DigiChat Integration V2.0
 

This hack is no longer supported. I have released DigiChat Integration 3.0.3.

The new hack can be found HERE

This is my update for VBulletin 3.0.x. Sorry for the delay but it took me some time to upgrade to vb3.0.0 and integrate all other hacks + develop my new upgrade hack. :nervous:

What is this hack ?
This hack is a complete integration of the Chatsoftware DigiChat ( which is NOT freeware ) into the latest version of VBulletin 3.0.x. :devious:

What does this hack do ?
This hack provides the ability to offer a complete front-end to the DigiChat software. So if you are running your own DigiChat server or your chat is hosted somewhere else, this hack will provide you for each member a specific profile, settings and whos in chat functionality. :)

For Admins and Chatmasters i am providing an extra Admin/Chatmaster login depending on their userstatus in your forum and they will get the extra tool to trace IPs from chatusers. Normal users will just see the names of the users in chat and a link to their forum profile. :devious:

Are there many changes to be done ?
No, i try to keep my changes to a minimum and if it is possible not to touch any databases for obvious reasons. So this hack exists of:

- 8 new templates
- 2 template modifications
- 6 file uploads
- 1 php file modification

Do i need version 1.0 or version 1.1 for this hack ?
No. I am providing both. An upgrade path from previous versions and also a new install path for complete new installations.

How long does it take to install this hack ?
If you are familiar with VBulletin and DigiChat it will take about 10 minutes to upgrade and 15 minutes for a new install.

Is there any support for this hack ?
Yes, from me but i will change the way of giving support now. I my previous version i posted my email address and the amount of emails was amazing. The bad thing was that no one shared this information in the thread. Due to this i will ONLY give support to people in THIS thread and ONLY if they clicked on the "INSTALL" button. I am sorry, but my time is limited and answering the same question 5 times via email is not very efficient. I hope you understand this.

Are there screenshots available for this hack ?
Yes. I have included them into the zip file and i will add them in this thread.

How to manage this Chat environment ?
This version 2.0 has one config file which you have to edit before you go live. In the future updates i will add one table to the database which can be edited through the admin panel. This is not really important because the security will not change so often for chats but just in case someone wants to edit this configfile via the Admin CP i will offer this in the next version.

Whos in Chat function does not work ?
Please make sure that you have the appropriate rights and the commander function enabled which produces the output file every x minutes who is in chat. You have to have a license from DigiChat to be able to do that. :tired:

Some words are in german ?
This should not be the case. I developed this on my domain and in german. I translated all the frontend but you never know. If there are parts still in german please tell me so i can translate them. :rolleyes:

So enjoy this hack and happy chatting. After installing please click on this install link or on the install button at the top.

UPDATE 2.0.1
I am very sorry, but i forgot to put one file into the zip file. The missing file is the chatlauncer.php for the javascript pop-up to log into the chats. So if you realized that you can only log into the chat with the extra option, then you know why. Again apologize for this. I have uploaded the new zip file and updated the install.html.

For those of you who installed it already just download the zip file and copy the chatlauncher.php into your forum root directory.

UPDATE 2.0.2
I added some bugfixing for the guest template and the chatlauncher.php. Thanks to Randomlove for pointing that out.

For those of you who installed it already just download the zip file and copy the chatlauncher.php into your forum root directory. After this open the template chat_start_guest and copy the text from the install.html file into your template.

Cheers,

Here are the screenshots for this hack:

Cheers,

I'm not sure how you wanted to word this, but vBulletin is not freeware either.

klasse Hack, aber ich komme da nicht richtig mit *g*

Muß ich nicht erst den chat registrieren lassen, weiß nämlich nicht wirklich was als IP Adresse eingetragen werden muß und was ich hier eintragen soll
# URL to the Chaticons
$pathtochaticons="http://$CHAT_SERVER/DigiChat/DigiClasses/Resources/Default/userIcons";

schreibe es jetzt einfach in deutsch, da mein englisch nicht so berühmt ist, aber der Hack muß laufen, ist für meine Freundin Ihr nettes Laberboard genau das richtige *g*

greetz subu1

Sorry. Error corrected. In the german language in means that VBulletin is not freeware either but in the english language this phrase means the opposite. Thanks for pointing this out.

Cheers,

$CHAT_SERVER ist eine Variable, welche Du weiter oben definiert hast. Du mu?t die hier nicht noch einmal angeben, wenn Du sie oben schon definiert hast. F?ll einfach oben $CHAT_SERVER = bla bla aus. Das reicht.

In english:

$CHAT_SERVER is a variable, which is defined above. You don't have to replace $CHAT_SERVER again in this, if you have specified $CHAT_SERVER in the first line of the config file. Just fill out the first line leave this as it is. That's enough.

Cheers,

Wow, Digichat is expensive. :ermm:

Hi Steve,

correct but to be honest ? The best chat i have ever seen. If i compare the java chats around in the net only realchat.com is going to become a competitor for DigiChat but they are 3 versions behind in terms of features and functions.

And some people use the hosted chat ( not from DigiChat ) which starts about 35$ per month.

Cheers,

Can we use this with digichat on another server?

Sure. This is also how my config looks like. I have one dedicated server running only DigiChat for about 10 sites and i offer my clients this hack for free if they wish to go to market with VBulletin.

Please edit the chatconfig file with IP adress or the URL and it will work.

And yes, you are right that my Version 1.0 was only working if the chat was installed on the same server but this has changed now.

Cheers,

Cheaper to set up an IRC server and a free java chat client.... they obviously aren't marketing to the small forum ops...

Has anyone implimented AV 5 http://digi-net.com/technology/digichat/index.html ?
In particular, the Instant Messaging feature? Product also appears to provide for real time interaction between vB and digi-chat. So from FP, you can SEE flagged in some way who are logged into chat. AND have URL links to specific rooms.

You are right and i do not make advertising for them. I just want to help other admins to combine what they already have.

Cheers,

Hi Leitel,

to be honest ? I will not pay for a messanger when you can download multiple messangers from the net for free which can deliver the same capeabilities like they do. The only advantage would be to see who is in chat but 90% of my users are using ICQ and my "Who is in Chat" page.

On the long term i will upgrade to 5.0 with Video/Sound but not to get the messanger. At the moment they only offer this in an enterprise version which is way out of pricing for low-end or midrange communities. They will offer this for sure in the next months for the midrange communities for a better price.

I upgraded to DigiChat 4.0 end of Q3 last year and now i upgrade VB to 3.0.0. The next step will be DigiChat 5.0 end of Q3 or Q4. And i will provide another update for my integration.

Cheers,

I would love to just use free IM utils. But users don't always expose their user names. I am trying to make it brainless to collaborate with other users of whom some are collaborators on content. When they come to the site, I want other users be to able to IM them. PM would be nice but they may have the page idle and will not know of the PM until they refresh.

Thanks for your hack and input. I will be getting into this soon.

No problem. But keep in mind that the real benefit will be to use this IM with DigiChat 5 AV Enterprise only. I don't know if you have seen the pricing yet but should give it a small look before you take the IM and then you have to buy version 5 to get all features.

Keep me updated what you will do. I would be more then happy to help out.

Cheers,

I have committed to Enterprise to gain not only the IM but the VOIP features. I would be happy to Skype with you regarding this since I believe you are in Germany. My handle is larryeitel.

I installed the digichat hack and it worked perfectly on my test server. Nice job Pseudo. Now I have a question for everyone because I get a little confused when it comes to this. I run my website from my own server at home, so when I connected to my test server I would open my forum from 192.168.1.x. Then I would go to chat and Digichat would open just find without issue. The thing that I get confused about is when I install Digi to my real server. Do I put in my local ip of 192.168.1.x or the IP that the world gets to like "http://www.nottashouseofpancakes.com"? I know that seems stupid, but I'm confused by this. Also, I don't use the standard port of 80. I had to change my port to 8085. So when I install Digichat do I put in "http://www.nottashouseofpancakes.com:8085 as the host name"? If I'm reading correctly I think this program doesn't work to well with non standard ports and if it does you have to add a special piece of software which is a tad overwhelming. To work around this could I install the Digichat part to another machine and run that on port 80? I know this isn't part of the hack, but I figure we might have some time since not that many people might have this. Thanks guys and again great work Pseudo.

Thanks.

This is very easy. Forget your testserver. Just think about your environment. You have a webserver with an IP adress and an URL. If you install the DigiChat on the same server you will have the /DigiChat folder in your webroot OR you install it on a different URL and different folder which you have to set in your apache config. Let's assume you put it into your root folder.

So you will have / which will be http://www.nottashouseofpancakes.com and below that you will have /DigiChat and /forum. So all clients will connect to the chat through http://www.nottashouseofpancakes.com...es/Default/bla bla bla. You can also use the IP but this will only work if your apache webserver has set the * = default webroot to your http://www.nottashouseofpancakes.com folder. So i highly recommend to use the URL name and not the IP if you are on the same server. This differs if you have a dedicated chat server like me. That's why i offer both in my hack.

This is a little bit tricky and it takes some time to understand it. Per default the DigiChat starts on port 8396 and not on port 80. If you wish to specify on specific port you can set this in your parameters file in your DigiChat installation folder ( not the http folder ) and it will look like this filename "parameters":

out=/var/log/digi_out.txt
err=/var/log/digi_err.txt
ports=8396

So if you go with the standard installation your clients will connect to the chat through port 8396 and they will use port 80 to load all the grafics like emoticons, usericons, etc. If you have an error in your configuration with the http path then all clients will be able to connect to port 8396 but they will not see any graphics in the chat. Let me show you how this works:

Client -> loads Applet via HTTP port 80 from your specified webserver
Applet -> connects to the chatserver via port 8396 and starts the chat
Chat -> loads all icons via port 80 from your http://www.nottashouseofpancakes.com/DigiChat folder

You can set the port for the chat to whatever you want but the problem will be that users behind a firewall will not be able to connect. That's why there is the offer from HTTP Tunneling. There are multiple free software packages out there to run HTTP Tunneling ... BUT ... what happens with HTTP tunneling ?

Per default the applet start checking the following ports for the chat application:
- 80
- 443
- 8396

If nothing is found it will stop. If you specify your own port that does NOT include HTTP Tunneling. HTTP Tunneling is, to route all trafic to a specific port through your port 80 or 8080. The problem will be that you will get performance problems because all chat clients will connect through your port.

A good trick here is to use the port 443 as your HTTP Tunneling port because most of the adminstrators out there don't use/need SSL for their webservers and port 443 is open is 99% of the firewalls. Or you use port 8080 which is also used for proxy environments and due to this 90% of the firewalls have this port open.

I hope i did not confuse you with all this information but it took me 1 week to understand how it works and to install Tomcat for HTTP Tunneling through port 8080. Per default i have no HTTP Tunneling login enabled. The user has to specifically choose the firewall login to enter the chat as you can see in the drop down menu of the Chat start template.

Did this help or did this confuse you more ? I am more then happy to go deeper into this. Just tell me.

Cheers,

That's nice. We are talking about messangers and you are offering Skype for a phone call. I like that. I have to search and reinstall this software but after that we can have a conversation.

Cheers,

Wow!!! Thanks for the reply. I can't wait to get home and try it out. Are you saying that I need to open ports on my router? I had to ask another question since you already wrote that long explanation, but what is entailed installing Digichat to another machine on my network? Thanks for the help Bud! I think I'm leaving work early today to go home and play with it :)

one more thing. I can get the login box from my machine at work, but the applet never pops up. Any clue?

This depends what you want to do. If you want to get it running on your testserver at home and other users from the internet should be able to connect to your chat then you have to open the right port on your router and map it to your chat server. But this only applies to users which do not belong to your 192.168.0.x network and which are blocked by any kind of firewall.

The chat uses a lot of memory of the server because it is java based. When you run multiple chat siteIDs and multiple domains on the same server, you will run into a performance degredation. Due to this i have divided that chat from the domain server. So i use a dedicated chat server and a dedicated webserver with MySQL.

Have fun !!!

Yes. This is due to your companies firewall. The are blocking the access to the chat ports. I have the same in my company where i work. Due to this i have installed HTTP Tunneling and i know that my company does not block 443. So i am routing my applet through this port and i can connect to the chat. Before that i used the default port and i clicked on connect and nothing happend.

If you don't know which ports are blocked from your company try to go with the apache 2 which has the jakarta module implemented for HTTP tunneling, if you don't want to mess around with the latest apache 1 version. It took me 1 week to figure out how it works and to get it running.

Cheers,

what versions of digichat does this work with?

I am using latest Version 4. But version 5 should not be much different with the exception of the new messager from DigiChat.

Cheers,

Thanks again. I came home and fooled with it. I opened port 8396 on my router and it seems I can connect using my (internet) domain name, but my others aren't able to connect. They don't get the drop down box. All they get is the "Welcome Guest. You will be logged in with a random user name." The changes I have made were in the chatconfig.php. I changed the server not to be my IP, but my DNS name without the http://. I couldn't connect if I used the http part. Also I have my port on the end :8085.

I can only connect if the use the third option (Extra (with popup blocker) Why is that? Also, I can't connect with my forum admin account name. When I click on chat it shows me password box with admin in red up top. It gives me back an error in german which I'm presuming in a invalid password error. I created another account on my forum and it let me log in as described above(locally that is.)

Can I manually go through and change some of the syntax that wasn't converted to English? Thanks for the help Bud. I really appreciate you taking the time.


note:

1) this is a home network, so i don't have a proxy setup just a router.
2) the other users are the same. No proxies just routers.

What files needs to be edited to add this?

You should not go for the 8085 port. Just go with the standard port 8396.

The third option is just a simple PHP file with the applet because the other 2 options are javascript pop-ups. Some people have pop-up blockers installed which prevent the pop-ups and they can not chat. Due to this i have implemented this extra option.

I have implemented to check the forum userids and the forum groupids. I am checking which users have the right to enter. If your users are not logged into the forum, no cookie is set and they will logged into the chat as guest with a random number after the name. The applet errors can be converted to english in the chatconfig file. Lang = english.lang

Please do it and tell me what you changed, so i can edit the whole hack.

Is this your URL ? http://www.nottashouseofpancakes.com Because i get the DNS error which would explain why your users can not connect to your server.

Do you have ICQ or something similar ?

Cheers,

Hi @LL,

please read the first page for the latest update. This explains why 2 of you have the problem with the standard login into the chat. :nervous:

Cheers,

Can anyone log in with their board administrator account? No matter what password I put in the applet will not accept it It's not taking my board password or the DigiChat password. I changed the password so their both the same, but same error that either my name or password is invalid. I log out and log in as another user and it works fine. This is narrowed down to the admin.

Ok. This is easy. Let me explain.

The problem we are facing here is, that you have a forum account which could be "John Doe" and this should also be your chat account. :devious:

But now you have 2 types of accounts for the chat. DigiChat reserves the chatmaster account. So if you try to connect to the chat with the name "John Doe" and you have a chatmaster "John Doe" it will not let you log into the chat with the NON-Admin login. :disappointed:

So what to do ? Due to this i renamed all my chat accounts. So all chataccounts have now at the end (CM) which means they have the status chatmaster. :mad:

What dou you have to do ?
You have to do nothing on the forum side. You can log into the chat with your "John Doe" on the left side with the javascript pop-ups. But in the DigiChat you have to rename your account to "John Doe(CM)". :ermm:

Summary:
Black standard user login on the left side = "John Doe".
Blue Chatmaster or Admin Login on the right side = "John Doe(CM)".
So now you can log into the chat as a normale user or as admin. :nervous:

Cheers,

Thanks. Awesome directions as usual. I wish everyone would give detailed explanations like that :) Anyway, some of my users upon entering the chat area are greeted as guest even though their logged into the forum. After creating some temp accounts I found out that their main primary usergroup has to be "registered user." I had a special group created for promtions so they could get access to the arcade after x amount of posts. Anyone that wasn't set as registered user would be seen as a guest on the chat page (ie primary usergorup=arcade users.)

Also, I'm still working on the problem with my admin account getting the three drop down box. I tried doing what you said, but I'm getting the page shown above. I tried to change my primary usergroup to something other than administrator, but it wouldn't let me. The way it looks like is that I'm going to have to create another admin user with administrator as a secondary usergorup and have registered user as primary. That way I will have admin rights. It's the only way I can think of.

Question, if people are able to log into Digichat with no accounts created in digichat than what is the use of have any accounts created at the Digichat end? Some special permission bonus's I guess. Like if you logged in right now with your account you could log in fine, so why do I need to create accounts on the digiserver? These are early observations :)

Hello yeloc,

the whole confusion is due to not having read the explanation in the chatconfig.php file. I think i will go and put this into the database. So everyone can see the config settings and edit them via the admincp. Otherwise people will not recognize them like you did.

Ok. My hack just goes with the default groups. If you wish any other groups to enter the chat you have to tell this to chatconfig.php file ( i prefer to decline/restrict access rather then doing it like microsoft to open everything for everyone ).

Here is the part of the chatconfig.php file which is important for your problem:

Please read this carefully and you should understand how this works.

And now let's talk about the double creation of usernames for DigiChat:

DigiChat wants to prevent users taking the nickname of Chatmaster Accounts. Due to this they have ONE and only ONE guest account. All members connect to the chat with the guest account via the drop-down menu.

Every other user who wants to enter the chat with the status Chatmaster/Admin ( blue color in Chat ) has to use the CM/Admin Login on the right side.

To solve your admin login problem just do the following:
- log into the chat with the "chatmaster" account
- create a new chatmaster/admin account in DigiChat with YOUR forum username+(CM) at the end. So for example: Forum Username = Hugo , then your DigiChat Account should be = Hugo(CM)

If you have done this you will be able to login into the chat from the right admin login. The same applies for all your chatmasters.

The reason for this is very obvious. If DigiChat blocks names and you would create a DigiChat Chatmaster Account with the name Hugo, you will not be able to log into the chat as a normal user from the left drop-down menu because DigiChat would block this login. The name Hugo would be reserved for your chatmaster. That's why i added the (CM) at the end of each name.

If you wish you can change this (CM) to whatever you want but the names from your members in DigiChat and in your forum HAVE to differ in some way.

Hope this helps now.

Cheers,

Well, everything is working perfectly now!!! I remember reading about the usergroups in the "chatconfig.php" file, but I forgot all about it. The problem with my account was that I changed the user name to yeloccm instead of yeloc(cm) I didn't know the brackets mattered. Now I need to do 2 more things and that's to see if I can connect through the proxy from work and move the chat server to another machine. Great job on this hack Bud!!! Totally amazing hack. I would vote for hack of the month, but I don't see many people using this program because of the price, so it will never be truely appreciated :(

I am very happy that it works now. I am glad that you like this hack. The next release will make the administration easier throught the ACP but this will include database changes which i try to prevent. :nervous:

And you are right about the price and due to this not many people will use this hack. Regardless of this i am happy to help my small client group and i can give a better and more detailed support. ;)

If you need any more help just tell me and if you have any suggestions to improve this hack, i am more then happy to hear about it.

Cheers,

Pseudomizer, I registered on your site and then tried to connect to your chat. I launched and got the small java window with says "Verbinden". It just sat there.

I do have digi-chat now installed on www.NoBlood.org. Still some tweeking yet to do.

By the way, the link to linktoemoticons.html in your templates point to your site. Would you be so kind to share your copy of linktoemoticons.html? :)

Hi Leitel,

Verbinden = Connecting

But my chat is up and running. It takes about 1 or 2 min to load the applet depending on how many usericons, backgrounds and emoticons you have.
You should be able to connect. Please check again. If it does not work please try the extra login.

Sorry for the link to my emoticons. I forgot to remove it. This is just a link which is implemented in the chat windows in the upper left menu. It is a static html site which i created with the link to the emoticons and the corresponding shortcuts for each emoticon. You would like to have the HTML code ? This will not help you at all because you have to create your own emoticons and your own shortcuts in DigiChat and then create the site which explains which shortcut brings out which emoticon. But if you want to have it, you can get it.

I just checked out your site. I tried the chat.php and i got the welcome unregistered message which should NOT appear. It should logon with a random username. As it looks like you did some modifications. In addition to this i was not able to log into your chat. The javascript pop-up did not work. There seems to be a conflict with your javascript and my pop-up javascripts.

I tried to use the extra login on your site which does not use the javascript but it did reject my login with the error message that i did not provide a username.

What did you do please ?

Cheers,

I would love to explore this with you further right now, but I have to go now. I thought I'd do a quick install for now. I know there are some further 'issues' to iron out. Have tried to install Skype yet? If you do, add me to your contact list (larryeitel). Next time I see you on, we can 'voice' chat further about this.

I also want to read the Digi-Chat docs as well.

Thanks for your excellent hack. I made great progress so far. :)

Rather then reading all the docs just read my conversation with yeloc. He asked the right questions and i answered all of them. I think i will create a FAQ document out of this conversation. This will save you a lot of time.

Currently i have no time to install other applications due to my hack releases and implementations. In addition to this i have to reconfigure my firewall for Skype. I will do it but i think sometime next week.

Cheers,

Well I thought I had it going but discovered that it only works at this point for admins. Not that there is something wrong with this hack. This is so that anyone from here that goes to www.NoBlood.org at this point to try it will find nothing. --Stay tuned.

Ok. Tell me if you need any further assistance via this thread. *fingers crossed for you*

Cheers,

Well I can't get through the firewall here at work. I guess I'll have to go home and try some different ports. What file do you set the port again?