Chat Modifications - Dream's Chatbox

This adds a simple Chatbox in your forum home page for your members to chat.

The Chatbox is like a thread, members leave small messages in it for others to see. Think of it as an off-topic thread that never ends. The Chatbox can also help keep chatting out of the threads.

This mod is light on the server, uses little server resources to work. The default refresh rate is set to 5 minutes. You can disable automatic refreshing entirely in the options.

What's the refresh rate? The chatbox updates the messages shown every given seconds, that's the refresh rate. It sends a request to the server asking for new messages every X seconds, that you choose in the options.

Warning: If you set your refresh rate to 10 seconds this mod stops being so server friendly. You can do it, but be sure your server can handle it.


Features:
- Ajax (no page refreshes)
- Pages
- Set refresh rate in seconds
- Hide Chatbox contents from certain user groups
- Set user groups that can't send messages but can view chatbox
- Moderator user groups that can delete messages
- Disable auto refresh for guests
- Prune messages by user ID, user name, days old or all
- Enable/disable smilies, bbcode and [ img ]
- Automatic URL parsing
- Users can delete their own messages
- Smilies popup with all smilies you can use in messages
- Who's Online Support
- Show message dates or not
- User names linked and colored with their user group colors
- Banned Users
- Hide refresh button
- /me code
- Optional message colors
- Bunch of options in the Admin Control Panel

Live Demos: (leave your live demo in this thread!)
http://www.fliz.ru/ (russian)
http://www.sustainabilityforum.com/forum
http://www.virtualorbit.com/
http://www.bowlandcentral.com/forum


VERSION HISTORY



This mod is now final. It has all the features I think a chatbox should have, so I won't be adding more features to it. Anyone has my permission to use this as a base for another mod. It will still be updated for bugs though.

[jking222222]

Thanks for the mod!

Is there a way to have it show up on the home page and one specific thread or board?

[Dream]

The instructions for it to show on the home page are included in the zip file.

For the chatbox to show on a thread or a particular forum, you would need template conditionals, but I'm not sure which ones you would need. You can try to ask for help on this forum.

[kronnos]

Thank you, didn't even see that text file in the folder before

Can I change the text "chatbox" where it says "http://forumname.com - chatbox - MozillaFirefox. Also is there a way to insert an Ad code and/or a header in the new chatbox window that opens with the javascript code?

Thank You

[Dream]

There should be a phrase that has "chatbox" in it so you can change it. If not (been almost 6 months I don't mess with this mod) there should be a <title>chatbox</title> in chatbox.php you can change.

There's no way to insert an ad to the chatbox page without adding it to the normal chatbox that appears on forumhome, because there's no way to know where the user is.

[kronnos]

Originally Posted by Dream

There should be a phrase that has "chatbox" in it so you can change it. If not (been almost 6 months I don't mess with this mod) there should be a <title>chatbox</title> in chatbox.php you can change.

There's no way to insert an ad to the chatbox page without adding it to the normal chatbox that appears on forumhome, because there's no way to know where the user is.

Thanks, fixed it in chatbox.php. And yes, when i add the ad/header to chatbox in new windows, it also opens in the the normal chatbox aswell. I know little about codes but just got an idea to make 2 different javascript codes added to navbar.

This could be the code to add for the normal chatbox:

<!-- Chatbox -->
<tbody>
	<tr>
		<td class="thead" colspan="2">
			<a style="float:$stylevar[right]" href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('forumhome_chatbox')"><img id="collapseimg_forumhome_chatbox" src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/collapse_thead$vbcollapse[collapseimg_forumhome_chatbox].gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
			<a href="javascript:openChatbox()">$vbphrase[chatbox_chatbox]</a>
		</td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
<tbody id="collapseobj_forumhome_chatbox" style="$vbcollapse[collapseobj_forumhome_chatbox]">
	<tr>
		<td class="alt1" width="100%" colspan="2"><div class="smallfont" align="center"><iframe src="chatbox.php?nofocus=1" width="100%"$chatboxheight style="border: 0px" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
<!-- / Chatbox -->

Which would open the chatbox.php. and then make another chatbox2.php which would then be added to:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function openChatbox () {
	chatbox = window.open('chatbox2.php','chatbox','height=330,width=650,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,resizable=yes,status=no,toolbar=no,scrollbars=yes');
}
//-->
</script>

Will that work and if yes, would it use up too much resources running to chats?

PS: In firefox the window opens in the preset size but in internet explorer the window opens full size.

[Dream]

no it would be fine

[AlexanderT]

I think there is a small bug.

Function chatbox_construct_shouts refers to the global variable $tagarounduser but it's missing in the global statement. In effect, the "Tag Around Username" option does not work. To fix it, add $tagarounduser to the global statement of the function.

[Sevo]

I have VBA installed and I uploaded your chat to it.. but in the chat box field it say "no input data" how do I get it to work in the VBA page.

thank you for your help

[TCE Killa]

Great mod this, thanks.

[Tikibird]

How is this chatbox in regards to server load? I am currently running VBShout2.1 and it is killing my bandwidth. If anyone has used both products, I would be interested in a comparison.

I downloaded it and was going to give it a try but I am confused by the various text docs with template edits. Is it necessary to edit templates to make the chatbox work? Or are the template edits just if you want to change the position of it?