Flasherize Chat Room
 

Group,

Is there anyone here who has already purchased a copy of this program called flasherize?

www.flasherize.com

They seem to only have a demo for IPB Invision power Board and not Vbulletin, and I would like to see how it looks in Vbulletin as well as screen shots of how the install goes and if I am able to control the chat room from the VB Control Panel.

I am currently using Flash Chat but get tired of all the 'issues' of Flash Chat and having to start over everytime Flash Chat has to be upgraded, sounds not working properly, and ect, but hey thats another story, this is about Flasherize.

Even though Flasherize is lacking of ALOT of the features that Flash Chat does have, it kind of looks a little promising, even if the code is encrypted.

Does anyone have any imput on this program, im curious to hear what people have to say other than John the owner of the script and people who know him or support him.

Lets hear the truth...

Doug

Doug, I'll answer here just as I've answered you on my site. The demo on my site is the same GUI that you will see on vb or IPB. If you would like to see the install, buy it ;) The script is encrypted because of my licensing system and I have no intentions of allowing it to be "shared" with the warez world. If you want "the truth" ask me...I don't and won't lie to anyone :)

Personally, I like flasherize. I'm a member of a site that has it installed and it is easy to use, and fun. No it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles of flash chat. However I ask... does it really need them? No. It's a chat software. It does the job it's intended to do.

John,

I did not want to hear from you, I wanted to hear from others who are not affiliated with the owner of the program, I thought I made that clear in my original post.

Also I did not ask anyone for a copy of your software so dont even go there John! and I shouldnt have to buy a copy of your program just to see how it is installed, screen shots would be sufficent for me to get an idea but you dont offer them.

From what I have seen of the integration and features its not worth the $40 some dollars your asking. I cant doing anything with modifying the code because you encyrpt it and dont allow it, and your not willing to add any features, smilies, rooms, or etc to it because you say your concerned about overloading the server, yeah a chat room doesnt need as many of those features that Flash Chat has but common your program is a stripped car with nothing in it. At a minimum it should be able to share files, be customized, and have more than one room. My users want the additional features, this they have out right told me.

If your not willing to add a few more features, and let us customize the chat room to OUR liking then this program is just not for me and I will stick with Flash Chat until something better comes along.

Also please tell me what advantage Flasherize has over Flash Chat that I should consider purchasing and using Flasherize instead of Flash Chat? As far as I can see none other than a simple basic chat room, vs a full featured chat room.

Doug

Hi Doug, I know you didn't want to hear from me but this is a public forum ;) Just an FYI, the script is not $40, rather $15. As to the rest of your concerns, obviously my script isn't for you and thats fine...I don't intend to change my business strategy based on one potential customer.

Yeah what ever, Thats not the point... :rolleyes:
Last time I visited your site it was $40, so you must have made a change recently. I must admit, $15 is much better than $40.00, I may reconsider now knowing this.
Thats fine John, no problem, I understand, you do what you feel is best.

Group,

What do the rest of you have to say about Flasherize that have used it? Id really like to hear from the rest of you.

Thanks much

Doug

it integrates well but, you have to pay attention during the installation and you cant change the folder names and structure.

strangely, my want good old shout box over flashchat or flasherize.:)

That bites. :(

Doug

i recently purchased it and we absolutely love it. does anyone know of a way to integrate a link into my navbar to the flasherize chat url? i have a chat button from another program in the navbar but couldnt figure out what to do with it. thanks!

Even though I don't have this chat room script personally, I do know how to add links to the navbar. Add this code in, replacing [link to chat room] with the address of your chat room.
Add it somewhere below

or any other such piece of code for any other link in the navbar.

thanks cheat-master30!

Having had my server compromised by flashchat, I wouldnt mind looking at an alternative. And smacklan writes some wicked skins, so I'll be checking it out!

(I'm not a big fan of encrypted scripts; but I understand the reasons people do it.)

Thanks for the kind words Mike :) Just an FYI, the only file (yes, singular) that is encrypted is the file that performs the license check ;)

Ah, gotcha. :)

I had that nasty incident on .com a few months back with a kid who sold a vB script that I bought only to find it encrypted and it turns out he was sending back alot more information than you would expect from a script while running and installing. (His "you can hide anything in encrypted code" remark was particularly disturbing).

Keep up the great work - reminds me I owe you a few more bucks! ;)

I'm really liking the look of the script, I just wish there were some vBa modules available. Only thing holding me back really.

The script is in the hands of my developer as we speak adding some new features to it...I'll ask him to look at that possibility ;)

The integration with vBulletin, does that mean the user can log in using their forum username and password? Or do they have to register on the chat itself?

Yes, they use their forum login info and if they click the remember me button when they login the first time, the cookie will remember them for the next time just like on the forums.

Coming up with a chat solution for my site has really become a headache. I am on a shared server so load is a problem. I purchased and had been using Flashchat for some time and my members liked it but then as the site became more active, I started having problems with it.

So, I paid over $100.00 for one year of AddonChat which integrages nicely with my Vbulletin but way too many of our members are having problems with it. There are just too many issues with AddonChat, java, MSN, Vista, etc. So....I have now removed that one.

I am presently testing EWChat and have it running on my site but don't know yet what it is going to do to server load and also it lacks MANY features that my members like. Text colors, who is chatting on forum home, smiley boxes, etc.

So my question is this. Is there a Flashchat remotely hosted solution that I can integrate with my VBulletin?

Is there a Flasherize solution for this?

check out userplane.com

That may work. Can it be integrated into VBulletin for automatic login and etc?

hmmm........the integrated solution looks very difficult to install.

haha...nice James, you don't recommend the script you wrote any longer?

That would be sweet, and a guaranteed buy from me. vBa 3 is changing how my whole site works, everything needs to work with it for me. Stats modules and who's chatting e.t.c. would be great. Cool. :)

This is a really nice ChatRoom, I purchased and installed yesterday wtihout problem, theres just a few things holding it back from being the complete chat solution for my users.

True Autologin Right one the first visit to the chatroom you haveto enter your username and password, the fields are already filled with "username" & "*****" which does not clear when the fields are clicked upon, this has confused some of my older users, so have a true autologin whereby the vbulletin username and password are entered automatically and you go straight into the chat on clicking the link would be great.

Emoticons This was one of the biggest disappointments with this chat, right now each emoticon takes up it's own line so "Hello :) Hows Everyone ;)" takes up four lines rather than just one.. for now I've just disabled the parsing of emoticons by commenting out the str_replace in the chatroom.php but it'd be nice to have this fixed in the next version.

Multiple Rooms It'd be great to have the option to create password protected rooms away from the main room for staff chats or whatever.

Chatlogs We used Flashchat previously and one of it's more useful features was being able to save a log of the complete chat, this was great for our weekly staff chats as we could then post the transcript in the staff forum for those that missed the chat we are really going to miss this feature so if it could be added it'd be great.

And that's about it.. I'd say right now it does what it says on the tin in a lightweight manner using a very nice interface.. It is just a few steps away from being an excellent chatroom for us..

Thanks for the review efc9...and the purchase! :) Actually points one and three are being addressed in the current development...a release anticipated in about a month! I will see about the emoticon issue for this next release as well. On the chat logs, actually they are saved and accessable via the admin interface ;)

No Problems, it's a nice product and deserves to receive some credit for the work already done, and if the problems above can indeed be ironed out then it'll be excellent and I'll happily recommend it to all..

I look forward to the next release, and if you need a beta tester let me know..

The logs in the admincp are useful but not as handy as being able to save an actual .txt file log of the chat for posting in the forum..

What about the possibility of adding Audio Emoticons to Flasherize? The users at my site desperately want this feature, ideally with the ability to customize or add sounds to fit our site's needs.

can you fill me in on the load ans stuff for the server, how many queries will it add to integrate vb...etc etc...im interested also can ban users by their vb usergroup? or is this open to whoever registers? and they can keep signing up with alter-egos and stuff?

With our next release, the end user will be able to control the smilies unlike now. I'm not sure how those would work with flash remoting (the way the script works) but it's a possibility I'd say.

The load is negligible as it only queries the user database when someone signs in. Whatever you do to your users through usergroups, etc. will pass to the chat room with forum integration. In other words, if they can sign in to your board, they can sign in to the chat room.

Just an update to those in this thread that have inquired...Version 3.0 of Flasherize has now been released :) You can read the details at http://www.flasherize.com/forums/ind...st=0&#entry952

Has anyone got version 3.0 working successfully?

Yes I've got it working but it still has the smilies problem of previous versions (adding a smilie to your message displays the text as..

this is my message
:)
isn't it cool?

rather than all on one line, which myself and my users found a pain, in the end I've moved back to flashchat, flasherize has a nice look to it, but it just doesn't have the fuctionality to go with the pretty looks.. A Real Shame)

Yea, this is an old thread, but so what. Its on the first page of google when you do a search for Flasherize, so lets keep the information easy to find.

Here are some server specs:
VPS with 800+ megs of memory, Dual processor quad core
MySQL Version 5.0.51a-community
Server Type Linux
Web Server Apache v1.3.39
PHP 5.2.4
PHP Memory Limit 64.00 MB
VB 3.7 PL1

I was using flashchat integrated into VB for about 8 months. The members kept having problems with losing connection to the chat room and dropping off. Some of the members started using the term "trap door" because you never knew when your connection was going to just "drop" out. The support in the flashchat forums was not able to find a solution. And it seems that my site is not the only one having the problem. There was finally enough complaining that I was forced to find another solution.

Last night I bought the Flasherize full package ($50 US dollars) and installed it. About an hour later I finally got it to working. After the install script is run, edit the config.php file and enter the proper cookie domain for your site.

Integration - Flasherize uses half integration instead of full integration. When you are logged into the forum, you still have to enter your username and password to get into the chat room. It has been said that you can just check the "Remember Me" box and you will not have to enter your username or password again. This is semi correct. If a member uses the log out button, the cookies are cleared. If the member closes the window with the "X" button, they stay logged in. So if the member logs out they will hav to log back in next time. I feel that the advertising about flashersize being integrated with the forum membership is misleading. Yes, its integrated, but not fully. If it was fully integrated, the chat would recognize the member is logged into the forum and automatically log them into the chat room.

Control Panel - This is where I have a problem. "If" Flasherize was fully integrated, the chatroom control panel would be integrated into the VB control panel - it is not. I have about 20 mods intalled on my forum, some of these are major mods, like an arcade, downloads, shoutbox and chatroom. Just imagine the confusion if there was a separate admin panel for "every" modification. The forum would be almost impossible to manage. Flasherize has its own control panel, so it is not fully integrated into VBulletin.

User group permissions - Just like a lot of other forums, my community has a paid VIP / Premium membership. Lets say I wanted to make this chat room just for the VIP / Premium usergroup - there is no way to do so. In fact, I do not see a way to edit the permissions of the chat room based on VB permissions. Someone please correct me if I am wrong on this. So, once again this chat room is not fully integrated into Vbulletin. If it was, it would use VB usergroup permissions to limit or grant access.

Support - So far I have opened 2 support tickets in the last 12 hours. To check the status of the ticket you have to have your email address and the ticket number. Where does the ticket number come from? In most support systems - when you open a ticket, you will receive an email with the details. These details include ticket number (or ticket ID) and a copy of what was submitted to tech support. About 12 - 13 hours after submitting the support ticket I have yet to receive anything.

Support forums - are broke. Clicking on a link only results in an error msg. The only way I found the support forums was through google as there is no link on the home page. What can I say about the Flasherize support forums, except they are broke.

The smilies problem still exist - each smiley takes up a whole line. Why do members have to click a button to enter a link into the chat room? How can the chat window be enlarged in pop-up mode? Who do some browsers or operating systems (linux) get an "unknown domain" error msg when the site is using the chat in pop-up mode? Can I make someone a moderator over the chat room and they not be a moderator in the forum? Why doesn't the log in box clear the username and password when clicked in?

Conclusion - This could be the best chat module for Vbulletin, but it still has a lot of work to be done on it. As old as this software is, there is no excuse for it not being fully integrated with VB. There is no excuse for the owner offering a commercial product for $50 (for the full package) and offering such a low quality product in return. Flasherize is old software, its been on the market for well over a year. This chat module that could have been one of the best solutions on the market. But instead, its over priced, over rated and I regret spending my time or money on it. So if you just feel like throwing your money away, getting no support (how about updates?) then sure, go ahead and buy it. But if you want a chat room that is really integrated with VBulletin, and if you want support - then do not buy this product.

As for myself, I mark this one up as a lesson learned. I will continue to look for a chatroom solution my VB forums. What these developers might not understand, I own 2 VB sites with plans to open 2 or 3 more. When I find a solution, I will be buying about 5 copies of their software. So instead of offering a quality product and selling several copies, all the got out of me was one copy. Plus, I am a member of some of the busiest webmaster forums on the internet. This review is going to copied and pasted on all of them.

I gave up on this one long ago. I tried several others also but all had various problems. I finally went with 123flashchat. It's not the cheapest but I no longer have any chat room headaches and my members love it. I chose to go with their hosted plan so not to put the extra load on my VPS. I'm very pleased with it after using it now for at least a year.