Chat Modifications - MGC Chatbox Evo

This mod is automatically compatible with vB3.6.x, vB3.7.x, vB3.8.x and vB4.x.x

Overview

MGC Chatbox Evo is the most ever installed chatbox for vBulletin !

It offers a new enhanced online experience to your members leading to increased time spent online of more than 25% by providing them with a new, more interactive, way to interact with each other.

• Important number of features
• High level of configurability to fit each users needs
• Channels system
• Many commands
• Bot system
• and more...

... makes MGC Chatbox Evo a must have for your forum !

Detailed features

Following is a non-exhaustive list:

• Simple install
• Ajax based with:
  • Fast and Intelligent chats retrieval through javascript calls to server files (refresh delay configurable per usergroup)
  • Edit/update by double-clicking on a chat
  • Interact on chats through menus and javascript
• Many usergroup permissions to limit features according to usergroups
• Full configuration of the chatbox display:
  Size, position on forum pages, editor layout (either top/bottom input or left/right textarea) and position, number of chats displayed, ...
• Full configuration of the chats display:
  Authorized bbcodes selection, date/time options, avatar display, ...
• Possibility to create channels (unlimited number) with multiple configuration options:
  • Warn user of new message when not active through blinking image and eventually sound notification
  • Possibility to select on which specific page each is displayed
  • Option to display the channel only for selected languages
  • Usergroup/User permissions to access the channel
• Many commands available with usergroup/user permissions to access them:
  • /me: well known IRC command
  • /del: remove shouts (different possibilities of removal)
  • /ignore: ignore shouts from another user
  • /ban: ban user from chatbox
  • /pm: send a private chat to another user
  • /announcement: modify the announcement on top of the chatbox
  • /slap: allow user to slap another user
  • /team: chats sending between specified usergroups
  • /l33t: I33t-ify a message
  • /banchan: ban user from specific channel [PRO only]
• Forum activity notifications system in the chatbox:
  • Different display options:
    • In the chatbox melted with chats
    • In the chatbox in a separate column
    • In the vB4 sidebar or a custom sidebar for vB3
  • Multiple notifications:
    • New thread creation
    • New post creation
    • Post thanked (Abe's)
    • New registrations (not included - separate product)
    • IBProarcade highscore (not included - separate product)
• Bot system with set of predefined trigger chat and corresponding answers and automatic bot chats [PRO only]
• Archive system with statistics as well as download and search capabilities
• Possibility to display the list of users online in the chatbox
• Force anynomous to enter a username before chatting if they can access the chatbox
• Antiflood system
• Private chats feature through PM in tabs
• Optional sound notifications
• Inactive mode feature for server load optimization
• User statistics display in posts and profile
• Chatbox statistics display on forumhome
• Create thread from a chat [PRO only]
• CMS Integration (not included - separate product)
  • vBAdvanced CMPS
  • vBulletin 4 CMS
• Importers from other chatbox systems:
  • cChatbox by Christrato [version 1.5]
  • Cyb - Chatbox by Cybernetec [version 2.3]
  • vBulletin 3.x Shoutbox 1.0 (AJAX) by DionDev [version 1.0]
  • Dream's Chatbox by Dream [version 2.1.1]
  • GSBOS by dinnerbone [version 1.0.5]
  • Inferno vBShout Lite 2.5.0 by Inferno Tech [version 2.5.1 lite]
  • vBShouts 2.0 by Zero Tolerance [version 2.0]
  • MGC Chatbox by MGC [version 1.5]

Install

Refer to the readme for the chatbox install.

Demo

Live demo on MGC Products forum

Languages

1. French
2. English
3. German [Not yet updated]
   
4. Serbian [Not yet updated]

Support

On my website mostly and in this thread

Int?gration

Integration in IBProarcade is described in the readme.
vBAdvanced CMPS and vBulletin 4 CMS integration are available as additional modules.

Compatibility

This hack is compatible with vB3.6.x, vB3.7.x, vB3.8.x and vB4.x.x

Changelog

First part:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=221

Second part:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....postcount=5429

Third part:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....postcount=8469

How to set the channel images

Thanks to princeedwards for this little how to : click here

PRO version and additional addons available on my website

This mod is automatically compatible with vB3.6.x, vB3.7.x, vB3.8.x and vB4.x.x

[XiZa]

Couple more suggestions, can't help myself I like this software alot.

In safari, the colors don't show in the dropdown, so you only see #xxxxx numbers, which are meaningless to my users. (Well, maybe just me, since there aren't that many safari users, but still).

It would be better if you used the real name for the color (magenta, etc) or if that's not possible, check if it's safari and show only basic colors.

Second suggestion, most of the time, when one chooses a color and font, it is meant to style the whole message, so displaying those BBCodes in the small chatbox just clutter that up and make it prone to user error. It would be better if you put that in some sort of javascript variable which you then pre and append when the user clicks submit so that the server does indeed receive the BBcode correctly. There could be a checkbox to show the bbcode for more advanced users.

Third, sometimes a user selects one color but then changes his/her mind and chooses another. In your app, this results in two [color] bbcodes. Maybe clean that up if possible?

Thanks again

[MV Blackie]

no i did'nt

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Did you set your permissions yet?

[VBDev]

Originally Posted by XiZa

Well,

You could add json commands like {command:'removeMessage': 112} and things like that to remove messages. But that would mean you would have to keep a log of removed messages.. and edited messages.. in separate tables since if you just send the last x messages you wouldn't know if they were deleted or edited.

Or perhaps just an extra column in the message table status: active, deleted, edited (perhaps a date value)

And if the user wants to ignore someone, then you can indeed respond with a full reload or just use client side javascript to remove the entries by that user if you kept that information available.

<tr id="message_y" class="user_x">

The javascript would also be intensive too with that method and not very brain savy to implement, especially as I don't know anything about Json

Originally Posted by XiZa

Also, when someone isn't online and you try to PM them, it states "that user doesn't exist". Think it would be better if you would say "the user isn't online".

Anyway, you have seen the popup dialog screenshot, will you be fixing that?

You can send a PM to a user who isn't online. There is nothing to avoid it in my code.

Perhaps you are not using the right syntax.

Originally Posted by XiZa

I also attached a pic about the spacing issue, small issue but would be better if fixed No space between date and "To/from" and after the name. Maybe if you used &nbsp; it would work better.

It works as implemented.

I still don't see what is the issue.

Originally Posted by XiZa

Also, a spelling error in the help: "usergroupds "

Added to the bug list thanks.

Originally Posted by XiZa

Edit: I would also love the ability to remove certain icons, like the button that empties the chat input field. And the ability to change the icon images.

I won't add options for each buttons. Having an option for each buttons tends to be a bit too much don't you think ? You can remove them by editing the mgc_cb_evo_editor template.

About icon images, you can do you own by changing the one in the misc/mgc_cb_evo directory located in the images directory of your style.

Originally Posted by XiZa

One more question, I just noticed a different initial state (chat log) from two accounts. Is this a setting somewhere or a bug? If I go in safari to the archives I see all of it, but if I use my other user account in firefox, it only shows my posts I just made.

(Note that i am just testing this currently with only two users, offline)

What do you mean by different initial state ?

Perhaps they don't have the same rights for the commands used ?

Originally Posted by XiZa

Also, the command syntax could possibly be made better?

Does vbulletin allow usernames that are numbers only? If not you could check if integer, its uid otherwise username.

Another error in the help:

/pm uname "userid"

should be "username"

I just checked and it doesn't appear that vbulletin blocks integer names..

Better syntax could be:

/ignore username
/unignore username
/ignore userid uid
/unignore userid uid

So only use a parameter (uid) to the more advanced option which I doubt many people will use anyway.

Don't require " " around the username unless there are spaces in the username. (then you could show an error mesage before sending the command to the server)

I won't change the commands syntax sorry.

However I plan on doing an autocompletion system so this will help.

[VBDev]

Originally Posted by XiZa

Couple more suggestions, can't help myself I like this software alot.

In safari, the colors don't show in the dropdown, so you only see #xxxxx numbers, which are meaningless to my users. (Well, maybe just me, since there aren't that many safari users, but still).

It would be better if you used the real name for the color (magenta, etc) or if that's not possible, check if it's safari and show only basic colors.

I know that safari don't take into account the color and background-color attribute in the option tag of a select.

Sorry but I won't put color names as adding colors would add a lot of translation issues...

However perhaps I will implement a color picker in a next version.

Originally Posted by XiZa

Second suggestion, most of the time, when one chooses a color and font, it is meant to style the whole message, so displaying those BBCodes in the small chatbox just clutter that up and make it prone to user error. It would be better if you put that in some sort of javascript variable which you then pre and append when the user clicks submit so that the server does indeed receive the BBcode correctly. There could be a checkbox to show the bbcode for more advanced users.

Hum yes I could make a checkbox show/hide bbcode. Good suggestion.

Originally Posted by XiZa

Third, sometimes a user selects one color but then changes his/her mind and chooses another. In your app, this results in two [color] bbcodes. Maybe clean that up if possible?

I don't think it's that useful no ? It's a bit of perfection to go that far in optimization

Originally Posted by MV Blackie

no i did'nt

Then you have your answer

[XiZa]

Don't think the javascript would be intenstive at all, class selectors are used everywhere in most every ajax script. Just write something like $('#chatbox .user_25') to select all his/her messages (note jquery syntax, but can ofcourse be adapted to any framework..) point i'm trying to make is that if you use a #chatbox (<table id="chatbox">) it will only search there for specific classes so that will take much less resources. And most of the time there aren't going to be any chat messages anyway or messages won't be deleted so none of this will be executed anyway.

Much better to send an empty response versus the 55kb sent every 10 seconds (i checked).

The issue is that there is no space between the date and "to/from"

It is:

06:29To lala

But should be

06:29 To lala

I hope you will at least fix the dialog popups that don't display properly see my earlier attachment.

And yeah doh i can just change the templates nix that suggestion about icons on/off

About the colors, you could do default array: #00000 => #00000, then english: #00000 => Black etc, but I guess a color picker works equally fine

When I talked about the initial state I meant the messages that were posted in the chatbox when you load the page. On one, it showed all, on the other, it showed nothing. Permissions are the same as far as i can see.

[soundbarrierpro]

Originally Posted by VBDev

However XiZa is right, it will use bandwidth but that amount is not that significant comparing to downloading a file for example

The use of the bandwith won't be that intensive.

Cool, downloading and marking installed another nomination

[VBDev]

Originally Posted by XiZa

Don't think the javascript would be intenstive at all, class selectors are used everywhere in most every ajax script. Just write something like $('#chatbox .user_25') to select all his/her messages (note jquery syntax, but can ofcourse be adapted to any framework..) point i'm trying to make is that if you use a #chatbox (<table id="chatbox">) it will only search there for specific classes so that will take much less resources. And most of the time there aren't going to be any chat messages anyway or messages won't be deleted so none of this will be executed anyway.

Much better to send an empty response versus the 55kb sent every 10 seconds (i checked).

Humm. That's a good point ! I'll make some research on that and see if I can use jquery to do that as it seems interesting.

Originally Posted by XiZa

The issue is that there is no space between the date and "to/from"

It is:

06:29To lala

But should be

06:29 To lala

Oh ok, noted !

Originally Posted by XiZa

I hope you will at least fix the dialog popups that don't display properly see my earlier attachment.

I haven't understood when that problem has occured to you ?

Originally Posted by XiZa

When I talked about the initial state I meant the messages that were posted in the chatbox when you load the page. On one, it showed all, on the other, it showed nothing. Permissions are the same as far as i can see.

There shouldn't be any difference then.

You can reproduce it recurently ?

[soundbarrierpro]

When I enter text into the chat box and hit ok as admin I see no verbiage in the open chat area? I selected in ACP for Admin to have all permissions and registered users have the ability to see and respond but I see nothing at all?

[VBDev]

Originally Posted by soundbarrierpro

When I enter text into the chat box and hit ok as admin I see no verbiage in the open chat area? I selected in ACP for Admin to have all permissions and registered users have the ability to see and respond but I see nothing at all?

Do you see the sent shouts in the admin ?

Do you get any error in your browser (javascript error) ?

[XiZa]

You can see a screenshot of the dialog box here that is not displaying correctly in safari:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachmen...7&d=1210106416