Missing Chat tabs

[s_p]

Since a few days ago, after one of the updates, most of my chat tabs disappeared. I now only have the: main, whisper, NPC and help tabs. All others are gone (e.g. group and guild etc.), and I cannot view those feeds at all, only the ones I mentioned above.
Is this it now? If this should not be, can someone let me know what I can do?

I have tried updating several times since this happened, and now also reinstalled the game, and ran the newest update (through the repair function). Still having the same problem.

Please help...

[weltall]

did you check the chat tabs config entry?

[s_p]

Hmm, Can you please explain?
I'm not very savvy, so please elaborate

Thanks

[Earowo]

try stretching that chat menu out, that works for me

[bilbous]

you need to go into options->chat and click on the checkbox  for "use basic chat" I think it is. It seems to be enabled by default but I am updating atm so can't be more specific.

[Koios]

Bilbous is right, it most probably the "Use basic chat window" option. I understand it might be a handy thing for people not in a Guild, but could I ask that someone make this something you change to and not have to change from?

[Earowo]

ok cool thats great, i got a guild member last night and was havin trouble gettin him to get the extra tabs out, i had him uncheck that
you gotta relog when you uncheck it btw
it was weird though, that wasnt checked when i first downloaded, i just had to stretch the chat box out

[weltall]

it's a new feature which allows to choose a custom chat.xml version so you can change the tabs used. the interface allows only to change this value from chat.xml to chat_basic.xml and viceversa. It was added for new players so obviously it must be enable or it would be without any sense to exist. i implemented it so who had been playing already, and saved at least one time chat settings, should have had it already, unfortunately who didn't have the entry had it changed.

[dovewings]

If you have the "Use Basic Chat" unchecked, does unchecking the undesired tabs remove them from the chat window or do you have to edit the chat.xml file?  If you have to edit, what do you change?  I'm not good with XML.

[LigH]

No, you only switch between the "Basic Chat" with a few tabs less than the normal "Chat" window.

The place where you can check or uncheck single tabs, it only selects which output will appear in the "Main" tab too, not only in the specific tabs. But it does not remove tabs.
__

By the way, I am not the only one who believes that the "Basic Chat Window" is a quite stupid default. Every noob who joins a guild needs to be taught how to switch it.

[dovewings]

Thank you so much.  That clears up a lot and cleans up my chat window.   Very Helpful.

[weltall]

By the way, I am not the only one who believes that the "Basic Chat Window" is a quite stupid default. Every noob who joins a guild needs to be taught how to switch it.

no you aren't the only one

[bilbous]

personally I think horizontal tabs are much better than the current vertical ones (some mods have it) and it would be better if they were collapsible so that unwanted tabs could be rolled up or the tab bar had its own slider mechanism, basically anything so that the size of the text windows are not dictated by the number of tabs you have. Dynamic tabs for user channels would be better than having them all share the Gossip tab. Have we learned nothing from IRC?

[weltall]

eh in irc it's way better vertical as horizontal takes too much space fast and goes out of screen with just 10/15 channels. The problem with collapsible tabs is that you trash automatically the customizability of them.

[bilbous]

The problem with the vertical tabs is that English is read from left to right and to avoid excessive scrolling a wider panel is needed. If you have the vertical tabs then in order to show them all you wind up using way too much screen space for your chat window as it is not only wide but tall. I typically try to show only 3-4 lines of text in my chat window but that leave at least half of the tabs unaccessible.

If you have one drop down button for adding new tabs, it could "glow" when any new messages are received so the the user could select the appropriate tab. Previously selected tabs could be shown continuously.

Personally, I don't belong to any guilds with any of my characters so the guild tab and the alliance tabs are just wasted space I would love to hide, I rarely join groups and do not usually use the help tab these could be hidden as well until needed. Petitions could conceivable be added but that is another matter and a separate tab solely for GM contact that cannot be hidden might also be a useful addition. It might be a one-way tab unless contact is initiated by the GM--user could not spam the GMs and the GM could manually reset the users tab to receive only mode when the GM is done with whatever they initiated contact for.

The status tab is largely redundant as much of what goes in there also goes into main and there are some status messages which are impossible to remove from main. Main should be renamed Local and have all status messages removed. It should be only for RP chatter and emotes.

Just a few ideas. Oh and as for tabs going off-screen that is just poor design, once the chat tabs fill up the available space they could line feed and start another row. Anyway that is not a problem I have ever had because I close tabs I need and cannot carry on that many conversations at once. I suppose if you made a tab for each person you were /telling or if you regularly participated in many user channels you might come up with that issue and I also see how that could render the drop down idea problematic.

I am not trying to dictate changes just trying to generate discussion that could lead to interface improvements. As it is now it is less than optimal.