Tribune

A tribune is a type of chatroom for a website, basically an enhanced shoutbox meant to be used for real-time discussion. The experience is close to IRC but the module is fully web-based and backed by the Drupal database, and does not depend on any external service.

The module has a notion of threads based on timestamps: typically, a user clicks on the timestamp at the left of the message they want to answer before typing their message. When the messages is displayed, hovering the mouse over timestamps highlights the corresponding references and answers.

The concept is not very easy to describe and the best way to figure out what this module does is to visit the demo website, try posting a few messages, move your mouse over timestamps, it will really be more clear than the following technical description.

This tribune has its own page (/tribune), but it can also be displayed as a block (see this page for example).

Another interesting feature is the XML backend, which allows users to access the tribune via an advanced chat client (called a coincoin, some existing coincoins are JCoinCoin, multiplatform, wmCoinCoin, for Linux, or onlineCoinCoin, web-based, see a more complete list at moules.org, sadly most existing resources are in French only).

Smileys are supported, writing [:totoz] in a message will show this smiley, retrieving it from the server defined in the tribune settings (sfw.totoz.eu by default), alternatively the smileys module can be used.

The way to answer previous messages is to click on their timestamp, which adds it to the message field, and write the answer after that. When this answer is displayed after it is posted, moving the mouse over the timestamps in it highlights the referred post as well as the other answers. This makes following discussions easier than usual shoutboxes or IRC. This feature needs javascript (with some CSS), but the tribune is still usable without javascript.

To reduce server load, only the new posts are reloaded, instead of the whole page, it is also better for users who don't have to wait for the page to be reloaded.

Downloads