h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Jim.

I like your 'don't click here-o-matic' toy and wondered if you could implement a paging system of some kind into it. What I have in mind is this:

I've got the list displayed, and as it refreshes, I notice my pal X has appeared on it. I'd like to have a chat with him, so I click on his username in the list and a pop-up menu gives me the choice to go to their site (already implemented) or to page them. If I page them, a box appears into which I can enter some text, and press a send button. Then, a small icon appears next to X's name (but only in his list), telling him that he has a message waiting. He can then click on the icon in his list (or one duplicated on his home page, say) to read it.

I suppose this is heading towards some kind of chat thing, which you've already covered in another posting, but I thought it might be nice. I keep seeing people log into h2g2 and appear on the list, then I think 'Where are they, though? I wanna talk to them'.

Yup. As soon as I put the list up, it became obvious where it should go. I'm keen not to make it too intrusive, so we will have to allow users to decide whether or not they want to be on the list, and whether they want to accept messages. That side of it takes the time. The messaging is actually one of the easier bits.

Couldn't you put each user's preferences in the cookie somehow, and get the list to look at it for user identification, visibility, etc.?

Or is that obvious/nonsense?!

No that's not nonsense, that's exactly how it will work. The cookie identifies you to our database, which contains all your preferences.

Aha - obvious, then!