Official SigmaChat Integration

Product Info
Name: SigmaChat Official Integration Extension
Product ID: sc7400
Version: 1.0.4 (Version re-schemed)
Author: RaiderSoft (http://www.raidersoft.com/)
Last Modified: 17 Oct. 2005
Compatibility: vBulletin 3.5.0 Gold, 3.5.0 RC-2/3
Mirror: forums.raidersoft.com

Overview
This extension allows you to fully integrate a SigmaChat Platinum or Enterprise Java? Chat Room with your vBulletin 3.5.x forum system, including the ability to authenticate access via your vBulletin forum system, and provide a "Who's Chatting" page list showing who is currently logged into your chat room.

Requirements

• vBulletin 3.5.x
• SigmaChat Platinum, or Enterprise. Please note that SigmaChat Basic and SigmaChat Professional are no longer supported. You may register for a SigmaChat account at www.sigmachat.com.
• PHP with allow_url_fopen directive enabled in your php.ini file. This is required to download the Who's Chatting list from SigmaChat servers.

What's new?
This extension dramatically improves upon the previous release by making use of the vBulletin Database to store Who's Chatting list updates. Additionally, the Who's Chatting box at the bottom of the main forum page has been removed in favor of showing a (nearly) real-time count of users in your chat room directly from the main navbar. Both embedded and popup chat room options are provided to your user. The Who's Chatting list has been cleaned up. Two additional remote functions (Add Buddy and Forum Ignore) have been added as well.

Features

• Seamless integration between your vBulletin forum and SigmaChat
• Popup and Embedded Chat room link options
• Automatic (one 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
• Remote authentication allows you to choose which vBulletin user groups are allowed chat room administrative privileges
• Remote functions system allows you to tie in vBulletin forum functions into the SigmaChat user menu
• Uses the new vBulletin 3.5 XML product import architecture, making installation/uninstallation easier, requiring no modifications to the codebase.
• Improves over previous versions by storing Who's Chatting list within it's own MySQL database table

Installation
Installaion will require between 10 and 15 minutes of your time. Download the supplied ZIP file, and extract it on your personal computer. Open the README.html in your web browser file for full installation instructions. No PHP code modifications are required as this script makes use of the new vBulletin XML Product system.

Support
Support is provided by RaiderSoft for this script provided you have a Platinum or Enterprise SigmaChat account. Read the included instructions for details. Please let us know if you have any problems installing this extension.

Updates
8/12/05 - vbsc7400_101.zip uploaded fixing the auto-login problem. To update from the previous release, simply download and extract the new archive and copy the 'chat.php' file to the root directory of your vBulletin forum. No other changes are required.
8/13/05 - vbsc7400_102.zip uploaded fixing minor issue with displaying users currently chatting. This may have effected all users using a custom table prefix.
10/5/05 - vbsc7400_103.zip uploaded fix minor issue relating to table prefixes. This script now been fully tested with VB 3.5.0 Gold.
10/17/05 - vbsc7400_104.zip uploaded. Users experiencing problems with table locking or the who's chatting list should download and install this update.

Screenshots are attached.

[moonclamp]

Originally Posted by moonclamp

my "who is chatting page" is stretched beyond 1024 pixels for some reason. I've looked at the template but can't quite figure it

OK ... fixed it myself ... anyone else experiencing page stretch might want to try this as an alternative template to "sigmachat_chatting"

 $stylevar[htmldoctype]
<html dir="$stylevar[textdirection]" lang="$stylevar[languagecode]">
<head>
<title>$vboptions[bbtitle] - $vbphrase[sigmachat_title]</title>
$headinclude
<body>
$header
$navbar
<table class="tborder" border="0" width="100%" align="center" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" >
<tr>
<td colspan=3 class="tcat"><div class="smallfont">
		 <span style="float:right">
			 <strong><a href="chat_online.php?$session[session_url]">Reload this page</a></strong>
		 </span>
		 <strong>$vbphrase[sigmachat_who]</strong><br>
		 $chatcount $vbphrase[sigmachat_users_chatting]
		</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
		<td class="thead" width="100%">$vbphrase[username]</td>
		<td class="thead" align=middle><center>$vbphrase[sigmachat_subroom]</center></td>
		<td class="thead" align=right nowrap>$vbphrase[sigmachat_privileges]</td><br/><br/>
</tr>
$SIGMACHAT_CHATTING_TABLE
</table>
<if condition="$pagenav">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%" style="margin-top:3px">
<tr valign="top">
<td align="$stylevar[right]">$pagenav</td>
</tr>
</table>
</if>
$spacer_close
$spacer_open
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="100%">&nbsp;</td>
<td>$forumjump</td>
</tr>
</table>
$footer
</body>
</html>

[moonclamp]

Does anyone know how much bandwidth the "who's in chat" cron uses?

[Grim77]

Very, very little Once a minute your computer sends a single web page request to the SigmaChat server for the list, the size of the response would be less than a kilobyte.

Originally Posted by moonclamp

Does anyone know how much bandwidth the "who's in chat" cron uses?

[moonclamp]

Originally Posted by Grim77

Very, very little Once a minute your computer sends a single web page request to the SigmaChat server for the list, the size of the response would be less than a kilobyte.

60 per hour x 24 hours x 30 days x 1024 bytes = 44236800

About 40 - 45 megs a month then I guess

[mutus123]

Figure it can't hurt to ask... is there anything that can be done about losing dynamic nav bar menus behind the chat screen? (when viewed as a forum page) see attached.

[Grim77]

Originally Posted by mutus123

Figure it can't hurt to ask... is there anything that can be done about losing dynamic nav bar menus behind the chat screen? (when viewed as a forum page) see attached.

Good question. As far as I know, there is no solution that will work correctly on all systems. Most browsers ignore Z order for Java applets. A hack or two has been published to work around this, but everyone that I've seen is usually limited to a single browser. Google it, or download the 3.0.x integration script as the documentation contains a FAQ regarding this.

[moonclamp]

I'm having a problem with the cronjob ... I think:

I was getting a whole load of "core.xxxxx" files appearing in my forum root (xxxx being a seemingly random number)

These files were roughly 5 megs in size and appearing a couple of times every hour. It seems that they are coredumps generated by the server when a script failed to execute correctly.

Anyway, I removed the 'who's in chat cronjob' and haven't had one since

I've posted in other threads about it:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=990599

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?p=798184

this is the email I got from my webhost:

when a script causes a system error it outputs core files. These are created by the system, but they are caused by a script. I would recommend you make sure your board is up to date and also check your database has no errors. You can remove the core files without any issues!

I emailed them back, told them I was up to date and asked them to supress the errors ... they replied again with:

core files are caused by scripts that need extras and they write core files to assit them its normally when they request a lot of services and processes

or that the script colapses due to mad setup or modifcation, but be aware that we have some 3,000 peolpe on the servers using varing versions of VB with no problems

Like I said ... no errors since I removed the scheduled task

[Grim77]

I was getting a whole load of "core.xxxxx" files appearing in my forum root (xxxx being a seemingly random number)

hrm? Did you install the script using a standard CRON daemon or something? The script provided is meant for use with VB 3.5's built in psuedo-cron system.

[2fast4ya]

in the installation readme, it states under the "Required to install" section that i need something called Platinum or Enterprise. Is this something i need to purchase or download before installing this? please advise as i am about to install

[moonclamp]

Originally Posted by Grim77

hrm? Did you install the script using a standard CRON daemon or something? The script provided is meant for use with VB 3.5's built in psuedo-cron system.

No, I installed it through the VB 'scheduled tasks' manager as instructed.

I filled up a gigabyte of web space with the things within a couple of days. I didn't even realise what was happening until I got a warning email from my webhost telling me I was running out of space ...

As soon as I removed the task the coredumps stopped ...

I've now modified the install so that users now only see who is online in chat when they click the link