MyBB Community Forums

I've been using MyFireChat on my site for about a year now and have been working on developing it out as a full plugin so others can use it. This plugin is build off Firechat, a Firebase App. Since it utilizes Firebase, it means that the chat runs near instantaneous, but does not require extensive resources from your server. Other shout boxes that utilize ajax are very difficult to run on shared servers because they are so resource extensive - that isn't an issue with MyFireChat. The set up with Firebase is very, very simple. After making an account, all you have to do is get a "Secret" (API token) and the ID number of your first chat room and include them in the admin settings option for the chat.

Here's a quick run down of features:

• Integrated with myBB user system (utilizes username and uid)
  
• Ability to set a custom profile field as a chat display name
  
• Can use user's avatars
  
• Integrated with myBB's word filter, smilies, MyCode, and Custom MyCode (all settings in the admin area). This information is cached by the chat, so it only requires 1 call to the server during the chat's authentication.
  
• Can define chat moderators by user groups or user IDs
  
• Anonymous posting enabled, able to be turned off via a setting
  
• Included commands: /roll (dice roller), /me, and /help. Easy plugin system to develop custom commands for your site.
  
• Ability to set default chat room
  
• Can have virtually infinite amount of chat rooms available. Users are able to create their own chat rooms.
  
• Can have private chat rooms that are invitation based
  
• Chat moderators can warn and suspend users. They can also delete messages.
  
• Individual users have the ability to ignore other users
  
• All chat rooms have a list of online users, and a list of potential users to invite
  
• Works on all major browsers and on mobile devices
  

The plugin is still in development, but is very close to a Version 1.0 release. Once I've released it, I'll make the Github Repo public so others can contribute to it. Below are some pictures:


Basic Chat room


Creating a custom public chat room


The new chat room. New chat rooms are added as tabs along the top of the chat message area.


Moderator options


Private chat invitation pop up



Current Admin Settings

Most of the basic functionality is there, but there's just a few more details that I need to tweak before I'll release it to the public. I am interested in hearing constructive feedback for it though and to gauge any interest in a plugin like this.

looks like it can be useful for many users

i'm used firebase based shoutbox too in past...
but i changed to nodejs based shoutbox.
reason to i change to nodejs that firebase isn't free.
For now appear that firebase not cut off if exceed the data transfer but that could change at any time.

I sent email to them in the past to ask about data transfer, the answer was following:

Quote:Hi xxxxx -

We don’t current cut off Firebases that exceed the data transfer, however if your Firebase continually exceeds the free data transfer caps we’ll ask you to upgrade to the Candle plan.

Many thanks,
Ossama

Exceed free data transfer in firebase is very easy...

The free Firebase plan is more than enough for most forums. One of the features that I'm working on yet for this chat is deleting old messages so they don't take up extra room, but space and data transferring has never been an issue for me. NodeJS works, but it is not particularly friendly to people who are on shared hosting or people who do not have the development experience necessary to set it up. My plugin is designed to be very easy for novice admins to set up and use and Firebase gives you that.

(2015-05-17, 04:33 PM)jshort Wrote: [ -> ]The free Firebase plan is more than enough for most forums. One of the features that I'm working on yet for this chat is deleting old messages so they don't take up extra room, but space and data transferring has never been an issue for me. NodeJS works, but it is not particularly friendly to people who are on shared hosting or people who do not have the development experience necessary to set it up. My plugin is designed to be very easy for novice admins to set up and use and Firebase gives you that.

for me data transfer is something easy to exceed when i using firebase. maybe archive (log) contributes to this.
or i not optimized my plugin enough...
anyway good look, appear quite interesting and it will be very useful for the general public.

Wooow , this is very useful
Thanks a lot for work.
I have some question.
1. Are message add on this room AJAX? or add with reload?
2. this plugin need to a new server for chat or not?
3. are old read message deleted over a period time? for example after 2 days deleted.
4. can ban a user from chat for ever?
5. And can set what users group can manage chats?

And a suggestion,
This is possible to add a link on user's profile for:
Chat with Test
and after click , we going on a new page for chat? and after we close the page and going again, oldest message not deleted and load!
This is possible?

Thanks a lot for Great Work.
Good Luck.

1. The chat does not require a reload in order to see new messages. It is automatic.
2. I don't understand your question. This chat should work fine on any existing myBB board. The only extra thing that an admin would have to do is create a Firebase account, but all that requires is signing up with your email.
3. Yes, see my response to martec above
4. No, currently you can only ban a user for a few days max.
5. Yes, see my first post

That is an interesting suggestion, but I do not think a chat invitation through a user's profile is possible with the way that the chat is set up. Messages are saved though. So if users A and B are in a private chat, and user A closes their browser, when they return to the site (so long as they were not logged out), they will still be in that private chat room with User B.

Thanks jshort for answer.
This is possible to add option for ban a user for ever? or ban for more time? for Ex 1 year! or 6 months.

And have some question, 1. this base chat room is a new page (Ex: http://mybb.com/chats.php) or is a popup or anything like popup?

2. And For moderation, moderators can see all chats in forum? and manage this?

3. If any on member , receive a chat, how to be notified? are add any button for this in header?

and some suggestion again
4. can we add a new word filter? because maybe anyone like me, need to filter a word in chat, but not need to filter this word in forum!
If exist a new word filter for this is very better i think. or add more word for filter just on rooms.

5. This is possible to add a option to user cp setting for if anyone Not interested to receive chat or use chat , turn off receive chat on his panel setting? or just receive chat from his friends? a choose box Like this:
Who can chat with you?
*Anyone
*Only My friend list
*No one

And after turn off, if anyone send this username, receive a alert for:
This user just can chat with his friends.
Or This user close his chat box!

This plugin is very useful jshor.
Thanks a lot for works

Right now it is not possible to ban a user for a longer period of time. That's something I can look at adding though. TBH, though, if you're wanting to ban a user from your chat for that length of time, you should probably just ban them from the forum completely.

1. You can view the chat several ways: include it on the index of your forum, include it globally (in the header or the footer), on its own page (misc.php), and as a popup. The forum administrator determine which of these they want to use.

2. Moderators can manage all public chats. They cannot manage private chats unless they are also participants of private chats.

3. Please see the image above where you invite somebody to a chat - there is a popup that appears over the chat box saying that "You invited X person". X will receive a similar popup asking if they want to accept or decline the chat invitation.

4. A new word filter is not in the plans right now. The point is that this chat is thoroughly integrated with myBB by using its built in systems. I can't honestly think of why somebody would want to censor their chat, but not the forum itself.

5. That isn't an option I'm interested in adding. Users can ignore other users via the chat itself, so if they don't want to talk to a particular person, they can just mark them as ignored. If they don't want to participate in the chat, they can just ignore it completely.

This plugin is currently pending approval by the myBB staff team to be available in the mods download section. Once it is approved, I'll make a release thread in the appropriate forum. You can also follow the development on Github here: https://github.com/jnschrag/MyFireChat