Chat Modifications - Envolve Chat Integration Module

About the Envolve Chat Plugin
This module will connect your vBulletin forum to Envolve chat. Envolve is a chat toolbar similar to Facebook's chat bar that allows your users to have group and one-on-one chats with each other while browsing your forums.

This mod requires an API key from Envolve in order to function. Visit http://www.envolve.com to get one. A free version is available that provides a full feature set for up to 25 concurrent users. Higher numbers of chatters require a paid account.

This mod integrates your forum's account system with Envolve so that when users are logged into your vBulletin site it also logs them into the chat. In addition, it integrates your profile pictures / avatars and profile information. With the 2.0 release of the mod, other users can now view your profile information and get a link to your profile simply by placing their mouse over your name.

The Envolve chat system is a rich solution for community chat. Some of its features include group chat (both public and private), one-on-one chat, the ability to pop chats out into their own windows, moderation controls (boot / block / ban / timed ban), chat message translation, resizable chat windows, chat sharing, and drag-and-drop chat invitations. As a hosted solution, all chat traffic is handled by Envolve's servers and will not place any additional load on your server.

Installation:
Detailed installation instructions can be found here:
https://www.envolve.com/docs/vbulletin-chat-plugin.html. They are also provided in the Readme.txt file.
You can see and try out the chat at http://www.envolve.com.

This version of the mod will work for both vBulletin 4.x and vBulletin 3.8.x.

Screenshots:
Here the "People List" can be seen open in the lower right hand corner of the page. This shows all users who are currently viewing the forum. This site owner has chosen to only allow logged-in users to chat.


Here a public group chat has been opened, and the user has moused-over another user to see his profile information.


Here a user is creating a new group chat that will be shown to the other users on the site. He has also "popped-out" the "General" chat into its own window.

[sknight]

I installed it last night with a 15 day trial. Import the xml as a plug in and it works. Saves ton of cpu and sql access from my server.

[ARSamo]

erro on loging in

HTTP ERROR 500

Problem accessing /loginredir. Reason:

    Server Error
Caused by:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Response.sendRedirect(Response.java:399)
	at javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponseWrapper.sendRedirect(HttpServletResponseWrapper.java:136)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.GzipFilter$GZIPResponseWrapper.sendRedirect(GzipFilter.java:346)
	at env.server.login.LoginRedirectServlet.doGet(LoginRedirectServlet.java:48)
	at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:707)
	at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:820)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:527)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1216)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.UserAgentFilter.doFilter(UserAgentFilter.java:77)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.GzipFilter.doFilter(GzipFilter.java:133)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1187)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doHandle(ServletHandler.java:421)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.handle(ScopedHandler.java:119)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle(SecurityHandler.java:456)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler.doHandle(SessionHandler.java:225)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doHandle(ContextHandler.java:930)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doScope(ServletHandler.java:358)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler.doScope(SessionHandler.java:183)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doScope(ContextHandler.java:866)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.handle(ScopedHandler.java:117)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandlerCollection.handle(ContextHandlerCollection.java:245)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerCollection.handle(HandlerCollection.java:126)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:113)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server.handle(Server.java:351)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpConnection.handleRequest(HttpConnection.java:594)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpConnection$RequestHandler.headerComplete(HttpConnection.java:1042)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.http.HttpParser.parseNext(HttpParser.java:549)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.http.HttpParser.parseAvailable(HttpParser.java:211)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpConnection.handle(HttpConnection.java:424)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.io.nio.SelectChannelEndPoint.run(SelectChannelEndPoint.java:506)
	at org.eclipse.jetty.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool$2.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:436)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
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[andrew.lee]

ARSamo - how did you get that error? Looks to me like you tried to login with Facebook / Twitter / Envolve but I'm not seeing any errors myself there. Can you give me some steps to reproduce it? Thanks!

[ARSamo]

once i login i get this error........ but secondly its going fine.... thanx

[cigrafix]

Can you make it so we can choose usergrounps who can use the chat???

[tommydamic68]

Great idea, the hosting will surely lose you sales. Make it a script before someone else does and make some money quickly! Great job if not for the hosting through you guys!

[andrew.lee]

Right now you can select whether everyone, only logged-in users, or only admins can use the chat. Allowing you to specify more specifically is on the TODO list.

[andrew.lee]

@tommydamics68 - The problem here is that hosting chat at scale is actually not as easy as it sounds. Apache, for instance, can't handle it (ask anyone who's tried to use CometChat with more than 100 concurrent users...). The hosting is a feature for large site owners. For small sites there are a number of free / cheap php scripts that get the job done as well. We're targeting more of the higher-end sites for which the hosting is a big plus.

[vipe]

Is there any way to get this working on PHP4? I'm assuming that's the problem as I'm getting the following error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: hash_hmac() in /path/to/forums/global.php(607) : eval()'d code on line 771

[andrew.lee]

Unfortunately no, not yet. The hash_hmac function we use is needed to ensure secure logins (we wouldn't want people to be able to fake being chat admins...), and that function is only available in php5. I suspect a workaround could be made for php4. Feel free to tweak the code... all you should have to do is replace that hash_hmac function with something php4 compatible. This is on our todo list for the future.