Great script!! I just clicked installed

My .02:

The free service comes with 100 free Who's Online hits, so you can use it to test out, but only for a short while before you'd need to upgrade. I think we offer a pretty competitive piece of software in both price and feature set, and our user satisfaction is very high. The free service provides the basic functionality you'd need to determine if our chat software would work well for you. The applet is the smallest that I'm aware of, and we use top notch major network centers to ensure reliable uptime. Most of RaiderSoft's business is word of mouth referral. We've always offered one-time, two week trial upgrades to those who ask (just e-mail support@raidersoft.com with your account ID number and the service you're interested in).

For those of you concerned about having an unused chat room, I recommend announcing specific chat event dates/times to build support for your new chat room. :)

Cool! Great to hear! :)

Grim77,

Have you heard of any issues concerning the problem I mentioned earlier?

SigmaChat uses a real TCP port (it is not an HTTP hack like PHP based chat solutions) and requires a TCP socket connection, so some environments with strict firewall settings may have issues, and need to change their firewall settings for use with the applet. Our server status page at http://support.raidersoft.com/ can provide you with the firewall details if neccesary for your chat room. For the vast majority, this isn't an issue.

I'm sure that's the problem then. The problem occurs for me when I'm at work. We are on a large network and they have a very, very strict firewall.

Ok I have installed this hack and the chat room works, whos chatting works - one problem though...when in the chat area if I click on a drop down menu in the navigational bar the list goes behind the chat room not in front. How can this be corrected?

Chris

www.rustysoaptraders.com

This problem is specifically mentioned in the FAQ section of the installation file. The problem relates to how web browsers render objects and applets, and currently there is no fix. There is one work around that works on one or two major browsers that works by shadowing a dynamically placed inline frame with the DHTML content (i.e., the menu) but is not a cure-all. For instance, it will not work on Macs.

If anyone is interested in releasing a VB mod to cure this (it's a little out of the scope of this hack) the only reference you'd need is here.

For now, I definitely advise using the popup method if you'd like a link in the navbar. This also allows your visitors to browse your forum simultaneously while they chat :)

The pop-up may be the best way to go now.

Another quick work around that I did was to make the chat window collapsible. It's not the best solution, but it allows for the display of the pop-up menu.

Good idea! I wonder if there is a way to make it automatically collapse when the a menu is opened from the navbar, and automatically expand when the menu is no longer in use (?)