Chat Hack

First of all, let me thank all who have worked on the various hacks already. The work you all do is tremendous. Here is my suggestion for a hack that I think would be quite useful.

It's a real time chat hack. Now I know there are plenty of scripts out there that let you set up chat rooms, but I'm talking about one integrated into vBulletin. I envision a chat system where the room is always open to registered users. The column of users would be listed somewhere on the page, and double clicking a user would bring up their profile. I have no idea how difficult this would be to create, or what kind of strain would be put on the server, but if it could be done I think it would be a tremendous addition.

What do you guys think,
Cameron

[bitbender]

Ok, after reading many more threads on this subject, and some more homework, I now have a chat button added to my header template, but I have been quite unable to locate the chat.php template that is being discussed in several threads as the link that the button relates to.

I tried to follow the developers advice on how to locate it, and used search, and as of yet, I have not found the source for chat.php. I did see one example, but I'm not sure if that is the version I should use....

 
<?
$opentopublic = 0;
chdir("/prod");
include("./global.php");
  if ($opentopublic=="0") {
    if (!$bbuserinfo[userid]) {
      show_nopermission();
      exit;
  }
 }
  eval("dooutput(\"".gettemplate("chat")."\");");

?>

Any ideas folks ??

PPN and myself (WITH MUCH THANKS TO FREDDIE) will be releasing an integrated chat hack very soon. The demo I am about to show you is not working 100% (updating people on the front) however it is integrated fully.

This hack uses webmaster's java chat.

However the only down to this hack is that it requires a user to run an irc script and be in that channel. What it does is every 2-5 mins (you may change as you see fit) it updates the site (very little bandwidth used) and posts who's currently in the chat room.

There is then a chat button that brings you into the chat. In order to get into the chat you must be a registered member and you see the page just as you would if you were an unregistered user. Once you are logged in you enter chat with your current name...

Now our hack is going to take the _'s out of names. Let me explain... In standard irc all spaces are converted to _'s. Since there are some users with _'s, for the display of the front page our script will take out those _'s so it looks like the original name.

That's about the entirety of the hack. It is nearing completion.

A little thanks to freddie for the inspiration, thanks to the owner of Iguana land.com for helping me get Freddie's version. Thanks of course for PPN for making the hack per my instruction.

This should be released within the week. We are getting all the bugs worked out and the template colors working so it will be a global hack.

To view a semi working demo check here:
http://216.12.212.125/

Look forward to that hack and thank you everyone. Go ahead and ask me questions and give me suggestions.

[bitbender]

I updated my status with this problem, but I put it in the wrong thread, and did not mean to cross post.

Please read: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...637#post153637

Apologies for the x-posting.

I spent the last 8 weeks fighting with a java based forum product. I learned more about dynamic stack traces than I ever cared to know. Turned out to be a package issue, which is still open to Sun for a fix. While I LOVE programming, I HATE debugging code I can't unjar, or get a peek at the source for.

At this time I am not interested in using JAVA until Sun stabilizes the JDK a bit more.

However with this java it is not run off your server. You simply link from another, just a little tidbit of info.

[bitbender]

I probably ought not be so critical of Java. I mean I program in it, along with several other languages, but I think it's still got problems. But to be truthful, assembler language sort of 'taints' one's perspective towards 'newer' languages (frame of ref: Age - Assembler 20+ years, Java 6 years).

New Hack links to the IRC servr, eh? That might be a good thing since I've seen that myphpcat is a hog on resources. I have the luxury of a subnet Internet presence, and additional servers here I can offload the chat to, if necessary, but I'll stay posted for your upcoming hack...

But for now, I'm continuing my quest for the chat "fix" my VB needs....I wanted to keep the chat localized to my server for privacy reasons, and I don't like depending on other machines over which I have no control. It's probably a residual effect of 25 years in mainframes where the motto has always been Availability, Availability, Availability.

thanks again, for replying..

Understood, i feel the same way, yet I would rather not have to deal with all the bandwidth within my own server, hence the reason I chose IRC. I found a good network that not many people use.

I also find PHPMYCHat to be very lame looking and annoying.

It will be released soon and everyone should be happy.

[AlpineFX]

I installed the hack listed in this forum, but it left some holes in the chat app, so I found another hack for phpmychat and this one focused on the chat app, so I combined the two and volia I came up with a pretty good combo that works well.

Please I only took two existing hacks one from this topic, and one that was done by the guy who did phpMyChat integration Hack topic, I'll try and find his name later and add it. I think the guy who did it here on this topic was John, anyway I think that these two hacks can get you started, but there is still more work to be done. So we can either wait for humble and see what he has come up with, or we can try and exapnd on these two hacks.

Hope this helps, remember this is not really my work, I did some more explaining and combined the two into one file, since this seemed to work for me, in making it more seamless

URL: (note must be registered - please if you want to test it, notify me in the registration by saying test)

Chat Hacks

[Anfield]

?

[BrAinZ]

This is strange.. I've tried the hack as listed earlier in this thread, but NOTHING seems to happen

How do I get the option to "chat" to appear under the PM section of the Forum Home Page ?

[Admin]

BrAinZ, please go to this page and enter your username, to show you are licensed. (you will need to use your customer number and password to access that page)
Thank you.