My current idea(nothing concrete just thinking out loud) is to:
- Create a new "show discussion" page in the new UI (the UserCP).
- Integrate the chat as a sidebar which slides in and out.
- Permit everyone to comment on the discussion in the sidebar chat, including unregistered users, anyone.
- If spam becomes a problem, just create a filter for unregistered users, or block them.
I tried a number of editors for posting code in the user UI, and none are as good (or even close) to what we have now in the main forums.
So my idea is to create a "meta" version in the new UI which will not be posting, but commenting chat style on the posts, without effecting the main forums. Our "main editor" in the forums is quite good.
Then, maybe (if it becomes useful or popular) create a small app for the main forum which shows the comments from the new UI into the main forums.
Something like that, but we need to discuss it more before I start creating DB tables and the AJAX logic for managing all the chat messages.
Basically, this is a nice chat app UI in Vue.js we can use in many different ways in the forums for both commenting on a post or chatting in general about a post.