#apechat
Posts and pages on Ape Apps tagged with <strong>#apechat</strong>
The legal landscape across the world is rapidly moving towards age verification requirements for any and all online services that provide user-to-user communication. As an independent developer, I don't particularly have the time or resources to implement this kind of stuff up to an acceptable legal standard, nor do I have any interest in keeping personal identity records for any of my users. You should not have to provide your real name or identity to play My Colony or track your spending with EZ Register. So, changes are coming.
I plan on phasing out all of my own in-house user communication service across the entirety of Ape Apps and instead, pushing users towards the Discord server or other social media sites. That includes the forums on this website, Ape Chat, the in-game chat in My Colony, everything. The following apps and services will be impacted:
Antiquitas
Ape Apps Launcher
Ape Apps Website
Ape Chat
Ape Market
Colony Wars
Discussions
Epic Adventure
EZ Office Apps
Forum Fiend
My Colony
My Colony 2
Terra Nova 4X
Walkie Cloud
Probably the largest pain-point will be the removal of the in-game chat for My Colony 1, which is utilized quite a bit, especially for users helping each other with resources. As a workaround, I will make improvements to the in-game Friends section to make it easier to add/manage friends and share resources, but you will still have to communicate using Discord instead.
Some services, such as Ape Chat, Discussions, Forum Fiend and Walkie Cloud will just be shut down entirely, as they really don't have any other features besides communication. Where communication is not an essential feature, changes will just be made to work around the issue and point people towards Discord where appropriate.
This website/forum will be another big change, although since the Discord came out the forum here has not been as important as it once was. I will probably rewrite it in a way to where I can just post helpful informational and help articles related to various apps and games. I might keep an archive on a subdomain of all of the current content though, for posterity.
In the end, I think this all kind of sucks to be honest. The writing has been on the wall for independent social services for a while now though, but over the last year especially, governments across the world seem to be amping up their "child protection" efforts to 10. I have never liked big tech, which is the reason I wrote my own forum and chat services from scratch, but I also don't have the time or money to keep chasing after new regulations, so we are just going to fall back to Discord for this kind of stuff moving forward and let them worry about it.
I will start phasing in these changes over the coming weeks and months, so if you have not joined the Discord yet, now would be a good time to do so, as it will be the primary Ape Apps communication platform moving forward!
#antiquitas #apeappslauncher #apechat #apemarket #colonywars #discissions #epicadventure #forumfiend #mycolony #mycolony2 #terranova4x #walkiecloud
I plan on phasing out all of my own in-house user communication service across the entirety of Ape Apps and instead, pushing users towards the Discord server or other social media sites. That includes the forums on this website, Ape Chat, the in-game chat in My Colony, everything. The following apps and services will be impacted:
Antiquitas
Ape Apps Launcher
Ape Apps Website
Ape Chat
Ape Market
Colony Wars
Discussions
Epic Adventure
EZ Office Apps
Forum Fiend
My Colony
My Colony 2
Terra Nova 4X
Walkie Cloud
Probably the largest pain-point will be the removal of the in-game chat for My Colony 1, which is utilized quite a bit, especially for users helping each other with resources. As a workaround, I will make improvements to the in-game Friends section to make it easier to add/manage friends and share resources, but you will still have to communicate using Discord instead.
Some services, such as Ape Chat, Discussions, Forum Fiend and Walkie Cloud will just be shut down entirely, as they really don't have any other features besides communication. Where communication is not an essential feature, changes will just be made to work around the issue and point people towards Discord where appropriate.
This website/forum will be another big change, although since the Discord came out the forum here has not been as important as it once was. I will probably rewrite it in a way to where I can just post helpful informational and help articles related to various apps and games. I might keep an archive on a subdomain of all of the current content though, for posterity.
In the end, I think this all kind of sucks to be honest. The writing has been on the wall for independent social services for a while now though, but over the last year especially, governments across the world seem to be amping up their "child protection" efforts to 10. I have never liked big tech, which is the reason I wrote my own forum and chat services from scratch, but I also don't have the time or money to keep chasing after new regulations, so we are just going to fall back to Discord for this kind of stuff moving forward and let them worry about it.
I will start phasing in these changes over the coming weeks and months, so if you have not joined the Discord yet, now would be a good time to do so, as it will be the primary Ape Apps communication platform moving forward!
#antiquitas #apeappslauncher #apechat #apemarket #colonywars #discissions #epicadventure #forumfiend #mycolony #mycolony2 #terranova4x #walkiecloud
I have just released v2.6.0 of Ape Chat, which should now be hitting all platforms (including embedded instances, such as the My Colony in-game chat, and the chat here in the forum).
The main changes in this release are the revamp of the UI for individual chat posts (the "box" around them has been removed, padding altered, font size changes, etc), and the ability to now react to chat messages! To do a reaction, you simply right-click (long press on Android) on a chat message, and you will have the option to add a reaction.
User avatars on chat posts will now always show their profile picture. Before, it was rendering their default My Tokens character if they had one, but to me I thought this looked a bit out of place, so I removed that feature.
There were also some new server and developer related features added that nobody but me will notice, so I will not bother logging them here. And of course, multiple big fixes have been implemented in this update.
The future of Ape Chat
I have a lot of features planned for Ape Chat, which I will be implementing whenever I get around to them, but I am also open to suggestions from the community.
In the long-term I want to move away from the Discord server and have everything Ape Apps related going through Ape Chat. This is more of a security thing, you never know what Discord (or any third-party service) is going to end up doing in the future, so it's nice to be able to have control of the user support system myself. That might be a little ways off, since Ape Chat still needs a few more features before I am ready to make that switch.
I plan to replace the private messaging system here on ape-apps.com with the Ape Chat based private messages, so that all user-to-user messaging for Ape Apps is contained in the same place.
I also plan on replacing the My Colony 2 in-game chat with an Ape Chat channel, just like how MC1 and Antiquitas currently work.
When a user creates a new channel on Ape Chat, they are automatically made the moderator of that channel, but there aren't many customization options right now for channel owners. I plan on adding new ways for channel owners to customize and differentiate their channels, and am open to suggestions on this front as well.
Speaking on channels, I plan on adding in in-app directory of all public channels on the server.
Finally, I plan on adding direct peer-to-peer file transfers inside direct private messaging windows. You will be able to drag a file from your desktop into the private chat window and it will open a direct socket between you and the other user (bypassing the Ape Chat server) for fast file transferring.
Those are my immediate ideas for Ape Chat. Let me know what others you have, and stay tuned for more!
#apechat
https://chat.ape-apps.com
The main changes in this release are the revamp of the UI for individual chat posts (the "box" around them has been removed, padding altered, font size changes, etc), and the ability to now react to chat messages! To do a reaction, you simply right-click (long press on Android) on a chat message, and you will have the option to add a reaction.
User avatars on chat posts will now always show their profile picture. Before, it was rendering their default My Tokens character if they had one, but to me I thought this looked a bit out of place, so I removed that feature.
There were also some new server and developer related features added that nobody but me will notice, so I will not bother logging them here. And of course, multiple big fixes have been implemented in this update.
The future of Ape Chat
I have a lot of features planned for Ape Chat, which I will be implementing whenever I get around to them, but I am also open to suggestions from the community.
In the long-term I want to move away from the Discord server and have everything Ape Apps related going through Ape Chat. This is more of a security thing, you never know what Discord (or any third-party service) is going to end up doing in the future, so it's nice to be able to have control of the user support system myself. That might be a little ways off, since Ape Chat still needs a few more features before I am ready to make that switch.
I plan to replace the private messaging system here on ape-apps.com with the Ape Chat based private messages, so that all user-to-user messaging for Ape Apps is contained in the same place.
I also plan on replacing the My Colony 2 in-game chat with an Ape Chat channel, just like how MC1 and Antiquitas currently work.
When a user creates a new channel on Ape Chat, they are automatically made the moderator of that channel, but there aren't many customization options right now for channel owners. I plan on adding new ways for channel owners to customize and differentiate their channels, and am open to suggestions on this front as well.
Speaking on channels, I plan on adding in in-app directory of all public channels on the server.
Finally, I plan on adding direct peer-to-peer file transfers inside direct private messaging windows. You will be able to drag a file from your desktop into the private chat window and it will open a direct socket between you and the other user (bypassing the Ape Chat server) for fast file transferring.
Those are my immediate ideas for Ape Chat. Let me know what others you have, and stay tuned for more!
#apechat
https://chat.ape-apps.com
Ape Chat has just been updated to v2.3.0, and this update brings a ton of improvements, including bug fixes and exciting/long overdue new features. Let's take a look!
To get started, Ape Chat now finally supports push notifications. Prior to this update, you could get a notification if the Ape Chat window was minimized and you got a private message, but what if you didn't have Ape Chat open? Well now when you open the Ape Chat application (https://chat.ape-apps.com/) you will get a pop up notice asking if you want to enable push notifications (if you say no, you can show the popup again by finding it in the main slide-out menu). Once you activate push notifications for your client, you will get a notification whenever another user sends you a private message through Ape Chat.
This feature isn't just for private messages though. Now if you right-click on one of your channels on the left sidebar, you will see a new Subscribe option.
Subscribing to a channel will allow you to get notified when new chat messages are posted to that channel, even if Ape Chat is closed. If you grow tired of being notified, you can unsubscribe in the same manner.
The Push Notification options will only be available if your device/browser supports the Web Push API, which as of this writing is pretty much everything except for browsers on iOS (which will supposedly be coming soon).
Speaking of mobile devices though, one of the biggest issues with Ape Chat has finally been rectified with the all new mobile interface.
Running Ape Chat on mobile will now give you a bottom toolbar, finally allowing you to access the Chanels and Users listings, which were previously unavailable on mobile. This new interface upgrade now makes Ape Chat fully usable from a mobile device.
In addition, the PWA/Add to Homescreen support for Ape Chat has been greatly improved, on both Desktop and Mobile. Installing Ape Chat as a PWA on Desktop (you should see an install icon in the address bar on supported browsers) gives you a clean user interface, making Ape Chat look and feel like a native app on your device. On mobile, the installed PWA interface (on iOS, you have to do the "Add to Homescreen" feature) now detects devices that have a Notch (like most modern phones do) and updates the layout to work around the notch cutouts.
Other than the new feature additions, a whole host of bugs have been corrected in this release, including a lot of the bugs that would cause the chat server itself to crash and restart (thus filling the chat roll with "Server Disconnected, will try again soon" messages). And speaking of the "Server Disconnected" message, it no longer prints a message to your standard chat roll, but will now just give a small notice at the bottom of your screen, which will go away once the server connects again.
All in all, today's Ape Chat update is probably the most significant one in the last two years. If you use any of the Ape Chat channels, or want to be notified when new chats are posted in the My Colony or Ape Apps forum channel, consider installing the Ape Chat PWA or adding Ape Chat to your Homescreen, and enabling Push Notifications. It's a great way to keep up on what is happening in chat, and also finally makes the private messaging feature in Ape Chat useful!
Ape Chat can be used on all platforms right from the web browser at the link below. The Website/PWA is now far superior to any of the older "stand alone" Ape Chat clients released to the various app stores, and should now be considered the primary/definitive version of the service.
https://chat.ape-apps.com
#apechat
To get started, Ape Chat now finally supports push notifications. Prior to this update, you could get a notification if the Ape Chat window was minimized and you got a private message, but what if you didn't have Ape Chat open? Well now when you open the Ape Chat application (https://chat.ape-apps.com/) you will get a pop up notice asking if you want to enable push notifications (if you say no, you can show the popup again by finding it in the main slide-out menu). Once you activate push notifications for your client, you will get a notification whenever another user sends you a private message through Ape Chat.
This feature isn't just for private messages though. Now if you right-click on one of your channels on the left sidebar, you will see a new Subscribe option.
Subscribing to a channel will allow you to get notified when new chat messages are posted to that channel, even if Ape Chat is closed. If you grow tired of being notified, you can unsubscribe in the same manner.
The Push Notification options will only be available if your device/browser supports the Web Push API, which as of this writing is pretty much everything except for browsers on iOS (which will supposedly be coming soon).
Speaking of mobile devices though, one of the biggest issues with Ape Chat has finally been rectified with the all new mobile interface.
In addition, the PWA/Add to Homescreen support for Ape Chat has been greatly improved, on both Desktop and Mobile. Installing Ape Chat as a PWA on Desktop (you should see an install icon in the address bar on supported browsers) gives you a clean user interface, making Ape Chat look and feel like a native app on your device. On mobile, the installed PWA interface (on iOS, you have to do the "Add to Homescreen" feature) now detects devices that have a Notch (like most modern phones do) and updates the layout to work around the notch cutouts.
Other than the new feature additions, a whole host of bugs have been corrected in this release, including a lot of the bugs that would cause the chat server itself to crash and restart (thus filling the chat roll with "Server Disconnected, will try again soon" messages). And speaking of the "Server Disconnected" message, it no longer prints a message to your standard chat roll, but will now just give a small notice at the bottom of your screen, which will go away once the server connects again.
All in all, today's Ape Chat update is probably the most significant one in the last two years. If you use any of the Ape Chat channels, or want to be notified when new chats are posted in the My Colony or Ape Apps forum channel, consider installing the Ape Chat PWA or adding Ape Chat to your Homescreen, and enabling Push Notifications. It's a great way to keep up on what is happening in chat, and also finally makes the private messaging feature in Ape Chat useful!
Ape Chat can be used on all platforms right from the web browser at the link below. The Website/PWA is now far superior to any of the older "stand alone" Ape Chat clients released to the various app stores, and should now be considered the primary/definitive version of the service.
https://chat.ape-apps.com
#apechat
