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.

[Dream]

I'll take a look on the template issue O_o

Colored usernames would need a slower query, maybe two. I can look into making it as an option.

[dbirosel]

Also, is it possible to increase the size of the text a bit? Members are complaining it's hard to see. They like how it loads fast though.

But there main concern is..

-the size of the text
-There username is not colored

[dbirosel]

Overall, i love your mod. I'll keep getting suggestons from my members and keep testing it. I'll be coming over here more often. So far the support is great!

[Dream]

You are welcome

I'm looking into making the text bigger for you. There doesn't seem to be a CSS class for bigger text in vB. But you have to change all appearances of the code "smallfont" in chatbox.php for another class.

[khoadv]

I've used this mod. It's great.

I've made some modifies: the $cantshout group won't see the text box so they can't input text. It'll prevent the guest posting and the script won't run.

Open the chatbox.php, find:

PHP Code:

echo '<div class="smallfont">'.$date.'<form action="'.THIS_SCRIPT.'.php" method="post" name="chatboxForm"><input type="text" name="shout" size="50" maxlength="255" class="smallfont"> <input type="submit" value="'.$text_send.'" class="smallfont"> <input type="button" value="'.$text_refresh.'" onclick="refreshChatboxLite(\'\')" class="smallfont"> '.$pagelinks.'<br /></form></div>'; 


(line 162)


replace with:

PHP Code:

echo '<div class="smallfont">'.$date.'<form action="'.THIS_SCRIPT.'.php" method="post" name="chatboxForm">';
if ( !empty($canshout) ) {
echo '<input type="text" name="shout" size="50" maxlength="255" class="smallfont"> <input type="submit" value="'.$text_send.'" class="smallfont">';
}
echo '<input type="button" value="'.$text_refresh.'" onclick="refreshChatboxLite(\'\')" class="smallfont"> '.$pagelinks.'<br /></form></div>'; 


Then find:

PHP Code:

if (empty($_REQUEST['nofocus'])) {
?> 


replace with:

PHP Code:

if (empty($_REQUEST['nofocus']) && !empty($canshout)) {
?> 


[obmob]

Wondering how is this different from vbshout?

And would be nice to have smilies available too

[Dream]

It's a lot more simple than vBShout.

Smilies are available.

[Dream]

Nice modifications khoadv! I'll add them in the next version.

Oh and please click install if you still use it

[ggiersdorf]

can this be used in ANY forum? I want to place this in my Staff forum only so we can chat is this possible?

[Dream]

You can configure chatbox.php to only allow usergroupid 6 people to use it (admin group ID), and make it show only on that forum with template modifications.

But people knowing the URL where chatbox.php is can view the conversation.