Embedded chat

This "hack" will allow you to run a semi-integrated (free or paid) chat room "inside" your forum:

+ It's quite generic and should work with several chat providers (made a seperate template, just for the applet code)
+ The chat room will be displayed within your forum's structure,
+ The chat applet will be sized according to the user's screen resolution (could get scary at 1600x1200 )
+ People will be logged into the chat room using their forum usernames (if the chat supports auto-login)
+ Invalid characters in usernames will be replaced before logging in to the chat, plus too lengty names will be shortened
+ Easy installation

- At this time there's no feedback from the chat room to the forum. A "chat monitor" is planned though (version 2)

The install docs and template examples are mainly focussed on the chat provider we use (http://www.raidersoft.com), but it shouldn't be a problem adjusting one or two things to get this thing to work with your own chat provider.

The sizes of the chat applet haven't been tested out fully. I have no clue how bigger resolutions work out. All the rest seems to work fine.

Hope you like it...

[update 1.4]Sizes can now be set more easily, just by editing the chatredirect template, nothing else.
Added support for raidersoft's ICE, which is more flexible with usernames.

[bryan kazdan]

I took a different approach to popping up a chat window for my users. And it seems to actually work quite well.
So here is what I did:

1) Disabled Log Off Button:
SigmaChat Control Panel - Look & Feel - Options - Logout Button

2) Disabled Float Dock Button
SigmaChat Control Panel - Look & Feel ? Options - Float/Dock Button

3) Use ?Minimal? Display Option
SigmaChat Control Panel - Look & Feel ? Layout - Minimal Layout

4) Disabled "/NICK" command


5) Used the following ?applet code?

PHP Code:

<applet codebase="http://client.sigmachat.com/current/"
code="Client.class" archive="scclient_en.zip" width=550 height=350>
<param name="room" value="XXXXX">
<param name="cabbase" value="scclient_en.cab">
<param name="USERNAME" value="$username">
<param name="AUTOLOGIN" value="yes">
<param name="lopt" value="s+t+a+c+h+d+l-">
<param name="urllist" value="false">
<param name="subroom" value="false">
</applet> 


6) Since I wanted a separate chat page to welcome my users to the chat, I then duplicated "Chat.php" and made a "Chat2.php" file

7) I set the "Chat2.php" file to call 2 new templates "chat2" and "chatbit2"

8) I set "chat2" to be a basic HTML file that would NOT call my header and footer

9) I set "chatbit2" to have my applet code in it

10) I then set up a javascript in "chatbit" to call the "chat2.php" into a named window

PHP Code:

<script language="javascript">
function ANYNAME_open(){
window.open("chat2.php","WINDOW_NAME","height=400,width=600,left=80,top=80");
}
</script>
    
<a href="javascript:ANYNAME_open()">Click Here to Start Chatting!</a> 


--------------------------------


Why it works for me:

a) The new window is named, therefore all calls to my chat room will always open it in the same window, so the user can log in and out of the chat room ONLY in that window so when they reclick to open the window, it will just autolog them back into that window. ("_BLANK" should create a new window, which would cause a security problem)

b) Users can browse the forum while chatting at the same time (since they are in different windows)


--------------------------------

Faults:
* Pressing "Ctrl+N" will still open the window and will log off one user.
* Using a second browser (such as Netscape while using IE) will have the same effect (2 windows open at same time).
* A user technically could just type in "Chat2.php" and load the page 2 times in 2 windows (if they knew to do this)

--------------------------------

Why I am posting this. Because it is slightly different than what I have read and I thought maybe it would add to the creativity of new versions of this hack.

[retinax]

Originally posted by ThoughtDiver
When the chat is working, it works GREAT... but a fair percentage of the time, when you click on the link to open the new window with the chat integrated into it, you get the "Welcome" audio clip but the only thing that loads up is a blank rectangle with the custom background color of the chat app. Closing down and reclicking the link or pressing F5 to refresh the window will normally fix it, but sometimes you have to do this multiple times.

Any ideas? I'm using raidersoft's pro sigmachat.

Thanks,
Scott :ermm:

I am having this same problem- but it also has a bunch of jumbled code under the vbulletin footer... It looks like my sigmachat applet is crashing.. Wot-Mike or anyone is there any sort of fix for that? Will going to the registered version of SigmaChat make it any better? It doesn't do it that often but maybe one out of 15 times it does this for anyone using the chat.. The board is www.cuttingedgemuscle.com/Forum Thanks for the help.

Great hack by the way!
James

[bryan kazdan]

Originally posted by retinax


I am having this same problem- but it also has a bunch of jumbled code under the vbulletin footer... It looks like my sigmachat applet is crashing.. Wot-Mike or anyone is there any sort of fix for that? Will going to the registered version of SigmaChat make it any better? It doesn't do it that often but maybe one out of 15 times it does this for anyone using the chat.. The board is www.cuttingedgemuscle.com/Forum Thanks for the help.

Great hack by the way!
James

I found that placing the chat on another page (chat2.php) would STILL leave that jumbled code (1 out of every 10 times or so) on the bottom of my chat.php output. After playing with the code for some time I found that it has to do with 2 things.

1) GZIP
2) PAGE DIMENSIONS

I am not sure what the actual fix is for this, but I did notice that when I use the second page (chat2.php) the problem did NOT occur except for in the original chat.php which no longer had the applet on it (that means that the problem has NOTHING to do with RAIDERSOFT).

Also, it does not seem to occur for me when GZIP is not turned on.

I also found that hard coding the chat size in the redirect page and in the applet reduced the number of occurrences of the problem.


I however am having a new problem. For some users (and it is very rare) they get the chat window, and they can see what is being said, but they can't send any messages. Very odd.. I wrote to raiderSoft and am curious to hear what could cause this.

[wot-Mike]

Th garbled code is rather a difficult problem. GZIP, yes, it has something to with it. There's three ways of compressing pages: through vBulletin's admin panel, through httpd.conf (mod_gzip) and through php.ini (obzhandler or something, I'm not familiar with this). Whichever method you're using, one rule applies: use only one of these methods.
I've had the garble show up when I used both vBulletin's option and mod_gzip, ages ago. It's never been a problem until I upgraded apache to some newer version. Turning off vBulletin's gzip did the trick for me. But apparently that doesn't help everyone

Hard coding the applet size, not sure if that works. The applet code is parsed by php, and the variables in there are replaced with hard coded sizes before it's send off to the browser. Ofcourse it's no foolproof method. The sizes depend on whatever the javascript in the redirect page returns.

It doesn't matter whether you use a free chat version or a Pro or whatever version. I think it's something on server level.

In trying to understand this, maybe it would be nice to know what people are running, which browser, but also what's running on the server (which apache version, which php version, which php.ini settings and so on). And even then, I'm no expert *sigh*


And yes, I've heared of people who logged into chat and could hear sounds, but do nothing. But it's indeed very rare though.

[bryan kazdan]

Taken from CPANEL 6 XSKIN:

Server Information:
Operating System Linux
Kernel Version 2.2.19-6.2.1ensim.smp-3.1.3-5
Last Reboot 6days, 30minmin
Apache Version 1.3.27 (Unix)
Perl Version 5.006001
Perl Path /usr/bin/perl
Sendmail Path /usr/sbin/sendmail
PHP Version 4.2.3
MySQL Version 3.23.54
cPanel Version 6.0.0-RELEASE
cPanel Build 80
cPanel Theme cPanel X v1.4
---------------------------------------------------

Occurrences have been seen on newest versions of IE, and Netscape as well as some random older versions (I am thinking that browser version has nothing to do with it)

Operating systems used have been Windows 98SE, ME, 2K & XP (pro and home)

[Zombie-F]

Hey thanks for the awesome hack! Install was flawless, the chat host you suggested is awesome, and my users love it since they've been hankering for a chat (and I wouldn't install one unless it used the vb database). This totally rocks.

If all goes well for the next few days, I'll throw some $$ at Raidersoft and go pro. It's so inexpensive, how can I not? It's even less expensive than the elderly version of Volano Chat my web host provides for $10 a month!

[SRozhon]

Excellant! Thank you so Much!

[Harley D]

I'm a beginner, But I managed to get this to work properly by moddding it using the suggestions in several posts.

2 things I would like to ask.

1) I'm using jpilot, and I notice when a person logs in their IP is shown. How do I disable this?

2)My sounds don't work, Where are the commands located?
Its possible that just the address to the AU file is incorrect.

Love the Hack, Thanks

[wot-Mike]

I'm not using jPilot myself, so I wouldn't really know how to deal with the things you've asked


As for the garbled code, I really don't know why it happens. I found some stuff about turning of HTTP 1.1 stuff in browsers (in IE it's one of the many things under Tools/ Internet Options/Advanced). That would disable the usage of gzip between the server and clients. But older browsers don't support zipped pages at all, and if those have the same problems, then using http1 instead of 1.1 isn't going to help.
Simply put, I've no idea, and since it only affects a small number of people, I'm thinking it's some server thing instead of clientside.

[leitel]

After having read all these threads AND successfully installing this hack along with registering with Raidersoft PRO, I find that for this to be truely useful, there needs to be a way to see who's in chat from the vb page.

PLUS: A way to INVITE an online member to chat. For this I came across this hack: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...=&pagenumber=1
Has anyone installed this?

Thanks for all the helpful tips to install my first chat. Check it out at: www.noblood.org