project_p3ol

Chat Room Listings and PROTOWEB proxy.

I've updated the chat room system to utilize the Chat Room Listings form that was most common in the AOL4+ clients. The FDO91 form data was pulled from a main.idx belonging to an AOL3 client install. So I know this form was used in the 3.0 client. It is much nicer than the multi-windowed versions that originally were used with 3.0. This might break some older progz though, not certain.

Check out the link for a video. I added chapters so you can skip along to specific areas rather than l...

Client IE Browser is functional!

Thanks to Protoweb, I've been able to update the clients IE browser proxies to use the free protoweb proxies. This has brought the clients browser back to life. Now you can surf the web like it's 1995!

Sorry about voice volume. My mic is max boosted but still quiet. The video has not been edited, raw deals complete with nose sniffling and moments of A.D.D. memory failures.

https://protoweb.org/

I'm back - update on my situation

Some of you folks may know about my situation, and my absents over the last couple months via my post(s) in #news on Discord.

For those that don't here's a brief recap:
A few months ago a close member of my family passed away. This person was close during my childhood, including my teens and on to my late teens when my life started taking turns to where, eventually, we stopped speaking and keeping in touch. Life went on, shit happened; lots of it, with an every kno...

Create Alternate Screen Names!

I've been working on this process for a few weeks now.

I've found - through digging around - all the original dialogue for the creating alternate screen names process, and have recreated all the forms for this process as well.

The only two things that are currently working are Create a Screen Name and Delete a Screen Name, though I will be completing this process and all available options first before moving on to anything else.

I've also re...

Try Buddy Lists!

Found a reference to a form I had completely forgotten about from my time on AOL, the Try Buddy Lists! form.

This form would load whenever a user logged in to AOL who hadn't set up the Buddy List yet.

So here it is, when new users log in they'll be greeted with this window from where they can choose to close the form or set up the buddy list. Once the Buddy List is set up this form will no longer show, except if the Buddy List is closed at any tim...

Templated What's New form complete.

The template is complete for this form now. Templating will help us deliver content to the form when a user keywords "hot" or "new", or via CTRL-2 when the client is active. Or by going to "Go To" menu and selecting the "What's Hot" menu item.

This form did not exist anywhere in any of the main.idx databases I've searched through, and I have a lot of them ranging from AOL1.0 up to AOL7 ...

A bit on how I create forms.

It's been a while since I last posted. My apologies; life always gets in the way of fun, and I've recently fallen into financial distress thanks to tax season. I'm trying to understand how a low-income family with 3 children could have to pay nearly 3 grand in income tax, like WTF. Anyway...

This video is about 20 minutes long of me working on creating the What's New on AOL form from scratch. This is how I've been creating all the forms that I have not found when perusi...

HAPPY NEW YEARS!

As the new year begins, I wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you for your support and contributions to our project. Whether you have provided financial support, motivational encouragement, or both, your involvement has been invaluable and has helped us to continue moving forward even during times of slow progress.

I also want to extend a special thank you to the members of our development team. Your kindness and willingness to lend a helping h...

Happy Holidays!

Dear P3OL project Patreon subscribers,

I wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude for your support of the P3OL project. Your contributions have been invaluable and have allowed us to continue our work, even during difficult times.

I want to let you know that I have faced some small financial hardships recently, but your support has helped me to continue pushing forward and making progress. Additionally, my heavy work schedule has unfortunatel...

E-Mails are here!

Well, folks, I've got emails working (not 100% yet). They are internal only so there are no sending emails outside of the project's server, but maybe down the road - if there is enough demand for it - we can think about getting an exchange going so we can email out to other domains.

Currently, there is no Mail Center window when you click the mailbox icon as it were on the real AOL service. Right now it just directly loads any new emails you have.

For fun: Animated bouncy square.

The square's logic is computed server side then streamed to the client where it is animated in a form.

I made this to prove that simple animations can be streamed to the client.

Collapsible Buddy List Groups

A short video of a new feature coming to Buddy Lists - collapsible groups.

While the feature is not new to the original America Online client's Buddy Lists, it is new for Project P3OL. 

The default groups will also be changing from just showing:

• Buddies (0/0)

To showing the original groups:

• Buddies (0/0)
• Co-Workers (0/0)
• Family (0/0)

MAC OS9 America Online 3.0 - progress!

It's been a long minute since my last post, but we haven't stopped working on content.
The team is taking some time for family, and a well-deserved break.

I spent a day black boxing the MAC America Online 3.0 client trying to get it working with our server. I've made substantial progress as you can see in the picture.

Things are coming along nicely, though as mentioned we've had to slow down and realize our families could use some of our time as well. But we ha...

Town Hall - some thoughts

Well, the Town Hall - while slightly unorganized - was a success.

Unfortunately, during setup and prep, stuff started not to work, break, and generally be a pain in the arse. It was frustrating for me in particular as I had VMs with Windows3.1/98 with America Online 2.5/3.0 on them to showcase their functionality.

During the dress rehearsal, my VMs all worked fine, but when I refreshed everything to get ready to show, my Windows3.1 VM started complaining about the VGA adapter not ...

Little peek at America Online 2.5 support

I've been spending a lot of time getting America Online 2.5 working, and just as much time has been spent trying to solve America Online 3.0 for Macintosh.

The images show the registration form loaded, and the welcome window with the buddy list. Still have a little ways to go but I'm getting there.

Be sure to set your calendars for our Town Hall coming up on the 17th of September 2022. There's a lot to show and a lot of excitement from our dev team. These guys are all just as pa...

Upcoming Town Hall event

We will be holding our second Discord Town Hall event on September 17th, starting at 8 pm CST - if you live in a CST timezone that doesn't utilize daylight savings time, that will be 7 pm.

We'll be showcasing many exciting and cool things we've been working on. Plus the Prodigy Reloaded team will be giving a demo of their work! 2022-08-24 01:55:40 +0000 UTC View Post

Covid & Mac IIGS

Last week I ended up getting covid-19 from my daughter, who got it from her grandmother, who got it at a yard sale for really cheap.

It was hard going for that week, but my daughter and I snuggled the entire time, which aside from feeling like hell, was enjoyable as we watched Abominable, Coco, Big Hero 6, and Encanto on repeat. My daughter knows the words to every song in Coco and Encanto by heart!

I stopped by our Discord a few times to keep the gang up to date on my ba...

Public Server Updated

I've updated the public access server with all the fixes and additions mentioned in previous posts here and those in Discord.

Your clients will now perform updates on login.

Any images you don't have - and the server does - will be downloaded to your clients.

Guest accounts can now play with the Buddylist (menu bar - Members -> Buddy Lists)

IMs now supports color

Chat rooms have been fixed so the number of people on the list is always correct.

{S sound ...

It's been a minute - update on progress

I'm back to work now so progress will start to slow from what the past week was like for server additions.
Thanks again to everyone for the support, it gave me a lot of time to implement some great features for the future. Aside from the awesome news about NwN coming to P3OL gaming I've added Download on Demand (DOD) features for images that a client doesn't have - this downloads them as requested.
I have also added an update feature just like America Online had for updating stock Ameri...

Neverwinter Nights is coming to Project P3OL!

One of the first America Online exclusive Graphical MMOs that at the time could only support up to 500 people playing simultaneously (Obviously will not be the case in P3OL).

It contains a massive world, with a real-time turn-based battle system, an awesome story, and D&D 2.0 rules / skills / spells / and classes.

Built on top of the legendary SSI D&D GoldBox engine.

This is not only a momentous occasion for Project P3OL, but also fo...

Thank You! & an Update

I want to take this time to not only apologize for the lack of updates to my patrons but also to say THANK YOU! 

Let me touch on the lack of updates first. I'm finding it challenging to keep both the Discord and the Patreon site updated with new, upcoming, and in the works changes to the project. I want to blame this on my A.D.D. but honestly, it is just laziness. I'd much rather have one single place where I can post changes and have it spread across both platform...

Up coming fixes/additions

Hi all,

I've been doing my best to fix some of the more annoying issues we are experiencing like the stuck accounts, and the user name list in chat rooms having duplicate entries.

Over the last week my focus has primarily been on the stuck accounts issue. I've been testing my fixes and I'm pleased to say they finally work - this time! So you can expect those fixes to be applied soon. I'm back to working my full days again after having a few days off.

I am also re-writing the...

We just hit 1,000 Members!

Today at 1:55am CST our Discord community hit 1k members, that's amazing to say the least!

We've decided to celebrate by giving this member a registration cert to pre-reg a screen name.

1000 members in 17 days. Unbelievable!

Thank you all!

Too much love - chat rooms are crumbling!

Hi everyone, this is amazing having so many people wanting to get on the service!

It's so amazing that the chat rooms are starting to become overwhelmed!

While it is both good and bad - bad for your guys, good for us - it is helping us really see areas that need more work. Thank you all for your interest in P3OL, we are working our butts off getting the service working but please also remember P3OL is in an ALPHA state of production, ther...

//8ball Is P3OL real?

8-Ball says: Most Likely

Well, there you have it, Project P3OL is real. :)

I didn't forget about //roll !

One of the first things I made sure to get right after the chat room handler was finished was //roll !

Many people even still today did not know the //roll chat command supported many dice rolls. I've set a hard limit to 15 dice though, but hey, in the end, the community gets to decide the limit when we introduce community polls in the Discord:  https://discord.gg/jZUmUv9S

$IM_ON/OFF

This feature was one that I had completely forgotten about, it was somewhat elusive if I remember correctly? Well, it's back, and it works.