Search Manual | DBabble Future Features
DBabble Links
Download Now
FAQ
Email Support
Features
Manual
Prices
Buy Now
Below is a list of some of the features we intend to add to DBabble. Approximately the first 10 listed features are ones that will probably be added next and after that the ordering is mostly random. If there is anything you would like not listed here, please let us know at support-dbabble@netwinsite.com . We often add minor features to the next Beta release if they don't involve much work for us. We are always willing to move particular features to the top of our todo list or add new features to the top of our todo list if you are willing to pay us for the time it takes us to add the new feature. If you are, email us at support-dbabble@netwinsite.com with a detailed description of the feature you require and we can quote you a price.
    - Have a simple/advanced mode to hide most of the features from beginner users.
    - Make the web browser interface look nicer
    - Voice Chat system.
    - Allow the multiple POP authentication system (using the POPAuth authentication module) to automatically put users from each domain into separate user groups.
    - Allow -NAME- variable in online_msg parameter for online support setup.
    - Feature to disable users from setting their online status.
    - implement nntp search command.
    - make holding down ctrl when clicking the next/previous buttons when viewing an instant message go to the oldest/newest matching message.
    - add another option to allow_discussion_email_posts setting. 4=Only dbabble users can send email posts
    - add user groups to the forward instant message popup menu.
    - add option to set a user's display name on login - useful for guest logins where you want to give the user an option to enter their name.
    - System for creating user groups from an external text file. Currently you can only add members to existing user groups from an external text file.

    - Add instant message chat mode support to web browser interface.
    - have a web browser discussion viewing option for only displaying the first message subject in each thread, with a count of how many replies there are to that message.
    - in user details tab, display a list of public user groups the user is a member (who receives messages) of (only user groups that anyone can view the member list of)
    - have a per-user option for not warning that they don't have an encryption key when sending instant messages to them
    - Allow permission groups to be used for controlling access to discussion groups and chat rooms. Currently only user groups can be used for this purpose.
    - In discussions in web browser, have option to display entire thread message contents in one page.
    - some concept of virtual domain so one set of users is not visible to another set. Optionally, users can be visible to users in all domains
    - add a user permission to be able to restrict users from finding and communicating with users on other servers linked to their local server.
    - Server setting to only allow only specified users to login from the external authentication database. Setting will be a list of valid user names (with optional wild settings. e.g. netwin* to match any user name starting with netwin). Optionally allow user list to reside in a separate file rather than in this setting.
    - thread-id's for instant messages so user can choose things like "ignore this thread"
    - when discussion group articles are deleted form the server send a cancel message to upstream NNTP server.
    - option to only show discussion articles that reply to my posts.
    - option to be notified of anything said in particular chat rooms even if you don't have the chat room window open.
    - Automatically delete empty discussion groups & chat rooms that haven't been used for more than x days
    - Server setting to disable attachments in instant messages, chat rooms, and/or discussion groups.
    - Option to make you available for online support only between specified hours on weekdays.
    - Option when sending an instant message to remind me about it in x hours/minutes.
    - A calendar/scheduler/appointment feature.
    - Make reminder and attachment message headers more obvious - maybe flashing or different colors.

    - Administrator command to only list users who have their status set to online
    - Option in discussion groups to reply to group and sender.
    - When a user changes their display name, update it in the present user list in chat rooms.
    - Look at possibility of making DBabble  talk to an ISL server for netmeeting support.
    - Allow users to create and use instant message folders from web interface like the Windows client interface does
    - When no text is selected make the 'Quote Selected Text' menu option become 'Quote All Text'
    - Command to view a list of selected fields for selected groups of users. For example list all phone numbers of users in a particular user group.
    - Implement the Jabber protocol to optionally allow users to communicate with users on any other servers that have implemented this protocol.
    - Implement the Jabber protocol for client to server communication so that any client that implements the Jabber protocol can use a DBabble server. The Jabber protocol offers a much smaller set of features than DBabble offers so such clients will not be as useful as our DBabble client, but it will allow users on non-Windows platforms (who can currently only use the web browser interface to DBabble) to use a any Jabber client to communicate with DBabble
    - spell checking.
    - add bold/italic/color formatting to instant messages
    - when viewing a received instant message, have option to choose a 'remind at ...' in addition to the existing 'remind in ...' options
    - regular expression searching in messages etc. (and "" for phrase searching)
    - when sending an encrypted message to only the online members of a user group, request from the server only the online members so it doesn't need to be encrypted for all members.
    - option to only receive email copies of articles once their average rating  exceeds the specified minimum value.
    - In chat rooms, from each users point of view each user is auto-assigned a unique color when they arrive. You can right-click to change their color to something else for this session (or if user is on friends list, color will be persistent across sessions)
    - when right-clicking on file links in windows client, have option to save the file to a new location.
    - Admin setting to prevent users from modifying their friends lists.
    - allow full text searching to specify minimum rating for matches and to sort by rating.
    - web browser instant message replying - have option to compose replies in a new window so as not to interfere with another message being composed simultaneously
    - allow user's to filter discussion group articles based on their personal rating, in addition to average rating filtering. Also have option to display personal rating next to articles in article lists.
    - When an instant message has been sent to multiple recipients, right click on recipient list should give option to create a user group with all recipients and original sender in it.
    - Show tooltip messages when hovering mouse over friends, with information such as phone number, email etc.
    - auto-completion when typing in name of instant message recipients.
    - add a subject option to the command line instant message sending program
    - option to remove 'from' email address on incoming email to discussion groups.
    - option to have reminder messages only delivered if the creator of the message is online at delivery time.
    - Option to split user details into different sections - e.g. business and personal.
    - add command to delete all messages from server copy, but keep the local copy.
    - make ctrl-ins/shift-ins copy/paste work in all situations where ctrl-c/ctrl-v work.
    - auto-delete message attachments after x days option.
    - allow administrator users to view instant messages of other users and delete them etc.
    - automatic detection and rebuilding of large NNTP attachments that have been broken into multiple posts.
    - temporary banning of users from chat rooms by chat room admin. (there is already a permanent ban option. in windows client, right click on user and choose ban)
    - split discussions/chat rooms into 2 different tabs rather than 1 groups tab.
    - make NNTP "article" command work for all groups. (some clients don't give group name first - BeckyNews/ Tin /Pine etc.)
    - should be able to see a list of all online users on servers with small numbers of online users (e.g. <100) . (maybe friends list checkbox to show all online users)
    - add a mobile phone field to user details. When sending messages, user can click on "Send to SMS" checkbox which means message will be delivered to phone instead of dbabble account for recipients that have one.
    - add a "do not disturb"/"free for chat"/"normal status" options which displays icons next to users.
    - In discussions, should be able to have a option to mark messages as resolved/done and an option to only display un-resolved messages and/or display resolved messages differently that other messages. Useful in cases where discussions are used for bringing up issues that must be looked into, and once the issue is resolved we usually don't need to refer to it anymore.
    - add a template merging feature for upgrades.
    - preference to automatically add anyone who sends you an instant message to your friends list.
    - discussion - give num-in-thread next to discussion subject.
    - read confirmation messages (so you ca mark a message as wanting to know when it has been read by the recipient)
    - Add system for starting external programs in response to specific DBabble messages. (eg video conferencing software) (should also support spawning applets from within web browser)
    - Top page showing last post in several discussions.
    - button for 'Don't bug me for 60 minutes I'm busy'
    - Have 2 different preferences for the position of the splitter bar in the main window - so you don't have to move it to your desired preference every time you switch between a maximized and normal sized window

    - Option to automatically suspend and/or delete created guest (invitation) accounts after x months.
    - Make the user_posts_from setting apply at the time an article is displayed, instead of at the time the article was posted.
    - In Windows client, option to display message list on the left of message contents rather than above it.
    - In Windows client allow dragging of instant messages onto friends to quickly forward a message to someone else.
    - In web browser template processing, allow multiple commands to be sent in a single request and the resulting template variables from both commands be available in a single response web page.
    - Allow users to send messages to and be notified of online/offline status of users on any DBabble server worldwide. There will be a server setting to disable this (keep your server isolated).
    - Allow server admin to customize (and override) headers of outgoing email messages
    - chat text color commands. and option to choose a color for all your text on other peoples machines. This could be an index into a list of standard colors (that must be customized in color scheme list to account for colors that would not otherwise show up clearly on current text area background. Or maybe just automatically change colors that would not show up to some color that would).
    - copy by right-clicking and showing popup menu in chat rooms and user details.
    - user searching. Have Search for only members of particular user group.
    - add paste as attachment feature in message composition
    - have clickable links in web discussions to send messages to article poster.
    - User /thread ignore feature. Should have options/: Ignore-> 1) Accept messages, but don't inform me when they are received. 2) Accept messages, don't inform me and mark them as read. 3) Do not accept messages and inform sender it was rejected. 4) Accept messages and delete them without telling me or sender.
    - message from above clock - allow to increase in height when multiple messages waiting, and let click on particular entry show that message.
    - add popup hints to friend list entries stating (user,username,state,last online, status message)
    - add tickbox to show user groups in quick-message window.
    - add cc to discussion group option for user group messages.
    - Add method so that if messages delete from server, they are not deleted locally.
    - pref - auto-cancel offline/idle/away state if I do anything x minutes after setting state.
    - when dragging quick message window to within a few pixels of side of screen, automatically turn on the "dock to desktop" checkbox.
    - hold down shift to click additional recipients in add recipients popup.
    - button on permission groups pages to view all members of permission group x.
    - highlight name of user that incoming message is from in quick-message window, and double click on them will receive that message.
    - group viewing. Option to view multi items per page in web browser.
    - option mark instant message as unread and close. (and shortcut key)
    - Allow editing of existing reminder messages.
    - Allow full text searching of discussion articles to specify option "Only show posts by me"
    - When viewing user details, show which public user groups someone is a member of. (have a permission group value for "can view public ugroup membership list for all users")
    - have forward to email using default email program for discussion articles and instant messages. - (easily done by starting program like "mailto:support-dbabble@netwinsite.com?subject=test&body=test%20test2%0d%0atesttest"
    - Better printing options - allow scaling and double sided printing.
    - option to give header information in message when using email checking feature.
    - message composition. Allow dragging of text blocks to other points in the message.
    - add win-client preference "After logging in while minimized: Don't open main window/Open main window minimized/Open main window
    - allow web browser users to set their offline status message.
    - add login as all listed users in tray popup for login screen. Even list for other servers. Also have a tray menu option to switch to account of each other user name they have logged in as from this machine.
    - open all selected messages in windows client when choosing open in separate window.
    - allow users to be able to find user groups on other servers that they are not currently members of.
    - allow single messages sent to discussion groups and individual users.
    - Add more control options to discussion groups for user options like those in user groups
    - Customized sounds for every type of event, and option to override for specific friends)
    - give a user option for each friend to be invisible to that friend.
    - don't show banned users in user searches, and don't deliver instant messages to banned users.
    - ask for confirmation when deleting reminder messages.
    - be able to group friends list so you can find friends more easily. Maybe by subscribed discussions/user groups.
    - closing a message in windows client. Add "Save Draft" option to discard/cancel options.
    - shift-delete to skip trash when deleting instant messages.
    - right click on trash message and have option to permanently delete.
    - email checking feature - allow user to choose where to send the notification about the new email rather than their DBabble account - e.g to an email address/icq account etc.
    - preferences - want to store both client and server version of prefs, so for any preference user can set that this value is their default server-side preferences, or applies only to this client.
    - time worked on project recording so users can press start/finish and system will record time spent. Also have integrated cost per hour etc and be able to generate reports of what total times and breakdowns of time spent on jobs.
    - Random instant message to another person.
    - hide user details from people you are ignoring. Option to hide user details from random chat friends.
    - regular expression searching.
    - random chats.
    - add hot-keys for sending to user-groups, composing discussion messages, going to discussions, and going to chat rooms.
    - Have option to make particular chat rooms/discussions restricted to certain ip addresses.
    - better server admin log file generation and searching. Generate XML log files.
    - allow user specify particular preferences that are different depending on what machine (or what ip address) they are connecting from.
    - add bind in/out ip address setting to windows client.
    - forward group messages as instant message. Forward user-group messages as email.
    - right-click on attachment - "have email to option" on right-click which opens in email client.
    - Proxy server auto-config - many servers use it these days, so might be a good idea to implement - also might want authentication.
    - post to multiple groups.
    - feature to filter footers from reply messages.
    - option to make messages sent to lots of users a lower priority
    - add a digest feature for posts to discussion groups.
    - Add controlling of turning on/off log files to log file viewing page.
    - make minimize all windows work on main Dbabble window.
    - option for friends so that incoming low priority messages from a particular user are treated as normal priority messages.
    - preference for what priority notification about friend state changes should be.
    - system wide hot key option for reminder to self with a pre-set reminder interval.
    - autoresponders so user can set state to "away until 1pm", and if anyone sends them a message, respond telling them they are away.
    - more intelligent message quoting. Allow user to be able to select quoted parts of messages, and to be able to find out and select the user who wrote that part.
    - Optionally use images for buttons instead of text in both Windows client & web browser.
    - option to hide menu bars to make the windows client interface look simpler.
    - user preference for the number of old messages to download on login, and after login.
    - have a pseudo-user group for every user which contains all their friends for broadcasting messages to.
    - User Groups - show groups they are already members of in search (maybe with icon next to it to indicate membership)
    - user groups need to be able to be defined in external database.
    - save messages as text from web
    - add log files with daily use figures
    - admin stuff. - reports on how many users each day etc, usage of groups. log viewing.
    - spam filtering - max from ip (and ip exempt) full spam detection from DNews
    - add slow downs for receiving (and sending) for a lot of articles (with exempt IP list)
    - use dnews max_out and max_speed settings. http://netwinsite.com/dnews/dnews.htm#1
    - let users change friend ordering.
    - bookmark page feature.
    - option to export/import messages from one account to another.
    - forward discussion articles to people via email.
    - modify many discussion properties simultaneously.
    - more admin - graph of how many online etc.
    - view just first in thread in short list, and show all in thread on 1 page.
    - when have 100+ subscribed discussions, need to be able to have search for particular one feature?
    - stop chopping text lengths to part way through double bytes.
    - integrate DBanner with windows client ad system in future? (not high priority)
    - Save/Load Dialogs. Add filter options and make default save in attachment folder, and use last save/load folder on start
    - numbering of articles starting from 1 on first page for better readability.
    - showing discussion item summary - list attachment name next to subjects.
    - Smtp Authentication for incoming email?
    - can we determine when system idle in Web browser using java calls?
    - provide pop3 access to instant messages.
    - have a button "send 'composing reply now' message to recipient" on message composition page when replying to a message.
    - When a user is deleted remove them from all user groups they are members of. (it currently only removes them from user groups they can see or find, and that are hosted on the same server)
    - search based on all public fields.
    - I should modify a batch of discussion groups or chat rooms at one time.
    - Discussion groups lists and article lists should be sorted by several keys. e.g. type/date/author etc
    - emotions/sounds in chat rooms
    - Allow administrators to set the order in which groups are displayed on the client software.
    - Let web users customize the look and feel themselves.
    - send all old messages to email button.
    - search option in subscribed group list.
    - Add a method for complaining about a user so they are automatically removed if they get 'x' complaints.
    - bcc option next to each additional recipient.
    - web - preview post page before posting it.
    - When responding to a user who is not a friend, ask if they should be added to friends list.
    - Users can customize the colors that other users appear to them for easier finding of them.
    - Discussions: As well as items and files, have a pictures tab with thumbnail pictures in group.
    - Add popup to respond, with some automatic messages ("YES","NO" etc)
    - predefined messages - e.g "let me know when the phone is free", "is it morning tea time yet"
    - add support for browsers without frames eg PalmOS
    - Make user groups be able to contain sub user groups?
    - ignore should work after choosing ignore on first of many pending messages from another user.
    - add users full name to friends list.
    - Change colors of text in chat rooms, and have special key works like "smile" which would mean come up like "Matt is smiling"
    - users who have permission to modify details of certain groups of users, and can add new users to their own user list.
    - Download old messages should be customizable to x messages x% messages, or x days old?
    - users can cancel messages after sending (as long as recipient hasn't read it yet)
    - Customizable network game launching system where users in a chat room and click things like host/join/launch to start the network game.
    - Have lobby system where there are certain areas and chat rooms/discussion groups are created within that area and only visible in that area.
    - Have an image/icon associated with each user, that is displayed next to their name when ever it is listed. For example, in chat rooms, might want to have an administrator icon next to administrators.
    - Java client like Windows client