Chat Modifications - Dream's Chatbox

This adds a Chatbox in your forum home page.

Here's how it works: every 5 minutes the chatbox asks the server if there are new messages. You can change this 5 minutes to any number of seconds you want, but the lower you go the more server resources the chatbox uses.

Features:
- AJAX
- Pages
- Change refresh rate
- Hide chatbox content from chosen usergroups
- Set usergroups that can't send messages
- Set moderator usergroups that can delete messages
- Can disable auto refresh for guests
- Prune messages by user ID, user name, days old or all messages
- Enable smilies, bbcode and/or [ img ]
- Automatic URL parsing
- Option for users to delete own messages
- Smilies popup with all smilies you can use
- Who's Online Support
- User names uses usergroup colors
- Ban Users
- /me code
- Message colors
- and more

This mod is final, no new features will be added.

[Dream]

VERSION HISTORY

version 1.2
- Added option to let users delete their own messages.
- Added option to show username links with user group colors. Note this may raise resource usage.
- Added WOL support.
- Added option to change the HTML tag used around usernames.
- Added smilies!

version 1.3
- Now when the Chatbox auto-refreshes, the message the user was typing isn't lost.
This is not perfect, because by the time the Chatbox refreshes it gets the message, and the user has time to type more stuff while the page is loading, so it may lose some letters.

version 1.4
- Added Ajax!
Now you can set your refresh rate to 3 seconds and make your server cry to mommy!

version 1.5
- Show Time? now correctly removes time from messages. When it does, mouseover the user name will show the time.
- Added automatic URL parsing. Requires BBCode to be enabled.
- Added hide refresh button option, good if you have a low refresh interval.
- Added option to change the image smilies button into a normal button, same as send and refresh.
- Added Banned Users option.
- Input buttons now use the correct button CSS class.
- Added cron files to the zip file, auto prune and auto post, the instructions to use them are in cron/cron.txt

version 1.6
- Fixed IE7 bug, the ajax code now uses vB's ajax functions.

version 1.7
- Added /me code. Users can use the /me code in front of messages to denote an action.
- When posting the posted message now appears right away, as opposed to having to wait for a refresh. This is faster and uses a little less resources.
- Added Chatbox height option. To use it, redo your forumhome template edit. If you like your Chatbox size you don't need to do it.

version 1.8
- Forced align="left" on main <div>s because people were having problems with the chatbox content being centered.
- Changed javascript function name from deleteShout() to deleteMessage(), because this is a chatbox not a shoutbox :P and the name was visible to users on mouseover
- Added time CSS class to times so it matches the rest of the forum (btw Mark I always loved your forum since I made games for v3arcade)
- Added javascript isRefreshing check, so the chatbox won't have two parallel refresh instances and show duplicate messages, to fix problem on slower connections.
- When showing latest messages at the bottom, the chatbox now will only scroll to the bottom when there are new messages. (only works if you are not updating all messages on each refresh)
- Fixed javascript warning, was getting shoutsDiv <div> by it's name, wasn't defining shoutsDiv variable. (wonder how it worked in the first place)
- Added option to update all messages on refresh. This will fix deleted messages not being removed from users chatboxes, but can highly increase resource usage. The default method is getting only the new messages.
- Added message colors. You must enable it in the Chatbox options. You can change the available colors in the options.

version 1.9
- Added option to disable auto refreshing for guests. This can save resources if you have a low refresh rate.

version 2.0
- fixed minor bug that could stop the chatbox from working if the ajax response had newlines
- fixed bug that the chatbox was using the primary usergroup colors instead of the display usergroup colors for the username coloring
- fixed instructions for the chatbox under the navbar or under the forum list, old code's collapse wasn't working properly
- changed the default Chatbox place on the forum home page in the install instructions to show it after the forum listing
- updated the install instructions to be easier to follow and have more info

version 2.1
- changed ajax code for compatibility with vB 3.7

version 2.1.1
- color chosen by user now gets saved in a cookie. to update mod, just upload chatbox.php and chatbox_ajax_color.php

[Dream]

reserved2

[Dream]

I just saw the options of this mod after 1 year and I was overwhelmed. I don't remember coding all that. I must had too much free time.

[Sofia]

Hii Dream ! Thank you for this Chatbox 3.7

[projectego]

Nice one. Cheers!

[jerrygad]

I like this. Thanks for sharing it with us

[Toxizen]

A few things I noticed people were unhappy about when I switched to this chatbox from a prior chatbox and I wanted to know if there was a way I could fix these.

Bold, Underline, Font Style implemented in the chatbox. Also a way for when you select Font Color for the user not to have to keep reselecting their font color every time they type a message.

When you set it so that people can delete their own messages, the X appears not after the message, but after their username, hence the whole message doesn't delete, just the username of the person who posted the comment in the chatbox. The comment remains.

Lastly, how can I make it so that mods can prune, edit and delete messages from the Chatbox?

Other than that on the positive this chatbox is more readable than the other one we were using and also it fits in much better with the template. This will show you whats been done with it:

http://www.tonycomix.com/forum/

Since the install instructions threw me off cause I couldn't find:

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="calendar.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[calendar]</a></td>

in the navbar template I just went into the FORUMHOME template, used the instructions for the Whats Going On? box, copied and pasted that code where I wanted the Box located and added it to the top of the forum that way.

[JamesC70]

Originally Posted by Toxizen

Since the install instructions threw me off cause I couldn't find:

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="calendar.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[calendar]</a></td>

in the navbar template I just went into the FORUMHOME template, used the instructions for the Whats Going On? box, copied and pasted that code where I wanted the Box located and added it to the top of the forum that way.

This installation code is written for 3.6.8 and 3.7 templates. You're still on 3.6.6, so a search in the Navbar template for "calendar" will work. Insert the desired code just before the </tr> appearing after "calendar".

[C.ooder]

thank you