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BetterChat

A Better ChatBox that focuses on letting you make the ChatBox you want! BetterChat introduces channels, emotes, text modifiers, extensive per-channel settings, and even optional giphy support!

• This chat requires ULX, and integrates the support very thoroughly.
  
• To enable giphy support, you will need to generate a testing giphy key for your server.

• Channels
  • Player
    
  • Team
    
  • Admin channel that integrates ulx asay
    
  • Group channels that can be user created and managed
    
  • Private Message channels that integrate ulx psay
    
  • Logs for admins, all messages from any channel, for all players are forwarded to this channel
    
  • Prints
    
  • Optional team overload (for DarkRP or DarkRP derivative gamemodes)
• Emotes (requires extract with gmad.exe to customise, see the github page for how to do this)
  
• Giphy support (you will need to generate a beta API key here[developers.giphy.com])
  
• Nicer text input (all the normal text shortcuts you'd expect from a full text editor)
  
• Autocomplete (with visible suggestions) on player names, ulx commands and emote names. Suggestions based on usage
  
• Chat history
  
• Clickable links
  
• Discord style text modification (*italics*, **bold**, ~~strike-through~~, __underline__)
  
• Text colouring, via [#rrggbb] (in hex, e.g. [#ff0000] for red), or [@red]. Colour tags set the text colour until the next colour tag. Use [#] to reset back to white.
  Example usage: [#ff0000]This is red, [@green]this is green, and [#]this is white :)
  
• Extensive global and per-channel settings
  
• Customisable player quick access menu (quickly run ulx commands or any custom command on players via a menu)
  
• Fully integrated DarkRP Support (including groups, FAdmin, PM, etc.)
  
• Ulx permission support for all special features (giphy, groups, text modification, etc. )

and many more smaller features, you just gotta try it out to find them all! :D

If a player on your server does not like this chat, it can be disabled in Q->options->BetterChat without error.

Some chat based addons aren't fully compatible with BetterChat, I'll try to fix any I can, but some require the other addon to be changed. I'll list any addons that require this in the Compatibility Discussion, along with how to fix them.

• DarkRP
  
• ATags (with and without DarkRP)

• /code for gmod lua syntax highlighting (like steam's /code)
  
• Link pre-loading (simple website name acquired only by the sending client, for security)
  
• An admin options menu to outright disable some features

• Ctrl + s : Toggles current channel's settings panel
  
• Ctrl + Shift + s : Toggles local player's quick access menu
  
• Ctrl + e : Toggles emote menu
  
• Ctrl + Backspace : Removes last word
  
• Ctrl + Shift + Backspace : Removes all before caret
  
• Ctrl + Tab : Next Channel (Or swap emote mode, when Emote menu open)
  
• Ctrl + Shift + Tab : Previous Channel
  
• Ctrl + 0,1 ...,9 : Select respective channel (Or insert respective emote, when emote menu open)
  
• Ctrl + w : Close tab
  
• Ctrl + o : Toggle open channel tab
  
• Tab : Autocomplete

All global settings are stored as ConVars, every convar can have it's default set on the server using "[ConVar]_default"
Each of these settings can also be modified via Q->options->BetterChat, and will show more information on hover.

• bc_fadeTime : Time for a chat message to fade (0 for never)
  
• bc_chatHistory : Number of messages received before old messages are deleted
  
• bc_teamOpenPM : Should opening team chat open to most recent unread PM
  
• bc_rememberChannel : Should betterchat remember your most recent channel when opening
  
• bc_saveOpenChannels : Should channels from your previous session be re-opened on join
  
• bc_channelNumShortcut : Should the shortcuts CTRL+[0-9] change channel
  
• bc_acDisplay : Should autocomplete suggestions be showed in the text input
  
• bc_acUsage : Should autocomplete order its suggestions based on your usage of them
  
• bc_clickableLinks : Should any hyperlinks posted to chat be clickable
  
• bc_printChannelEvents : Should messages like "Channel All created" be shown
  
• bc_allowConsole : Should any message starting with '%' be run as a console command instead
  
• bc_convertEmotes : Should emotes like ":)" be converted to their respective emoticon. Note this is purely client side, others will still see the emoticon
  
• bc_showGifs : Should gifs from !giphy (if it is enabled) be rendered
  
• bc_doPop : Should the chat ever play the Pop sound (based on other settings)
  
• bc_doTick : Should the chat ever play the Tick sound (based on other settings)
  
• bc_formatColors : Should colors typed in chat be displayed in their respective color

• bc_server_replaceTeam : Replaces team channels with a separately networked team channel (separate per team). This is useful for StarWarsRP-like servers, where players often change rank, and team chat is disabled by default.
  
• bc_server_removeTeam : Disables the default team channel
  
• bc_server_maxLength : Maximum message length, gmod's default is 126
  
• bc_server_giphyKey : Set this if you wish to enable giphy support on your server. you will need to generate a beta API key here[developers.giphy.com] (it's free and easy, you will need to make an account though). then call bc_server_giphyKey [yourkey].
  
• bc_server_giphyHourlyLimit : This defaults to 10, which I found to be a reasonable amount considering the limits on a beta API key. If your server does not have many players (or players don't often use this feature), feel free to increase this.

• bc_chatlogs : Enables the 'Logs' channel which receives all messages from groups, PM, team, etc.
  
• bc_giphy : Ability to use !giphy if bc_server_giphykey is valid
  
• bc_color : Ability to use [#ff0000]Red in chat
  
• bc_groups : Ability to use BetterChat groups
  
• bc_italics : Ability to use *italics* in chat
  
• bc_bold : Ability to use **bold** in chat
  
• bc_underline : Ability to use __underline__ in chat
  
• bc_strike : Ability to use ~~strike~~ in chat

All channels are limited by the ULX chat cooldown ConVar: ulx_chattime

• You can copy a text's colour in the right click menu
  
• You can copy a player's full name or steam id by either right clicking their name in chat or in the player quick access menu
  
• Left clicking on a players name in the player quick access menu lists all other players
  
• Double clicking a player's name in the chatBox opens a private channel
  
• You can also access settings of (and sometimes close) channels by right clicking the tab
  
• You can close some channels by middle clicking the channel tab name
  
• You can change which channel is displayed when the chat closes in channel settings
  
• Renaming a group channel in its settings does so globally, all clients in the group will see that name
  
• If you scroll up too far, a little "Back to the bottom" button will show up
  
• You can choose which channels show prints (from addons like wiremod)
  
• You can move the chatBox by dragging the top right corner, then right click this corner to return it to its default position

And many, many more!