Official AddonChat Product
 

vBulletin 3.7.x Official Integration & Authentication Extension

Product Info
Name: AddonChat Official Integration Product
Product ID: ac80_37
Version: 3.7.0
Author: AddonInteractive (http://www.addoninteractive.com/)
Last Modified: 15 May. 2008
Compatibility: vBulletin 3.7.x

Overview
This extension allows you to fully integrate a AddonChat Free, Professional, Professional PLUS or Enterprise Java? Chat Room with your vBulletin 3.7 forum system. This script provides basic integration for AddonChat Free and Professional customers. Remote authentication (the ability to secure access to your chat room using your vBulletin username/passwords) is available for Pro+/Enterprise customers, as well as a Who's Chatting feature.

Requirements

• vBulletin 3.7 or higher
• AddonChat Free, Professional PLUS, or Enterprise, or AddonChat Professional with the Remote (HTTP) Authentication System. You may register for a AddonChat account at www.addonchat.com. A Professional PLUS or Enterprise account is recommended to take advantage of advanced features.
• (optional, but recommended) PHP with allow_url_fopen directive enabled in your php.ini file or the PHP CURL extension. This is required to download the Who's Chatting list from AddonChat servers.

What's new?
This script is a completely revamped edition of our previous integration script. Installation no longer requires any template or code modifications. Additionally, there are no PHP files to edit when setting up your chat room. We have added an "AddonChat" menu item in the vBulletin AdminCP that allows you to setup and configure your chat room with ease. Most users will simply need to enter their account number and password (as used at addonchat.com) and your chat room settings will be retrieved automatically, with your remote authentication system updated automatically as well. We have also improved character code support through better UTF-8 conversion allowing non-English speakers to use a vBulletin+AddonChat without issue. Issues relating to the Who's Chatting system causing problems have also been addresses; a scheduled task has been added to automatically optimize and repair AddonChat related tables daily in addition to improvements to the re-written Who's Chatting system.

Features

• Seamless integration between your vBulletin forum and AddonChat
• After installation, setup and configure your chat room from the AddonChat menu in your vBulletin Admin Control Panel
• Popup and Embedded Chat room link options
• Automatic (ten minute interval) User's Chatting count updates
• Real-Time Who's Chatting list
• Display the amount of users within your chat room on your main navbar shown throughout your entire forum
• Remote authentication allows you to authenticate access into your chat room based on your vBulletin user database
• Automatic user login option
• Seamless integration with vBulletin Usergroup permissions (remote authentication)
• Remote functions system allows you to tie in vBulletin forum functions into the AddonChat user menu
• Uses the vBulletin XML product import architecture, making installation/uninstallation simple.
• No code or template modifications required
• Automated account lookup - just enter your account number and password, and your information will be automatically retrieved. (allow_url_fopen must be enabled in PHP)
• Multi-lingual (UTF-8) support

Installation
Installaion takes less than five minutes. Download the supplied ZIP file, and extract it on your personal computer. Open the readme.txt file for full installation instructions. No PHP code modifications or template modifications are required. This script makes use of the vBulletin XML Product system for a fast and painless installation.

Support
Support is provided by AddonInteractive for this script provided you have a Professional, Professional PLUS or Enterprise AddonChat account. Read the included instructions for details. Please let us know if you have any problems installing this extension.

Finally... Thanks!

Installed with no problems.

thx installed

I've never seen this before, looks very good! I'll be checking it out, thanks!

THAnKs

ive been using pro for a few years , whats so different about this ? Looks as if my current version does everything this one does other than admin cp control ?

There have been numerous reports of issues with the old integration script (for VB 3.5, VB 3.6) not working on VB 3.7, hence the new release.

If you're using an older release, the biggest advantage you'll notice is that the plugin now ties directly in to your vBulletin usergroup permissions. So, no more editing a chat_global.php file, instead you just click over to the Usergroup manager to specify the AddonChat privileges for each of your usergroups. There are over twenty-five different options, so there is also much finer user-permission control in this release as well.

If you're using the Pro edition, I'd suggest either going to the Pro+ edition, or getting the remote auth. module to take advantage of this.

This script also doesn't require any template modifications as the previous release did -- so installation is very fast, and it can be uninstalled easily as well without having to edit any styles/templates.

There are lots of other improvements as well, including full UTF-8 support, and a smarter Who's Chatting system. :)

If you're running VB 3.7 and AddonChat, I strongly recommend using this product.

How many simultaneous users does the free version allow? I have used RealChat in the past and am using FlashChat now and thought I might give this a spin.

I MIGHT USE THIS! Can we assign mods?

Unlimited for now with the free edition :) The Pro and Pro+ also allow for unlimited concurrent users.

Well, if this works out and is as good as it looks to be, then I see some upgrading in the future. Any words of advice before I jump into this? ;)

Nope -- The only thing I suggest is having the allow_url_fopen directive set to 'On' in your php.ini file, but it is not required.

Give it a try with the free edition (most of the plugin features won't work, but you'll have a basic chat room) then eMail us (as per my previous post) and request a trial run to fully test out all of the features :)

I must have the allow_url_fopen directive enabled as it showed me on the list of chatters on testing. Very seemless integration and easy setup. I'm looking forward to testing this out further.

How do we got about editing the background color around the chat window on the page and make the window fit the page better?

Hi Boofo,

What you'll want to do is edit the applet background color from the AddonChat control panel. Login at http://www.addonchat.com/login.html and click over to Look & Feel -> Colors to edit this. Color selection is fairly limited for our free accounts.

The page itself uses your standard vBulletin templates for the header/footer and other related content, so if you really want to change the background color of the page itself, you'd have to modify vB style settings. I'd recommend just modifying the AddonChat colors to match the background instead :)

I have a problem with the Arabic language
See

Login
Password
http://www.7lanet.com/vb/addonchat.php
Yatta and do not have the file

We've tested the 3.7 integration script with Arabic without issue. It's possible you do not have the font set up correctly to display Arabic characters within the chat room; but it's hard to know as you didn't provide any information.

Please submit a support ticket including your account number, and a valid username/password to test with by eMailing support@addonchat.com.

Login:7lanet
Password:7lanet

I got the size figured out in the settings. I will log in their and set what I can figure out. Thank you, sir. ;)

I do have one suggestion though. I have a skin that uses a different class for the link in the navbar. The way you have the link template done, it screws up the listing in the drop down menu if I change the class. It looks like the template is not done like the other drop downs in the navbar. Otherwise, things are looking good. ;)

Boofo -- You may have to edit the addonchat_nav_link template to get it to match your custom template. Some custom styles seem to be doing some fairly exhaustive template modifications instead of just changing the associated CSS with the <TD> column. Usually it's just a matter of getting the addonchat_nav_link <td...> values to look similar to your other nav link settings.

Yeah -- Just as I suspected, you have a free account. Request a trial upgrade (see my previous post concerning this) and then follow the instructions at http://support.addoninteractive.com/...=kb&article=63 to display Arabic characters properly. You may also wish to modify your VB phrases (those that begin with 'addonchat') to translate the integration script output from English to Arabic.

is there "whos chatting" option / feature as this is pretty important in my opinion

Well, the way the TD is wrapping everything I think it was the problem is. It seems to affect the rest of the template if I change the class on the first TD. And since I suck at html, it is boggling the ol' mind. But I will eventually figure something out, one way or the other. ;)

Yes, it's listed in the features :)

;) If you find anything that we may have missed in our code, or have any suggestions to make it compatible with yours and other templates, please let me know!

this version doesn't have to many good features... i'll still to flashchat.

Very constructive. Still to whatever you like.

You see, I like that. You're willing to listen to suggestions and work with your customers. If the support is going to be this good all along, I will definitely be upgrading. I just have to get the site to donate something first. ;)

I did notice that in the free version there are no bold or underline buttons. I would have figured that would be a given. Not that is is a big deal.

It seems great to me and lets face it Flashchat can still be exploited it seems.

Nice work me thinks and thanks for the support also

Ill be adding it soon.

wow realy thanks a lotttttttttttttttttttttt

Any difference between this mod and flashchat?

A lot of differences. For one, this is hosted on their servers so no server issues on your end whereas flashchat can start getting server intensive with a few users on, from what I have heard.

I've experienced quite some serverload when using Flashchat (with about 10-15 people using it). Would this one be better?

I have to look on your site later today, but do users make mods for this product (like "who's chatting" blocks)?

Yes, as it is hosted on their server.

Also, the templates for this hack need to be cached.

Many (most?) Flash and AJAX chat applications use your web server for all incoming/outgoing chat messages. This requires constant polling, and places a lot of stress/load on your web server and database. These connections are not real-time socket connections.

AddonChat uses a real (stateful) chat server, and is hosted on our server farm. When a user connects, he/she has a direct socket connection to our chat servers which maintain state without constant polling of web servers and databases. It is much faster, and our chat rooms can easily accommodate hundreds of concurrent users.

Put simply, there is no additional server load on your system -- we host and manage everything. Our servers are built to handle any potential issue; they all have dual CPU's, redundant (RAID) drives, and we have standby systems for every server. We optimize our operating systems specifically for chat servers.

We've been doing this for many years now. Our clients range from single family's who use our chat room for occasional "get-togethers" to Fortune 500 clients, major news networks, and election campaigns.

Do you think all of the templates should be cached, or just the navbit that is displayed throughout the forum?

Here is what I did. I added this to the cache_templates hook:


That catches the popups and any others in use anywhere.

I like it. Thank you. I'll add it to the next minor update, though I think we'll limit it to just the addonchat_nav_link and the addonchat_who_bit -- these two will help speed up the system; the others though are only used when the addonchat.php script is called, or the addonchat_who.php script is called; so caching them throughout the entire site isn't necessary and may slow your site down.

We're still working with a couple people who have highly modified forums (most are using scripts that aren't taking advantage VB's product system, and require lots of manual code and/or template modifications) -- but never the less, we're seeing what we can do to help work-around some of these not-so-friendly mods :) I imagine we'll have another minor update out in a few weeks.

For everyone else reading who isn't a coder, don't worry about this now :)

Thank you again, Boofo!

Well, I would add them all as the Who's chatting will get used a lot and that isn't going to slow the site down at all just caching the three other ones.

Also, the 'Link Chat to Forum - User Profiles' and 'Link Chat to Forum - Find Posts By User' links give me an error page. I haven't checked the other ones yet. I am using the Pro PLUS now.

Can I show this part to forumhome?

I really like the feature that it was hosted to somebody else not my server.

Error in automatic lookup:
Account No: SC-308738