[Add on] Who's Chatting on Forum Home Page for Sigmachat

Add-on by ChurchMedia
Who's Chatting on Forum Home Page for Sigmachat

You must have the SigmaChat Complete Integration & Authentication hack installed first and be signed up with SigmaChat, of course.

This will add a "Who's Chatting" box on your forum home page.

Just like "Who's Online", if you click on "Who's Chatting" it will take you to a page with just the chatters.

If you are logged in, there is a link to the chat room. If you are not logged in, there is a link to register.

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Note that the problem of having a space in your user name is corrected. However, if the user name has an _underscore_ in it there may be problems.
To remove the feature that replaces underscores with spaces, remove this line (Line 57 in chat_home.php):

PHP Code:

$username = str_replace("_", " ",$username); 


1 file change
1 new template
2 template changes

WARNING #1: This hack WILL speed up your Who's Chatting hits! If you seriously want Who's Chatting on your front page, keep in mind that you may have to buy extra hits! Otherwise, don't install this hack! I've found that it increased my chat room traffic dramatically, so I think it's worth buying the hits.

WARNING #2: When you do run out of Who's Chatting hits, your forum home page will break (you will get a blank page)! If this happens, in forum/index.php FIND

PHP Code:

include('chat_home.php'); 


and replace it with

PHP Code:

//include('chat_home.php'); 


Then buy more chat hits. When your upgrade goes through, remove the // from the line above to reactivate the hack.

[Dean C]

I've put your one-liner in php tags so unlicensed users can't see it - better safe than sorry Thanks for sharing your work with the community once again !

[Bryan Ex]

This or at least a number display for chatters has been requested for a long time but won't this consume your "Who's chatting" hits from Sigmachat at a drastic rate? If it's only refreshed every so often (10 minutes or longer) I'll install this afternoon but if it's live and refreshes with every page view... ouch!

[ChurchMedia]

Originally Posted by Dean C

I've put your one-liner in php tags so unlicensed users can't see it - better safe than sorry Thanks for sharing your work with the community once again !

Thanks, Dean!

[ChurchMedia]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ex

This or at least a number display for chatters has been requested for a long time but won't this consume your "Who's chatting" hits from Sigmachat at a drastic rate? If it's only refreshed every so often (10 minutes or longer) I'll install this afternoon but if it's live and refreshes with every page view... ouch!

Honestly, I didn't know about the who's online hits! Opps! I have a Platinum account and it's showing 5500 hits left -- but I didn't buy any extra hits (???). Is it 100 free hits per month?

I don't see a way around the problem of it hittng everytime someone visits the home page... Personally, my chat room is so popular I'm willing to spend the extra money for the hits if I have to.

[Bryan Ex]

They allow you 146 hits per day I think it is (carried forward) which works out to about 1 per every ten minutes 24/7. If there was a way to cache the who's online data for 10 minute intervals it would be just about perfect. I believe that once their new release goes final that the updated integration script will include some type of feature like that but being so close to things changing they haven't bothered. I made a similar error by placing the total number of chatters next the chat link in the nav bar and a few days later I was out of hits for the rest of the month. Whoops...lol

[JustAskJulie]

I didn't think there was a limit on paid accounts.

[Bryan Ex]

There is indeed... it's just that most paid accounts get more than they use and they are compounded over time.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....3&postcount=69

[ChurchMedia]

Right -- you do have to pay for the Who's Chatting hits. My forum burned through 5000 hits in a few days. When you run out of hits, the forum home page BREAKS with this hack (blank page). You have to disable the hack, buy more hits and re-enable it when your upgrade goes through.

I'm still deciding if it's worth it, but I think it is. Chat traffic when up dramatically when I installed this hack.

When I have more time, I'll look into caching the info to slow down the hits.

[tamarian]

Best way, IMHO, is to cache the who's on line stuff as a cron job, once every 6 minutes