1. Chatlogs
In the Windows client, you can set it so your chatllog is automatically written continuously to a file on your computer. The Web version doesnt have this facility. In order to save a chatlog on the web version, right click in the chatlog, then press 'Ctrl+A' to select all the text, then 'Ctrl+C' to copy it to your pasteboard. Now open an MS-Word or Open source clone, left click at the start of the first page, then click on 'Edit/Paste Special then select 'Unformatted text'. You can now use 'File/Save As' to specify the filename and directory to use to store your new doc. If you just use 'File' it will store the doc to the default directory used by the application.
2. Chat management
Users such as Teachers, Teaching Assistants and TDs made use of a really good little chat management package called Keyfast to create scripts that could be sent to the chatbox either 1 click at a time or could be automated. The fact that the Keyfast software was a pirated copy of a version specially developed and given to the owner of the BIL club is niether here nor there, everyone used it
The web offering, the BBO Chat Manager is adequate for most peoples needs, the main drawback to it is that it supports only 1 file of chat-lines. Also, there are some very sophisticated features within Keyfast which some of the BIL teaching assistants use which cannot be emulated in the Web version, and is thus their main reason for sticking with the 'old' version. Keyfast itself doesn't work on the Web version (or at least not the pirate copy that everyone has).
Other solutions: Many teachers like to prepare their teaching scripts as a Word doc, and copy and paste line-by-line from the Word doc into the chatbox on BBO. this has the benefit of being able to organise your files, but can be a little clunky switching between the Word doc and the BBO session.
3. Club facilities
In the old Windoze client, the Club-Owner BBO-Id is given extra capabilities on its associated table. There is a text file attached to the table, in which the BBO-Ids of all the Club members are stored. For Private clubs, this then allows only those Ids into the Club room, and can also be used to control admittance into Club tournaments. These membership control functions can be emulated on the BBO Web version, where an external text file needs to be created and utilised. This usually means that Creation of Club tournaments and events can only be done by one computer unless you duplicate the Club membership file across several computer, or use a shared file.
However, the major facility that is missing from the Web version is the ability to broadcast (by chat-only, chat+mail, or mail only) to the Club membership. In the Web version you can Chat 'To Club', but this in fact only transmits your chat message to those that are in the Club room at the time. And you can put out a mailshot to the entire club, but it requires the creation of a distribution list containing the name of each club member within the My BBO Manage friends function
(more to follow)
