Ramblings of Narc

So lately I’ve been working with XUL. Specifically, I’ve been trying to recreate the (very old) Flash client for TNChat made by a friend (sorry, no link; I can’t be arsed to locate one).

As a result, ladies and gentlement, I present to you: Codem TNChat v. 0.3 (zip, 6.31 MB) (incl. XULRunner).

For those of you with some experience with XULRunner, you may wish to download the source code (zip, 146 kB) instead.

Update: Just fixed a bug that was preventing URLs from turning into links — download TNChat v. 0.3.1 (zip, 6.31 MB) or TNChat 0.3.1 source (zip, 146 kB) instead of the above.

Please note the following:

• You’re looking at an Alpha version. I couldn’t crash it easily, but I haven’t honestly tried very hard. That means it may or may not work for you. If it doesn’t, send me an email and I’ll try to help you get it working.
• What you see in this version may not necessarily still exist in the next. Alpha versions are not feature-complete, nor stable. In other words, if you get used to this version, I can’t guarantee the next one will look exactly the same.
• XULRunner can be a bit of a bitch sometimes, either refusing to run, or taking an inordinate amount of time to start up. If you think this has happened, try the following:
  1. Go to Start -> Run…;
  2. Type in “taskkill /f /im:xulrunner.exe” (without the quotes)
  3. Click “OK” or hit the Enter key
  4. Wait a second or two and then try running TNChat again.
• The server for this client is running on my computer. As such, it’s my bandwidth, and my Internet connection. At this time, there is no way to kick or ban users. Please don’t make me build that in sooner than I expected.
• For the same reason as above, a warning: if my Internet connection dies, so will the server. I’m sorry for that, but I can’t control my ISP (if I could, I’d have a better pipe!).
• Finally, if the interface doesn’t seem very straightforward to you, email me or ask in the comments about it. I promise to update this post with any notes resulting from such questions.

Finally, the server is not yet available to the general public, though you may, of course, ask politely for a copy.

Oh, and I know the /buzz sound is annoying. I’ll replace it in some future version.

Another Update: There is now a protocol documentation available, for those curious.