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Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:42 am
by matthijs
As said in the title, I need to add a chat room to a website. It's a PHP/mysql based site. I'm looking at either a script I install on the site itself or a hosted/external solution. The advantage of installing something on the site itself is having more control over managing the chatroom and layout. However, looking at the huge amount of (free and non-free) chat scripts on sites like hotscripts, makes me a bit nervous about the quality (and security) of those.

Any ideas?

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 4:44 pm
by alex.barylski
Most are s**t...one area that needs drastic improvement, IMHO. :)

Cheers,
Alex

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 12:59 am
by matthijs
I was afraid I would get an answer like that ... ;)

Looking around at recommendations on forums, I don't understand why people keep referring to a site like hotscripts. I checked out the first dozen or so of best rated ones, and just looking at the project sites made me cringe. Or seeing that the last update of the script was '96 or something, seeing the script being highly rated at secunia as well, etc ..

By the way, I'd be happy to pay for a good script. It's for a clients' website.

Anyway, I'll continue my search. There's also something like Meebo, an online chat solution which has a widget I can install on the website. Maybe that's something

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:41 am
by volomike
I wish I weren't so busy right now, lucrative client work coming out my ears, or I'd code this for you in a kind of self-contained micro-MVC sort of thing that even an MVC noob could understand. (Not to imply your an MVC noob -- I mean others who are.) My system was going to use jQuery and AJAX and be cross-browser tested on all the latest browsers + IE6.

This project is actually one of my passive income ideas. I would be interested in hearing your requirements so that I could consider those in what I'm going to make eventually.

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 2:01 am
by matthijs
Yes, looking at the available stuff there's probably room for some profit to be made. Only requirement then would be to market your product well, so you clearly separate yourself from all the messy stuff out there. Otherwise you end up just like the thousands of scripts already there

I have little experience with chat rooms, but I'd guess basic requirements would be
User
- register an account
- login
- join a room
- chat
Administer
- see list of users
- edit, delete user accounts
- ban users/spam protection
Developer (the one installing the script)
- easy install
- php/mysql requirement?

Then nice to have's would be
- user creates new (separate) room
- user invites other users in that room
- user can save chat history
- user fancy color/emoticon extra's
- admin can manage saved chats?
- admin can turn chatroom on and off (like in a situation of customer support by chat, only available when admin is there)
- developer using the script can skin the script (different design)
- developer can set configs like privacy settings (for example, all chats are private, even admin can't see history)

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 2:51 pm
by klevis miho
Use phpfreechat, I am using it here: http://gjeneralmegafoni.com/radio/

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:15 pm
by matthijs
Quote: "As of 2006-02-05 0:00:00 GMT, this project is no longer under active development."
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpfreechat/files/

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:25 pm
by klevis miho
No way, where did you read that?

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:48 pm
by matthijs
Right there on the sourceforge project page I linked to

Re: Looking for a chat room solution

Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:59 am
by matthijs
Ok, so if I forget the option of using a chatroom on the website itself (all scripts I found are bad). What online chatrooms are there? I only know IRC.

A problem might be that I need the option of private rooms. Is that possible some where?

(I know that if I google I will find plenty of options, but before spending massive amounts of time checking them out, I'd rather rely on the experience of others here)