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.

[Pvtiste]

Originally Posted by andrew.lee

Hi All -

We just updated our plugin to version 2.0. The new plugin is a major update from the previous version and addresses many of the complaints in this thread (as well as adds a number of new features).

Enhancements include:
-Support for Avatars / profile pictures
-Support for custom profile rollovers (we now link directly to your profile and have stats right in the rollovers)
-Ability to restrict chats to certain groups only
-Ability to grant administrator privileges to specific groups
-Ability to enable / disable chat on mobile site
-Ability to restrict chat to only certain sections of the site
-SSL support
-Search feature in list of people
-Vastly improved moderation controls -- timed banning, ban management

Bugs that were fixed:
-Chat no longer appears in manage attachments screen or other popups.
-Major speed improvements for large sites
-Chat does not (by default) display to users who have not been verified.

I'd encourage people who are already using Envolve to upgrade, and people who have used it and uninstalled to give it another shot. Feedback would be appreciated!

Note that we've increased the number of users allowed in our free plan to 25 users, and we've now given all site owners access to all of our futures, including, skinning, analytics, ssl, and all of our customization options.

Excellent news!!!

[S S0DEN]

Very good company here guys, we have been using them for months now. It is the b est virtual product we own and our community loves it.

Keep up the good work guys!

[silpher]

how to translate it?

[S3Ponline]

Not working on my site. I had the older version and it worked fine, but now it’s not showing up


EDIT: Nevermind. Got it. My error.

EDIT: Needs one more tweak. Right now I have it set where nobody can access it unless a member joins a public usergroup. Unfortunately, it seems that the default permissions override the new usergroup permissions. Can you tweak to fix this?

[Pvtiste]

Originally Posted by silpher

how to translate it?

+1 needed

About the chat : I am really happy !! I m using only for my staff and that's an amazing tool

[andrew.lee]

@SPOnline - I'm not sure I understand. Could you explain a bit more the problem you're having?

@PvTiste - We have translations already for a bunch of different languages. If we don't we also have an easy way for you to customize strings. Unfortunately that documentation isn't up on our website yet. Can you shoot an email to support@envolve.com and we'll send that info over?

[S3Ponline]

Originally Posted by andrew.lee

@SPOnline - I'm not sure I understand. Could you explain a bit more the problem you're having?

@PvTiste - We have translations already for a bunch of different languages. If we don't we also have an easy way for you to customize strings. Unfortunately that documentation isn't up on our website yet. Can you shoot an email to support@envolve.com and we'll send that info over?

I have it so that the chat is not accessible by any usergroup, BUT a public joinable usergroup.

So people who want to the chat can access it. (I wish it was by user permission instead of the way it?s currently set).

When they join the usergroup that does have access, the usergroup doesn?t override the the default permission.

Let?s say we have a Usergroup called ?Registered Member? and a Usergroup called ?Envolve Chat?

The registered member doesn?t have access to the chat by default. They can click the public joinable custom group that ?should? enable them to now see the chat; however, it doesn?t.

Make sense?

thanks for looking it over!

[Poppet]

Installed and like it, so do the members.

[andrew.lee]

@s3ponline - I understand! I'll add a way to address this to our "wish list".

@Poppet - Happy to hear that! Could you give us a rating / review once you've had a chance to play with it a bit more?

[S3Ponline]

Well hopefully you can get it worked out soon