I'm a huge fan of not using the system chat tools for this but to write your own chat client. But instead of a simple text file I'd use a small database like sq

I'm a huge fan of not using the system chat tools for this but to write your own chat client. But instead of a simple text file I'd use a small database like sqlite or a logger because I want to make sure that the chatters don't run into the trouble of fighting for the write access to that file. Also if you do this a few weeks the file might get that big, that you would like a database engine to parse it anyway. PS: Huge kudos for the question, btw. This is the kind of stuff that really improves your ability to use your system well.