several lines ends up sending the chat in multi-line sends.

Example:
"Walks into the room and orders a golden scotch, no ice. Eyes scan the tavern to study the occupants as a lonely breeze brushes across the floor, stirring small swurls of dust before it. Somewhere in the distantce outside, they can hear the lonely call of a wolf."

Result:
Username: Walks into the room and orders a golden scotch, no ice. Eyes
Username: scan the tavern to study the occupants as a lonely breeze
Username: brushes across the floor, stirring small swurls of dust before it.
Username: Somewhere in the distantce outside, they can hear the lonely call
Username: of a wolf."

This result is irritating to those in the room since it sends a large number of entries into the room at the same time (possibly activating the sound alert for a entry multiple times as well).

It would be better if Power Tools could give the user a choice about how long a line to be used for entry in characters (such as a range from 10 to 500 or something).

As it stands now, the only way to turn off the multi-line send is to disable PowerChat. Unfortunately the menu selection to do so is missing from the control features (even though its mentioned in the help menu). which means you have to turn off Power Tools completely to disable the multi-line sends. This means the program is of little use in taking logs and using its other chat features for chat rooms.

Question 1: Please tell me 1st, how to disable the PowerChat without turning off Power Tools completely (the help directions dont work as there is no button or menu choice to do this).

Question 2: Second, if there is a way to turn off the multi-line send without turning off PowerChat.

Question 3: Third, when a fix can be made so that PowerChat can be used with a variable send length.

Thank you for your time.

[jeromy]

Question 1: Please tell me 1st, how to disable the PowerChat without turning off Power Tools completely (the help directions dont work as there is no button or menu choice to do this).

While entering the chat room, hold down the CTRL key. This will prevent PowerChat from loading.

Question 2: Second, if there is a way to turn off the multi-line send without turning off PowerChat.

No. This is hard coded into PowerTools and required to bypass an AOL limitation (see the answer to your next question for more information).

Question 3: Third, when a fix can be made so that PowerChat can be used with a variable send length.

AOL has a limitation on the amount of text that can be sent to the room at one time. If you notice, when you exit PowerTools and use the plain AOL chat, the text you showed as an example would have been too much to send at one time. AOL requires fewer than 232 characters be sent to the chat.
PowerTools uses the mutliple send lines to allow you to send more text at once and tricks AOL into thinking you're sending those lines seperately (which bypasses the AOL limitation). The amount of text that can be sent is relative to how wide your PowerChat window is. If you make this window wider you can get more information into the window.

Using your example:

BPS Rocky: Walks into the room and orders a golden scotch, no ice.
BPS Rocky: Eyes scan the tavern to study the occupants as a lonely
BPS Rocky: breeze brushesacross the floor, stirring small swurls of
BPS Rocky: dust before it. Somewhere inthe distantce outside, they
BPS Rocky: can hear the lonely call of a wolf.

With a wider chat window:

BPS Rocky: Walks into the room and orders a golden scotch, no ice. Eyes scan the tavern to study
BPS Rocky: the occupants as a lonely breeze brushesacross the floor, stirring small swurls of dust
BPS Rocky: before it. Somewhere inthe distantce outside, they can hear the lonely call of a wolf.

Keep in mind screen sizes and chat room window sizes vary for each user.
You might see 4 lines, another user might see more or less.

[knightca]

bpsrocky said:

While entering the chat room, hold down the CTRL key. This will prevent PowerChat from loading.

Thanks for the update on this. Is it possible to have a option check box in the menu or such installed (like there used to be) that lets us disable PowerChat until we change the option again? If so, can we expect this in the next revision.

Question 3: Third, when a fix can be made so that PowerChat can be used with a variable send length.

AOL has a limitation on the amount of text that can be sent to the room at one time. If you notice, when you exit PowerTools and use the plain AOL chat, the text you showed as an example would have been too much to send at one time. AOL requires fewer than 232 characters be sent to the chat.

PowerTools uses the mutliple send lines to allow you to send more text at once and tricks AOL into thinking you're sending those lines seperately (which bypasses the AOL limitation). The amount of text that can be sent is relative to how wide your PowerChat window is. If you make this window wider you can get more information into the window.

Can we get this changed so that the user can select a range (anywhere from 20 to 232 characters for example) in a menu option for how much text to be sent to AOL per line. It is extremely inconvenient to have to change the size of the chat room to alter this (plus there is no real way to reach the 232 character width for a chat room)? If so, might we expect this change next version?

[jeromy]

Being able to disable PowerChat upon entering a room is a fairly new feature. Only made available within the last two or three revisions of PowerTools.

At the moment AOL is considering moving all of their chat rooms to a web-based format, which will make all of the current coding for PowerChat useless.

We are going to wait and see what AOL's next move is before we make any changes to PowerChat.