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.

[SwollenCranium]

I signed up to take a look around and have a question:

Q: Nothing is free, so when you offer a "free" use what are YOU getting out of it?


Q: What do you mean BY "We reserve the right to display this public information to other people, save it, index it, share it, etc."

Just WHO are you sharing this data with?


Q: And this "We reserve the right to use private chat transcripts, private messages, and other usage data anonymously for statistics, user experience improvements, marketing, etc.

^ I suppose THAT answers the "free" question.

[Hornstar]

You mentioned phpBB but this is vbulletin

"This module will connect your vBulletin forum to Envolve chat. This mod allows Envolve to securely use the usernames of your phpBB users"

[andrew.lee]

Hornstar: Thanks for catching this. Fixed. That's what I get for writing two plugins at the same time : )

Swollen Cranium - happy to answer any questions! We're trying to start a business, so the goal is to have people upgrade to our paid products. The free version is our way of letting people try it out on their communities and see if it's a fit. It's also free advertising for us, since we have a "powered by Envolve" message in several places on the chat. Having a free dumbed-down version is pretty common these days for SaaS companies.

In regards to the privacy policy, the *public* chats are intended to be made searchable by the general public at some point (just like most vBulletin forums can be indexed by Google). So who are we going to be sharing this data with? Potentially everyone! Currently that data is only being provided to site owners, however. If you notice, when you create a new chat it says "This is a Public Chat". We're trying to be clear about what we are doing here.

The private chat transcripts will never be shared with anyone but the people you invite to them. We may use statistical data from them in the future to improve our product, or potentially to customize the experience for you (Gmail does a similar sort of thing). Currently we aren't doing any of this.

[ProFifaLeagues]

Andrew is there a demo running anywhere we can look at?

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by rammieone

Andrew is there a demo running anywhere we can look at?

The info page has the script at the bottom, similar to Facebook style and or Cometchat although I see some key differences.

http://www.envolve.com/plugins/vbull...at-plugin.html

Although I would update the first post to reflect the version members here are actually receiving i.e.

Free = Restricted to 25 simultaneous chatters.
Free = No single login although it's noted above?
Free = No skinning although it's noted above?
Everything else = you must have an upgraded version/account.

This way it's not umm "False Advertising" as some would call it .

[andrew.lee]

Thanks Superman for answering that questions! As he mentioned you can see the chat running on the instructions page at http://www.envolve.com/plugins/vbull...at-plugin.html

I've updated the listing to describe what is available for free and what requires a paid account. I mentioned that the plugin allows single sign-on, since you can install the free version without a plugin at all by just cutting and pasting some code... so the plugin is specifically for those users that want to use the single sign-on features. Hopefully that's a little more clear in the posting now.

[onehost]

andrew,

I was looking at your site...

This appears to be really tiny chat...is this how it would
look on a VB forum?

Thanks

[onehost]

Click on "Settings" in the sidebar on the left. Then click "Options".

Im about to uninstall this - i see nothing that says "options"
I see nothing about getting an "API" key.

[onehost]

uninstalled