if you just want to test the tool. skip to the bottom and read instructions :)
Boy, this component was a real workout.
To get chat done, I had to totally redesign the framework I developed for managing page components. this in itself was not a simple task.
After that, the actual chat app frontend needed to be developed for the framework.
Chat works, and it looks really nice. Its not a finished product quite yet, but Its now finished enough to show off, and test with.
There is some really good, sorta bad, and really ugly however.
the good: the new toolset constructed allows me to do all kinds of nifty stuff. chat is by far the most difficult component on the website to develop. its mainly b/c it has lots of tiny components doing things. By comparison, this tool will make all the other 'live components' on the website trivial.
b/c of the way this tool box works, it makes communicating with the server VERY easy. so easy, that its actually fun to rewrite the site!
literally everything can be made live. and not only that , making the game features (like alacrity contests etc) actually work, and work really well.
after the last kinks are worked out of this tool. development on alacrity is going to pickup speed BIG TIME.
what this component does is allow for easy communication between server and client (thats u, technical terms), and automagically does a lot of the work for you.
In plain english, this is a 'high code' tool that allows a programmer to do complex things, and 'low code' tool that allows an html design to solely focus on design, and not have to worry much about configuration of it.
Thats really important, b/c if you haven't already noticed, I am a horrible website designer!
the sorta bad: The framework itself has some flaws, which I cannot easily remedy. in a nutshell, due to shared buffers, its possible an overly complex app could cause it to 'get confused'. that should happen with the chat app, b/c of the way I wrote around the issue. its there tho, and will eventually need to be fixed.
The really ugly: In order to fully finish this toolbox, I will need to completely rewrite the library I'm already using to accommodate the upgrade. the current version is not compatible with the older version. but the 'library' they both use, IS compatible. fixing this change would break the old framework.
Eventually, I need to switch totally off the old framework anyway, but that means slight modifications to code I just got finished writing
HOW TO TEST 
1. log into
test.alacritysim.com 2. refresh the page. (there might be a bug here, refreshing clears it to be sure.
3. click on account >> chat. this will pop up a chat console.
4. try and post something from test, and likewise post from the main site. it should appear immediately on test.
this is live. so anything you post here will be viewable on the main site!
