Envolve Chat Integration Module

[andrew.lee]

About the Envolve Chat Plugin
This module will connect your vBulletin forum to Envolve chat. Envolve is a chat toolbar similar to Facebook's chat bar that allows your users to have group and one-on-one chats with each other while browsing your forums.

This mod requires an API key from Envolve in order to function. Visit http://www.envolve.com (https://www.envolve.com/?utm_source=vBulletinDir38&utm_medium=info&utm_campaign=vBulletinPlugin&install_type=vbulletin) to get one. A free version is available that provides a full feature set for up to 25 concurrent users. Higher numbers of chatters require a paid account.

This mod integrates your forum's account system with Envolve so that when users are logged into your vBulletin site it also logs them into the chat. In addition, it integrates your profile pictures / avatars and profile information. With the 2.0 release of the mod, other users can now view your profile information and get a link to your profile simply by placing their mouse over your name.

The Envolve chat system is a rich solution for community chat. Some of its features include group chat (both public and private), one-on-one chat, the ability to pop chats out into their own windows, moderation controls (boot / block / ban / timed ban), chat message translation, resizable chat windows, chat sharing, and drag-and-drop chat invitations. As a hosted solution, all chat traffic is handled by Envolve's servers and will not place any additional load on your server.

Installation:
Detailed installation instructions can be found here:
https://www.envolve.com/docs/vbulletin-chat-plugin.html (https://www.envolve.com/docs/vbulletin-chat-plugin.html?utm_source=vBulletinDir38&utm_medium=info&utm_campaign=vBulletinPlugin&install_type=vbulletin). They are also provided in the Readme.txt file.
You can see and try out the chat at http://www.envolve.com (https://www.envolve.com/?utm_source=vBulletinDir38&utm_medium=info&utm_campaign=vBulletinPlugin&install_type=vbulletin).

This version of the mod will work for both vBulletin 4.x and vBulletin 3.8.x.

Screenshots:
Here the "People List" can be seen open in the lower right hand corner of the page. This shows all users who are currently viewing the forum. This site owner has chosen to only allow logged-in users to chat.
http://www.envolve.com/plugins/vBulletin/open-people-list-envolve.png

Here a public group chat has been opened, and the user has moused-over another user to see his profile information.
http://www.envolve.com/plugins/vBulletin/open-chat-and-profile-rollover.png

Here a user is creating a new group chat that will be shown to the other users on the site. He has also "popped-out" the "General" chat into its own window.
http://www.envolve.com/plugins/vBulletin/new-chat-and-popout.png

[andrew.lee]

7lanet - Thanks for giving it a shot! Do you have any feedback for me? Ways we can make it better?

[COBRAws]

Hosted would be better for site owners, not hosted elsewhere

[andrew.lee]

Our hosted solution is intended to make the site owners' lives easier. Most web servers can't handle large numbers of real-time connections. We've built specialized real-time server software so that we can handle the load. This also makes installation and updates easier.

[Pvtiste]

Hi,

Just a quick question : does it use the vbulletin login/passwd?

[andrew.lee]

The free version allows login with Facebook / Twitter / Envolve. All our paid packages come with Single Sign On which securely logs your users into chat using their vBulletin usernames.

[Pvtiste]

Installed and 5 stars!
Really nice customer service ;)
Thanks Andrew!

[andrew.lee]

Happy to help! Happy chatting!

[COBRAws]

Our hosted solution is intended to make the site owners' lives easier. Most web servers can't handle large numbers of real-time connections. We've built specialized real-time server software so that we can handle the load. This also makes installation and updates easier.
I understand, but ig there was a hosted solution I would gladly pay for it.

[Hornstar]

I understand, but ig there was a hosted solution I would gladly pay for it.
There are other chat bars out there which are hosted solutions. (Comet Chat for example) You may want to check those out as this one seems to only offer the one choice of hosting it on their server so far.

[sknight]

I installed it last night with a 15 day trial. Import the xml as a plug in and it works. Saves ton of cpu and sql access from my server.

[ARSamo]

erro on loging in

HTTP ERROR 500

Problem accessing /loginredir. Reason:

Server Error
Caused by:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Response.sendRedirect(Res ponse.java:399)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponseWrapper.send Redirect(HttpServletResponseWrapper.java:136)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.GzipFilter$GZIPResponse Wrapper.sendRedirect(GzipFilter.java:346)
at env.server.login.LoginRedirectServlet.doGet(LoginR edirectServlet.java:48)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:707)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:820)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(Ser vletHolder.java:527)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedCha in.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1216)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.UserAgentFilter.doFilte r(UserAgentFilter.java:77)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.GzipFilter.doFilter(Gzi pFilter.java:133)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedCha in.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1187)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doHandle( ServletHandler.java:421)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.han dle(ScopedHandler.java:119)
at org.eclipse.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle( SecurityHandler.java:456)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler.do Handle(SessionHandler.java:225)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.do Handle(ContextHandler.java:930)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doScope(S ervletHandler.java:358)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler.do Scope(SessionHandler.java:183)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.do Scope(ContextHandler.java:866)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.han dle(ScopedHandler.java:117)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandlerCol lection.handle(ContextHandlerCollection.java:245)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerCollection .handle(HandlerCollection.java:126)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerWrapper.ha ndle(HandlerWrapper.java:113)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server.handle(Server.java :351)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpConnection.handleRequ est(HttpConnection.java:594)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpConnection$RequestHan dler.headerComplete(HttpConnection.java:1042)
at org.eclipse.jetty.http.HttpParser.parseNext(HttpPa rser.java:549)
at org.eclipse.jetty.http.HttpParser.parseAvailable(H ttpParser.java:211)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpConnection.handle(Htt pConnection.java:424)
at org.eclipse.jetty.io.nio.SelectChannelEndPoint.run (SelectChannelEndPoint.java:506)
at org.eclipse.jetty.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool$2.r un(QueuedThreadPool.java:436)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
Powered by Jetty://

[andrew.lee]

ARSamo - how did you get that error? Looks to me like you tried to login with Facebook / Twitter / Envolve but I'm not seeing any errors myself there. Can you give me some steps to reproduce it? Thanks!

[ARSamo]

once i login i get this error........ but secondly its going fine.... thanx

[cigrafix]

Can you make it so we can choose usergrounps who can use the chat???

[tommydamic68]

Great idea, the hosting will surely lose you sales. Make it a script before someone else does and make some money quickly! Great job if not for the hosting through you guys!

[andrew.lee]

Right now you can select whether everyone, only logged-in users, or only admins can use the chat. Allowing you to specify more specifically is on the TODO list.

[andrew.lee]

@tommydamics68 - The problem here is that hosting chat at scale is actually not as easy as it sounds. Apache, for instance, can't handle it (ask anyone who's tried to use CometChat with more than 100 concurrent users...). The hosting is a feature for large site owners. For small sites there are a number of free / cheap php scripts that get the job done as well. We're targeting more of the higher-end sites for which the hosting is a big plus.

[vipe]

Is there any way to get this working on PHP4? I'm assuming that's the problem as I'm getting the following error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: hash_hmac() in /path/to/forums/global.php(607) : eval()'d code on line 771

[andrew.lee]

Unfortunately no, not yet. The hash_hmac function we use is needed to ensure secure logins (we wouldn't want people to be able to fake being chat admins...), and that function is only available in php5. I suspect a workaround could be made for php4. Feel free to tweak the code... all you should have to do is replace that hash_hmac function with something php4 compatible. This is on our todo list for the future.

[andie215]

Ive signed up for monthly subscriptions and its working really well on my forum. 2 questions though, some people are concened about the refreshing time everytime they turn a page and are there any smilies? Many thanks ..

[DEGE]

I have a simple question. Let's say you have 200 users logged on your site. Can they talk each other indiscriminately? I found out that users want to talk only to their friend's list usually.

Moreover y have additional concerns...:
Are they getting connection with other users off my site? Are you keeping log of conversations, emails, facebook accounts?

Privacy is an asset for users and that's why some users ask to run this soft in their own server.

[andrew.lee]

@andie215 --
Ive signed up for monthly subscriptions and its working really well on my forum. 2 questions though, some people are concened about the refreshing time everytime they turn a page and are there any smilies? Many thanks ..

Unfortunately we can't do anything about the refresh from page-to-page. Every time you navigate to a different page your web browser pulls down a whole new piece of HTML. Unlike Facebook, we don't control the whole experience so we can't pull any tricks to stop the chat flickering.

There aren't any smilies at the moment.

@DEGE --
I have a simple question. Let's say you have 200 users logged on your site. Can they talk each other indiscriminately? I found out that users want to talk only to their friend's list usually.


Moreover y have additional concerns...:
Are they getting connection with other users off my site? Are you keeping log of conversations, emails, facebook accounts?

Privacy is an asset for users and that's why some users ask to run this soft in their own server.
1) Yes, everyone on a site can talk to everyone else. We focus on group chats for communities.
2) No, users can only talk with users on your site. They can't chat with other users from around the web.
3) Public conversations are recorded and can only be accessed by you, the site owner, through your Envolve interface.
4) If you are using our vBulletin plugin we don't store the email or facebook info about your users.

[andie215]

Thanks Andrew, one more thing. I have the plugin set to logged in members only but im still getting guests entering though i havent seen them post. Is this normal ? My members are loving this :)

[andrew.lee]

Hi All -

We just updated our plugin to version 2.0. The new plugin is a major update from the previous version and addresses many of the complaints in this thread (as well as adds a number of new features).

Enhancements include:
-Support for Avatars / profile pictures
-Support for custom profile rollovers (we now link directly to your profile and have stats right in the rollovers)
-Ability to restrict chats to certain groups only
-Ability to grant administrator privileges to specific groups
-Ability to enable / disable chat on mobile site
-Ability to restrict chat to only certain sections of the site
-SSL support
-Search feature in list of people
-Vastly improved moderation controls -- timed banning, ban management

Bugs that were fixed:
-Chat no longer appears in manage attachments screen or other popups.
-Major speed improvements for large sites
-Chat does not (by default) display to users who have not been verified.

I'd encourage people who are already using Envolve to upgrade, and people who have used it and uninstalled to give it another shot. Feedback would be appreciated!

Note that we've increased the number of users allowed in our free plan to 25 users, and we've now given all site owners access to all of our futures, including, skinning, analytics, ssl, and all of our customization options.

[Manoel J?nior]

Hello Andrew,

Cometchat I use because it has the option of webcam ... You want to include this functionality?

[andrew.lee]

Hi Manuel - Thanks for the comment! We're focusing exclusively on text chat for the time being though. We don't have plans at the moment to add video.

[navarro]

that update isnt working on my 3.8.6 vbulletin :S

i did all steps and uploaded files but nothing on pages

old version is working well

[andrew.lee]

@navarro - Can you shoot us an email at support@envolve.com with all the relevant details and we'll help you out?

[BirdOPrey5]

I tried to install this. Nothing happens. I looked at the plugin-

the hook is: parse_templates

The code of the plugin is only:


require(DIR . '/includes/plugins/envolve_parse_templates.php');


Is that really supposed to be it?

VB 3.8.7

[andrew.lee]

That's correct. Did you make sure to upload the files that came with the plugin? There are instructions in the Readme file that explain how to install it.

[BirdOPrey5]

Yes, I'm sure they are in the right place.

In the debug info I can confirm the 3 envolve php files are being included:
./includes/plugins/envolve_parse_templates.php
./includes/plugins/envolve_util.php
./includes/plugins/envolve_api_client.php

But no envolve javascript is being added to the page.

[andrew.lee]

Can you shoot us an email at support@envolve.com and we'll try to help you out? Let us know the URL of the site and any error messages you're seeing in apache logs. Also make sure you have the chat module enabled and it is not restricted from the user group for which you are logged in.

[BirdOPrey5]

I will email when I have some time, thanks. It's on my test site at the moment. I'm curious does anyone have version 2.0 working? The only one I've seen comment is navarro with the same problem I'm having.

[andrew.lee]

Hey All - I just posted an update that both simplifies installation and makes it work properly on vB 3.8.x. Sorry to everyone for the inconvenience before! If you had trouble before please give it another shot and let us know if you have any troubles.

[BirdOPrey5]

I can confirm 2.01 now works!

[andrew.lee]

Awesome. Thanks for giving it another shot!

[markopete]

Not sure if the following has been suggested yet:

An "away" mode would be handy, I have missed chat calls because I was busy at the time.

Also, perhaps a chat request might be made to be more visible, or varying options to do so perhaps.

I love this module, 5/5 for me :)

Pete

[andrew.lee]

@markopete - Thanks for the suggestion. It's on our todo list! Glad you like it.

[Lee G]

I have just downloaded and installed this.
Very easy to do
But where are the customisation areas or how do you customise the colour etc
The only option I see is one part where you add your key, set user groups etc
I have tried it with three browsers and it seems to make Opera hang, never completing loading a page

[andrew.lee]

You can customize your site by logging into our backend at http://www.envolve.com

Here is a video that explains how to change colors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ4ACKTW_X4&feature=channel_video_title

[Lee G]

I found this was setting off the check 4 hacking mod
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?p=2225369#post2225369

A few sweaty moments on that one :o

[andrew.lee]

Hi Lee - I'm not familiar with the check 4 hacking mod, so I don't know why it would be saying that. Our service runs everything through *our* servers, so it won't open up your servers to any new hacking threats. Might want to check with the authors of that mod to see what went wrong there.

[Lee G]

It was the early hours here when I was trying and testing, and I did not intend to come across as being rude by saying there were problems and then going quiet

Check 4 hacking, basically checks for code injections and other problems
I run further tests last night to see what it was reporting when this is installed
The error I got when doing a manual run of the check 4 hacking tests was Corrupt Datastore found!, pluginlist

The idea and concept of this system is brilliant
In the half hour I had it running, there were four people that had noticed it on the forum and decided to stay around and use it
The translation system thats built into it, again is another brilliant idea

[BirdOPrey5]

This is the mod Lee is talking about: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=265866

Although he is a little mistaken about what it does... it only scans all plugins for the string "base64" and if found reports the plugin as compromised because there has never been legit reason for base64 encoding to be used in plugins and 99.9% of the time it means a plugin was hacked.

I suggest eliminating the base64 encoding if possible or going back to having the code in a php file instead of a plugin.

[andrew.lee]

Ahh. Interesting. Yes, we do use base64 encoding. We do this to avoid corruption when we are sending your usernames / profile pictures to the chat servers. We have to sign this data and send it over the web so it's much safer to do this if no wierd characters are being used. This is actually for added security : )

[Equarter]

I have an Arabic forum, when I installed it, the Arabic user names was not showing correctly, the Arabic letters were seen as question mark, any help?

[andrew.lee]

@Equarter - We've heard similar reports of this. We'll look into the issue. Sorry about this! It'll probably require an update to the plugin to fix.

[Equarter]

thanks waiting for the issue to be resolved, loved the mod, but I can't use it now, :(

[sailnet]

this may have been answered already - Like this and would signup for the pro plan but I'd like to try it out first just for my moderators. if there a way to expose the chat toolbar just for a certain group...i.e. my moderators?

thanks

[BirdOPrey5]

this may have been answered already - Like this and would signup for the pro plan but I'd like to try it out first just for my moderators. if there a way to expose the chat toolbar just for a certain group...i.e. my moderators?

thanks

There is an option, Restricted Usergroups, where you can block access to everyone but mods if you want.

[sailnet]

Can you make it so we can choose usergrounps who can use the chat???

yes

[sailnet]

We just installed this mod and signed up for a paid account on envolve.

we have a few requests that we think are important.

1) is there any way to reduce the font size? - the font sizes you guys use are bigger than we'd like and we'd like to make the fonts smaller.
2) is there anyway to restrict our forum members from creating open chat rooms. we really only want the general members to chat with each other and we'd like to restrict the creation of general chat rooms to admins & moderators.

can these be done?

both items are very important to us.

[andrew.lee]

Thanks for signing up Sailnet! Happy to answer questions.

In regards to the fonts, you can have some limited control over font selection from our "Skinning" panel on our backend (http://www.envolve.com/admin). Font size is currently not an option, though we are intending to make this much more flexible in the future.

You can definitely disallow the creation of new chats by general members. This option, and many other options, are available from the Options tab on our backend (http://www.envolve.com/admin)

Hope that helps!

[Lee G]

Nice feature being able to turn it on and off, great little chat add on :up:

[Lee G]

For some reason, the only part on my forums this does not show is the forum index page
And the only person that can see it is me
Logged in from two accounts and it only shows on my admin account
For some reason it does not show on the normal users accounts

[Lee G]

Further testing with other skins on my forum and it looks like it dont add some code to my default skin. All the other skins work fine apart from the default one

[Lee G]

Looks like the skin I use as default is missing a hook in the footer

All I need is the code to add to the footer template

[Lee G]

Been through and sorted the code now.
It was the way completevb had coded the footer on the orange style.
Makes a change to be putting things right in one of their skins
The only place I cant get it to show, even on an untweaked default style is the forum index page page

[EddyMaxx]

Works on every page except the forumhome. Not sure why?

My members like it. I'm just trying to figure out why its not displaying on the home page. Even for a default theme. Maybe a plugin interfering?

[EddyMaxx]

If a member goes to the home page via http://domain.com/index.php then it shows up on the forum home.

But if they go to http://domain.com it doesn't display anything.

It works on all other pages with no issues.

Any ideas? It happens with both standard theme and custom theme.

[Lee G]

Exactly the same problem. I wish I had been able to explain it like that :o

Im sure the cause is vbseo and the way it rewrites the home page
Which would mean there are a lot of others that could suffer the same problem

[EddyMaxx]

^^ I don't have VBSEO and its not working on the homepage either.

It looks like their code looks for a specific page to place the javacript in. Since we don't have our files in a "/forums" directory its not picking it up because we have it at the root and index.php is not displayed.

There has to be a way to do it.

[BirdOPrey5]

I don't see any reason it would work with index.php but not without... Also on my test forum it works fine either way.

[Lee G]

Mines the same, as soon as you put a file name in it works
And it works with all mods, radio and tv player, classifieds etc etc
Forum home without any extension, ie index.php and it wont show

[BirdOPrey5]

Although not a solution, a work-around would be to find an .htaccess command to forward anyone from / to /index.php.

[EddyMaxx]

Although not a solution, a work-around would be to find an .htaccess command to forward anyone from / to /index.php.

Yeah, I figured that would be a workaround to just create a re-write rule in the .htaccess file.

Going to look at it a little further.

On your test site do you have all the files at the root level or inside a "/forums" directory?

[BirdOPrey5]

everything is under a directory, but it's not /forums/.

[EddyMaxx]

Got ya. This is weird. lol

[EddyMaxx]

Well here is the work around. Just create a .htaccess file (if you don't have one already) and just add the following line.

RedirectMatch ^/$ /index.php

That will take care of it and it will show on the forum home page.

[sailnet]

we have a paid envolve account but I'm about ready to remove it due to a disturbing trend that been occurring on out site. People are showing up and annoying the women on our website. creeps are creating accounts who are not posting anything but finding the women members of our site and then sending them annoying and offensive messages in the chat area.

I would like to restrict chat to people who only have a certain minimum number of posts but there is no way to do that in the envolve intergration.

groups in vbulletin cannot be assigned by number of posts and you can only restrict chat access by group not by rank (which can be based on # of posts).

[VHLinks]

The chat works good, but doesn't recognize additional usergroups to give them access to the chat. The only way it works is if you change their primary usergroup to something new for the chat only and that just seems silly. It needs to recognize the additional usergroups for the chat.

[bada_bing]

OK so I have installed this on our site but I cant seem to get the usergroup setting. For example I want to setup a chat room for my staff only to view and use for discussion, I also want to add additional chat rooms but this does not seem to work.

For example I want to create a chat room called moms only I do this
Chat Name: moms only
Group: Registered Users

but this group however doesn't even show up

As to creating a staff only group for usergroups administrator, moderator and supermod, how do I do that if I want to call the chat room Staff Chat ?

[bada_bing]

I have disabled this plugin until some of the details are worked out.

Another question, can members control who they see or can be seen by. For example the facebook only shows your friends that are online, what are some of the privacy settings of this mod? If no privacy settings are included this will be a deal killer for most people that want to respect the privacy of their members

[RFViet]

After signing up a free account with API key and importing the plug-in product. I still don't see the chat box or chat room yet :D

[Goomzee]

i installed this and works fine but i don't understand why i can't chat with my forums members

[sailnet]

has anyone else besides myself and these guys had to recently turn off envolve because their .js file is generating alert warning from Norton/Symantec?

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?p=245913636

???

[BirdOPrey5]

Envolve is shutting down.

I'm writing to inform you that the Envolve chat service will be shutting down on September 30th. Read on for details and what replacements for Envolve are available.

We’ve chosen to sunset Envolve in order to focus entirely on Firebase, our developer platform. Over the last 3 years, Firebase has grown tremendously and is now the focus of our engineering team and business. As a result, we haven't been able to give enough attention and maintainance to Envolve.

After some careful deliberation, we reached the conclusion that our Envolve customers will be better served by switching to another chat service. This was a difficult decision for us, but we believe it is the best outcome for everyone. Other chat services are now more full-featured, are better maintained, and have support on more platforms.

Therefore, on September 30th, 2014, all Envolve services will be discontinued. The chat widget will no longer load, and you will no longer be able to log in to the Envolve.com website. To ensure your continued privacy, we will be deleting all account information and chat histories at this time as well.
If you've been happy with Envolve and want to continue with a drop-in chat solution for your site, we recommend switching to ChatCat (Live Demo). ChatCat is a new service designed to replace Envolve. It's currently in beta and you can sign up immediately on the ChatCat website. Email support@chatcat.io for detailed instructions on how to get started. The beta will be opening to the public on September 22nd.
We think you'll find ChatCat a great replacement that provides the same easy installation and a similar interface to Envolve. Note that ChatCat is operated independently and is not affiliated with our company.

If you’re a software engineer and would prefer a fully custom chat solution, we recommend trying FireChat, our Firebase-powered open-source chat module, or using Firebase directly to build your own chat solution.

If you're a paying customer, you should have already received another email from us at the end of August notifying you that your subscription was canceled and your credit card would not be charged again.

Thank you for being a loyal user! We sincerely appreciate your support and feedback over the last 4 years. We want to make this transition as smooth as possible, so please email us at support@envolve.com if you have any questions.

Happy chatting,

Andrew, James and the Envolve Team