Announcing Entropians.com :: A new Entropia Universe community resource

[711]

I am excited to finally present a project that I have been working on for several months now:

[wrap=right]http://entropians.com/images/entropians_244x188.jpg[/wrap] This initial launch of Entropians.com offers a feature-rich, dedicated instant messaging network for the Entropia Universe community, allowing members to stay connected with friends, society members and other Entropia Universe contacts 24 hours per day. A completely customized and EU-themed Instant Messaging client, EntropiansIM, is available that integrates perfectly with the dedicated messaging server platform, to maximize all of the server's features and functionality.


Main Features of the IM Server

• Based on rigorous Open Source XMPP/Jabber protocols
• Solid Java performance capable of thousands of simultaneous users
• Multi-user group chats
• File transfer capability
• PC-to-PC voice support
• Messages received while offline are stored for later delivery
• vCard user profiles
• Powerful search service to locate contacts
• Custom contact list avatars
• Robust plugin extendability: IM gateways, SIP (PC to phone), chatbots
• MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, and AIM gateways, allowing members to be connected to multiple networks from a single client

[wrap=right]http://www.entropians.com/images/preview2.jpg[/wrap]
Main Features of the IM Client

• Extremely stable cross-platform Java application
• Minimize to tray
• Highly customisable user preference options
• Customisable status message
• Optional autostart on OS boot
• Automated away status whenever a full screen application (such as Entropia Universe) is launched
• Calendar & Task manager enabling custom alerts
• Built-in notepad
• Customizable emoticons sets
• Broadcast messages
• Entropia Universe theme
• Status selector with custom presets
• Spellchecker
• Integrated voice chat
• File transfers
• Six user interface languages (easily extendable to more via XML files)
• Search tool to request other Entropians join your contact list
• Robust plugin support
• And much more!!

EntropiaForum members are invited to visit www.Entropians.com and check out the screenshots and additional information regarding EntropiansIM network, and register a user account. Registration is completely free for all Entropia Universe particpants, and will surely grow very quickly, helping to bring the EU community even closer.

This new subforum here on EF will be used for all discussions related to Entropians.com IM network future development, support, feature requests, and feedback. There is also a shortcut to this subforum in the EntropiansIM client, under the help menu.

Also, a new member profile field option has been added to the EF UserCP, so that members can share their EntropiansIM username in their profiles if desired:

And it shows this on the users profile (under the Contact Info tab):

Members can edit this field in their UserCP > Edit Details


Future plans for Entropians.com include web-based email service:

YourAvatarName@entropians.com​

(assuming of course there is enough community interest) and several other exciting possibilities. As always, I am eager for feedback from EF member, and suggestions on how to improve these community projects, so feel free to PM me (or now, IM me ) with your ideas.

To Do List:

I still have several aspects to refine on the Entropians.com website, primarily the user guide. Right now it is quite plain, but I plan to add some helpful images with arrows pointing out some of the less apparent features. However, I was excited to get the network launched, and assumed most of our members are quite familiar with the basics of IM software.

Also, if any members wish to help with localization of the client software into other languages, that would be great. More info in this thread: https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...sing-entropiansim-client-other-languages.html

And of course, I need to import the EF smiley set into the EntropiansIM client

Other planned projects include setting up a chatbot (Bertha?) that would be available 24/7. The software that runs today's chatbots is quite impressive; I think the community could come up with some pretty interesting EU-related logic routines for the bots

As always, big thanks to Jorael for providing some wonderful images for this project

 

[levithanikos]

Bring it on!

If you keep doing so amazing changes in EF i won't be able to play EU anymore

 

[Koister]

Cool program .

Great work.

 

[MindStar9]

Holy Moly ... you were right! Great work as always MrAdminMan ... this is great news, and WAY exciting. Brilliant as always!































***

 

[Lykke]

wow this really looks neat 711 What a great feature!!!

+rep

 

[delerium]

another messenger!

 

[Cail]

XMPP/Jabber protocols? Wonder if bitlbee would support it?
I hate having billions of programs open, that's why i like to use bitlbee ^^
Don't get me wrong, it looks awesome, trying it out now.

 

[Lykke]

another messenger!

yes ... but but .... with ENTROPIANS .....

 

[MindStar9]

WhooHoo ... I registered, got it downloaded, and even had a little chat! Oh ya, and also uploaded the new JSA logo as my icon.

It's just WAY cool.

 

[Lavawalker]

Hi 711,

Not to be a pain but wish to clarify before looking further at this as an option :

From the Privacy statement for info collected,

"Automatically Collected" Information: When you participate in Entropians.com and, for example, participate instant messaging sessions, profile editing, or open one of our HTML emails, we may automatically record certain information from your web browser or chat client by using different types of technology, including database logging, "clear gifs" or "web beacons." This "automatically collected" information may include Internet Protocol address ("IP Address"), web browser type, the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after Entropians.com, the pages you view on our site, and the dates and times that you visit Entropians.com or connect to the XMPP network.

Clarification Question : With the database recording etc, do you log any of the chat session held with other partcipants for any period of time ?

I am not so worried about web pages visited before after yadda since EU is run on a dedicated partition and only EF is ever visited on this partion

~ Sparkz

 

[Saphira Lucky]

Now we all can keep in touch without beeing worried about our stupid fl being full with people ingame

 

[craze3]

Suggestion: Maybe in-game popups for full screen players, like xfire?

 

[711]

XMPP/Jabber protocols? Wonder if bitlbee would support it?
I hate having billions of programs open, that's why i like to use bitlbee ^^
Don't get me wrong, it looks awesome, trying it out now.

If bitlbee uses the Jabber protocol, then you should be able to connect with no problem. Just go to Entropians.com and register, then use username@entropians.com as the JID in your preferred Jabber client.

As I mention on Entropians.com however, the EntropiansIM client is based on Spark source code, one of the most full featured, and standards-compliant Jabber clients available. So if you choose to use a different client, you may not have all features that the Entropians server is capable of providing.

 

[Lykke]

is it possible to use it on MAC?

 

[711]

Hi 711,

Not to be a pain but wish to clarify before looking further at this as an option :

From the Privacy statement for info collected,

"Automatically Collected" Information: When you participate in Entropians.com and, for example, participate instant messaging sessions, profile editing, or open one of our HTML emails, we may automatically record certain information from your web browser or chat client by using different types of technology, including database logging, "clear gifs" or "web beacons." This "automatically collected" information may include Internet Protocol address ("IP Address"), web browser type, the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after Entropians.com, the pages you view on our site, and the dates and times that you visit Entropians.com or connect to the XMPP network.

Clarification Question : With the database recording etc, do you log any of the chat session held with other partcipants for any period of time ?

I am not so worried about web pages visited before after yadda since EU is run on a dedicated partition and only EF is ever visited on this partion

~ Sparkz

You'll notice that the privacy policy is nearly identical to the one here on EF (I used the EF as the template for the new Entropians.com Privacy Policy). Certain sections may not apply directly to all aspects of Entropians.com. I will make a more accurate and clear revision of the Privacy Policy in the next day or so.

As for database logging of private chat sessions, the answer is: no, chat sessions are not archived or monitored by anyone. The only time the server stores messages is when the recipient is offline, in which case delivery is delayed until they next log in.

As for security, I am the only person with access to the database or admin control panel, so the situation is not much different than it is here on EF with regard to private messages (basically it would be highly immoral, and probably illegal for me to root around in places where people have a legitimate expectation of privacy). In any case, I'm much to busy working on projects like this to have time for spying, lol.

 

[711]

is it possible to use it on MAC?

The client itself is a Java application, so yes, it can run on a Mac. However, I assumed that the vast majority of our userbase uses windows (since PE does not run on other OS), so I do not have the required Java installer package license to build Mac or Linux distributions, unfortunately.

However, if you go to http://www.Jabber.org there are quite a few nice Jabber clients for a huge variety of operating systems, including Mac.

 

[Lavawalker]

You'll notice that the privacy policy is nearly identical to the one here on EF. Certain sections may not apply directly to all aspects of Entropians.com. I will make a more accurate and clear revision of the Privacy Policy in the next day or so.

As for database logging of private chat sessions, the answer is: no, chat sessions are not archived or monitored by anyone. The only time the server stores messages is when the recipient is offline, in which case delivery is delayed until they next log in.

As for security, I am the only person with access to the database or admin control panel, so the situation is not much different than it is here on EF with regard to private messages (basically it would be highly immoral, and probably illegal for me to root around in places where people have a legitimate expectation of privacy). In any case, I'm much to busy working on projects like this to have time for spying, lol.

Hi 711,

Thanks for the clarification And I would not worry if you read what I wrote, it is usually a whole lot of jibberish anyway

Sounds good, I will give it a test run on the other system and see how it all goes

Other than that, it looks fantastic. You work way too hard

~ Sparkz

 

[Cail]

If bitlbee uses the Jabber protocol, then you should be able to connect with no problem. Just got to Entropians.com and register, then use username@entropians.com as the JID in your preferred Jabber client.

As I mention on Entropians.com however, the EntropiansIM client is based on Spark source code, one of the most full featured, and standards-compliant Jabber clients available. So if you choose to use a different client, you may not have all features that the Entropians server is capable of providing.

Thank you for your reply, it did seem to work, only problem was authentication at first, needed to use username@entropians.com for user
Great job and nice service!

 

[Brownlow]

Hi 711,

Not to be a pain but wish to clarify before looking further at this as an option :

From the Privacy statement for info collected,

"Automatically Collected" Information: When you participate in Entropians.com and, for example, participate instant messaging sessions, profile editing, or open one of our HTML emails, we may automatically record certain information from your web browser or chat client by using different types of technology, including database logging, "clear gifs" or "web beacons." This "automatically collected" information may include Internet Protocol address ("IP Address"), web browser type, the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after Entropians.com, the pages you view on our site, and the dates and times that you visit Entropians.com or connect to the XMPP network.

Clarification Question : With the database recording etc, do you log any of the chat session held with other partcipants for any period of time ?

I am not so worried about web pages visited before after yadda since EU is run on a dedicated partition and only EF is ever visited on this partion

~ Sparkz

sounds like standard web analytics collecting to me

 

[711]

Thank you for your reply, it did seem to work, only problem was authentication at first, needed to use username@entropians.com for user
Great job and nice service!

Yes, a fully formed Jabber ID (JID for short) looks just like an email address.

e.g. user@hostname.com

In the EntropiansIM client, I have the hostname predefined, so members only need to use their usernames to login (the part before the @).

 

[Wody]

Registered, and seems to work with Trillian, although I haven't had the chance to talk with anybody yet

 

[Jorael]

As always, great work

I hope the community enjoys this dedicated software

 

[711]

Registered, and seems to work with Trillian, although I haven't had the chance to talk with anybody yet

The EntropiansIM server has a search service running on search.entropians.com, if your client supports that protocol. If not, you can use the EntropiansIM client, which has a search plugin included, allowing users to easily search for other Entropians by username or avatar name:

 

[Wody]

Within seconds I managed to talk with somebody after writing my previous message, the only 'issue' with Trillian seems to be that people do not appear online. But, that isn't something that is important to me, Calypso has like a 3 hour rotational period anyway, so people will be awake again within a few hours again if you need them after contacting them, if they aren't online

 

[711]

Within seconds I managed to talk with somebody after writing my previous message, the only 'issue' with Trillian seems to be that people do not appear online. But, that isn't something that is important to me, Calypso has like a 3 hour rotational period anyway, so people will be awake again within a few hours again if you need them after contacting them, if they aren't online

Why not use a different Jabber client that works properly then?

If your reason for not using another client is that you have Trillian configured as a gateway for other services (such as Yahoo, AIM, MSN, ICQ, etc.), there are many Jabber clients that can do that as well, with simple plugins. In fact, Spark, upon which the EntropiansIM client is based, has very good support for gateways.

I will probably release some gateway plugins for use with EntropiansIM within the next week or so.

 

[Jakkin]

Sweeet !!
i'v downloaded it and testing atm
so if anyone wants to chat and what not my ID is:
Jakkin@entropians.com

come in and join the fun

 

[~ thebuzz ~]

<< user registred thebuzz >>

 

[Witte]

Really nice work . A zillion times better than XFire.

 

[Witte]

Anyone knows a jabber client that can be minimized like winamp (so just a very small bar left) and has the option to stay on foreground? So I can use it while running EU in fullscreen .

 

[~ thebuzz ~]

Anyone knows a jabber client that can be minimized like winamp (so just a very small bar left) and has the option to stay on foreground? So I can use it while running EU in fullscreen .

Exactly that I have been searching for now for 10 minutes