Hey guys... Just wanted let you all know that I recently posted a plugin to the MyBB Mods site that allows you to embed a phpFreeChat session into your general board. This addon has really increased the usage of my small personal board, as the members love having the ability to chat with one another in addition to posting messages back and forth. If you are interested, please check it out at:
http://mods.mybboard.com/view.php?did=489.
I am very much interested in your feedback, and am hoping that some of the other MyBB/PHP gurus we have here can improve upon it.
Thanks!
Ichi
PS - I forgot to mention that this plugin currently does not support any languages other than English. That's not a major deal at the moment, as the only place it affects is the Admin CP. (Everything else can be entered in whatever language the user may choose.) This is support I would like to add if I can find translators to give me a hand.
Some simple code mods to pull from the language bank should be all I need to support it.
Hello,
I can help you for the french translation.
Sweet! Thanks Le Poulpe! That would be great.
BTW - Has anyone that's downloaded it given it a shot? What are your thoughts, comments, etc.? It's still marked beta, and along with additional language support, I'd love to have a few more features added to this.
Most of the issues I know of with it relate to the actual phpFreeChat code. It's still in BETA, so it has some things to work out. (The most annoying glitch is the awkward scrolling it sometimes does when used with IE7.) However, so far it's been VERY easy to use, pretty stable, and it does the job nicely.
The one outstanding thing I'd LOVE to address (on the plugin end) is the fact my plugin pushes the chat session's javascript code into every header of every page of MyBB whether the chat session is present or not. This happens because I've used the output page function to splice code into the <head> sections of the page. (It's the only place I knew of that I could hook into the header section.) Unfortunately, this is called constantly. So, I'm sure this is far from efficient. Perhaps a MyBB/PHP guru could offer a better solution.
Anyway, more to come. Thanks.
Just installed it and love it but how you admin it i.e kick members, add a new room, use the other feature ect.
Also i seem to be having a problem see image (will add an image when it does it again)
The private messaging does not work for me. If i private message somone they are not informed of this
Spike,
Thanks for replying. I'm glad you're liking it in general.
As for the MyBB plugin admin features set issue, that's just a "beta" thing. In my first-cut at this plugin, I simply implimented only the major features that allowed for embedding the chat block into the BB. (Most of the other options you will see there - like enabling/disabling smiley display, etc. - are there just to allow an admin to improve performance of their site by hiding those "fluffy" things.) I opted to not add all of the various phpFreeChat options into the admin panel, as many of them are pseudo-superflous and may not be of use to change anyway. That said, I intend on adding more as the community responds, so all this input is good.
Until I can do so, however, if there are phpFreeChat features you know exist that you do not see options for in the Admin CP, just edit the single php file of the plugin and there you will see a list of every phpFreeChat parameter I know of. Feel free to tweak away in that code block. In addition, please let me know which of these particular options you are interested in and I'll add them to the plugin's Admin CP.
That said, keep in mind that most of the issues you may have with the chat window will probably be related to phpFreeChat itself. (Keep in mind it's still in beta.) This plugin is just a wrapper that ties that service into MyBB and gives a light-weight Admin CP for the basic setup and control of it. That's it. So, if you are having issues with any of the available slash commands (/...) within the window, it's probably a phpFreeChat issue, not something to do with this plugin.
Nevertheless, there are 2 main issues I know of with this plugin.
1.) Performance
2.) Chat user management & control
Performance - I notice my site takes a hit in performance when I fire this chat session up. Much of that I'm sure is just a tradeoff I'll have to make if I'd like to have this nice little feature on my board. Embedding this AJAX-based session into my board won't happen for free; and since my particular site is not powered by a nice powerful PC, a performance hit is expected. However, I am in the process of trying to find ways to improve this plugin's code that ties it to MyBB - hoping to further accelerate its perforance.
Chat user management & control - (This may be the area you were asking about.) At the moment, the plugin simply takes registered users and allows them to chat. All guests are blocked unless the admin says its ok in the Admin CP. For now, that's it. I know phpFreeChat is supposed to have a whole user/moderator/administrator system built into it, but I haven't yet dug into how that works. One of my todos is to figure that out and find a way to tie that into MyBB's setup. That way, admins in MyBB would be admins in chat, moderators in MyBB would be moderators in chat, etc. For now, everyone is just a user. But, that's on my list.
Hope that ramble helps.
Ichi
PS - Sorry... forgot to address your PM'ing issue. That's odd, it works - sort of - on my board. (I think this is still a bit buggy in phpFreeChat.) I get the other room to open, and I have chatted in it. (The other user should just get a new tab created and should be auto-joined to it.) Closing it, however, can be problematic. I usually get an error.
As for admin support: I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do with it currently. Here is the commentary from the phpFreeChat boards:
http://www.phpfreechat.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=841
Thus, I may have to wait until this goes past beta to get these features going.
Thanks for your reply and i look forward to seeing this mod develope. My members are loving it. Another problem im having is the text over spilling when you first open the chat room, but if i refresh the page it sorts itself out.
Once again for this mod and look forward to the next release of which i will inform you of how i get on. You can if you wish see mine working at
www.tussaudtimes.co.uk/forums