f-list info

F-List 2.0 and New F-Chat Development Update
Hello everyone!

This post was intended about a week ago, but some thing came up as they always do.  Today we will go over some of what we're up to and how things are going for the new site and chat development.



The State of the Site

As of this writing, we consider the new site 'mostly stable,' and so for the time being, development has moved to chat.  We are currently collecting and reviewing feedback for both bug reports and suggestions, and that is a process that will be going on even after the site is launched.  We are looking at bug reports first to ensure that everything is functioning as intended, then reviewing general functionality concerns, then feature suggestions in that order.

We have a small team of individuals working on feedback due to the number of volunteer staff we have, but they are working at it diligently.  Some manpower may shift in the near future to double check the review process, but overall it's going fairly smoothly as of now.

Feedback on current design and functionality is mostly positive, and we are aware there are some areas ( such as Groups ) that still need some TLC, and we will be working on that over the next few months on top of the feedback process.  Remember, if you have any feedback to submit about site design, functionality, or features, please see the feature request/bug report section here on the test site here.  Please try to search to make sure your request hasn't already been covered, and vote up/down any existing feedbacks which may match your interest!

There have been a lot of general fixes to the site, and we may see about providing a short list of some of those changes in the near future; but they are mostly bug fixes and QOL changes.  For an estimated completion rate, I would say the site is at around 73% completion at the moment.



The State of Chat

Heavy development of the new F-Chat client and servers begun toward the latter part of 2020 and picked up speed in 2021; that is where most of our time has gone and why we've been a bit quiet.  With the current manpower available, this is a time consuming process, so producing sexy results to show off is a bit slower than with the site; especially since a lot of the work is unseen!

The new F-Chat is currently "basically functional," and we are in very early alpha tests with a small group of testers and may expand our testing group in the future.  We are first ensuring that all basic features work, along with several of the important new features that are intrinsic to the new client, along with making sure that everything is nice and secure and stable.  If I were to give an estimated completion percentage of the new F-Chat, I would say it's probably about 23% complete at the moment--there's still a lot of work to be done!

I'll go over some of the new features we're testing:

Perpetual logs: Chat logs now function similarly to most modern chat protocols in which chat logs are stored permanently on the chat server and can be searched from the current day to the first day of the chat, so you never have to worry about losing logs ever again!  This is, admittedly, the most intensive new feature to achieve, but it is currently working well.

Perpetual connection:  In combination with perpetual logs, there is also a perpetual connection now.  What this means, is that your account is technically always connected, as is your logged on characters.  This way, you can use F-Chat on multiple devices and have seamless activity between devices no matter where you go.  No more interrupting your RP because you need to go use the bathroom: you can login on your phone and keep RPing on the can without missing a beat; just please keep it classy!

Again, this is pretty standard for most modern chat protocols like Discord and Slack, as this is how you remain connected to the server to receive messages even when you're offline.  This combined with perpetual logs should provide a whole new experience for our users since you can keep connected to your friends and RP wherever, whenever without missing a post!

Removal of the logged in character limit: Did you know, it's no longer 2012 and our server can handle more than 500 people at once?  Actually, our new server is beefier and more macho, so it can handle a lot more connections!  Now you can log in literally every character you have at once and have fun juggling all those notifications and dings, because every character can receive PMs and all updates to channels .  Ever been grumpy because you could only log on 3 characters at a time and have to swap them? Fret no more; that is a thing of the past!

Channel Sorting:  Due to other changes, we have taken into consideration that there may be a lot more private channels and we may also expand the list of official channels. Due to make things easier for both the server, and the end user client, we are testing out a feature that sorts channels into groups by topic so that you can find rooms more quickly without slowing your device down to a halt from having to load a list of 1000 rooms at once.

For example, let's say you have a room dedicated to, I don't know, Wild Arms (why would that be the first place I go?).  As this is a room for a Canon universe, this could be sorted into the "Canon Rooms" category so that users can find it along with rooms dedicated to stuff like Overwatch and Raid: Shadow Legends, but it wouldn't be in the same group as, for example, "Size Differences;" which would be in the "Fetish Rooms," category.  This is still in the testing phase and may or may not change per further testing, but this was introduced to address a technical concern.

Private Channel Roles:  Ever wanted to add roles like Discord to members in your private channels?  Now you can!  This feature will allow you to make several tiers of roles within your channel all with individual permissions and even symbols so that you can manage your private channel with more control than ever, including allowing guests in read only mode.

We'll go over some more new features and information over the next few days, but we'll start out with those to get you tantalized!  I will make another post later today with some more information, but I think that's enough to digest for now.

As always, thanks for your support, and we'll have more information for your perusal later in the day.