WELCOME TO FLASHCHAT! (c) 1999-2004 Darren G. Gates This file contains important installation information for FlashChat version 3.9. Please refer to the "integration" folder for additional installation instructions for your CMS, if you intend to use FlashChat in a CMS environment (like phpBB, vBulletin, Mambo, etc.). ****** WHAT YOU NEED ****** To Install FlashChat, you MUST have PHP 4.1.2 or better, and access to a server running MySQL. In addition, you must have the authority to create and edit tables in MySQL. ****** INSTALL ****** For integrating FlashChat with your user database, please refer to the "integration" folder. A variety of well-known PHP content-management systems and bulletin boards are supported. Not all servers and installations are the same, however. In some cases, it may be necessary to edit the appropriate file in the /inc/cmses/ folder of FlashChat to suit your installation. Copy the entire "chat" directory structure to the folder of your choice on your web server. You may rename this directory if you wish. You should set index.php as the default file for the /chat directory. Thus, you should first upload your FlashChat files to: http://www.yourserver.com/chat/ Then, to intall FlashChat, go to: http://www.yourserver.com/chat/install.php Follow the instructions that you see on your screen. The database connection parameters are usually NOT the same as your FTP login information. You should contact your website administrator to determine the correct MySQL login parameters. Please be sure to CHMOD the /inc/config.srv.php file and /appdata/appTime.txt file to a writable setting before installation. If file writing has been disabled by your server administrator, it will need to be enabled before FlashChat installation can be completed. You may change this back to a non-writable setting after installation. If you have a previous version of FlashChat installed and you are upgrading to this version, then you may need to change the table prefix value to something other than "flashchat_". For example, you could try "flashchat2_". BE SURE TO REMOVE INSTALL.PHP FROM YOUR SERVER AFTER INSTALLATION! Otherwise, your database login parameters will be viewable to all, which is bad. IMPORTANT: You must FTP the files using BINARY mode. If you do not, then what will happen is that the system will install correctly, but you'll get a blank screen when you try to login to the chat. If you do not know what this means, or if you are not sure if your FTP client is using binary or text/ascii mode, please consult your FTP documentation or web server administrator. ****** CONFIGURE ****** Please open the /inc/config.php file using a plain text editor (like TextPad, available from http://www.textpad.com) to configure FlashChat. There are additional options for configuring the chat layout and theme options in the /inc/themes folder, and the /inc/layouts folder. If you do not see a configuration option that you need, please post a message on the tufat.com forum. If your suggestion is generally useful to many, then it is very likely that it will be implemented in a future release. You can update the room list, remove users (when FlashChat is used in the DefaultCMS mode), and view the message history by going to: http://www.yourserver.com/chat/admin.php (or whatever path you installed FlashChat at) Default admin ID: admin Default admin Password: adminpass If you are unable to access admin.php for any reason, then you may also edit the room list using any MySQL database administration program, like phpMyAdmin or phpFlashMyAdmin (http://www.tufat.com/phpflashmyadmin.php). This can be changed in config.php if using Stateless CMS mode, or by changing the "admin" user if using the Default CMS mode. See help.php and common.php for more details. If you are using the chat room in live support mode (for example, companies that wish to use FlashChat as a support system for their customers), see livesupport.php for an example of how to detect if live support is "open" or not - i.e., whether a moderator / support person is present or not. THEMES: To create new themes and edit existing themes, please refer to the "Guide to Theme Creation.txt" file. ****** INTEGRATING FLASHCHAT WITH YOUR CMS OR BULLETIN BOARD SYTEM ****** Please see the appropriate installation instructions in the "integration" folder. As of 3.9.0.5, I have begun creating visual tutorials for these integrations - please see the "integration" folder for these (or "integration/archive" for older versions), and be sure to update the file(s) in FlashChat's /inc/cmses folder with the updated PHP code for your CMS system. ****** BANDWIDTH AND SPEED ****** Many users have asked me how much bandwidth FlashChat consumes. The actual amount depends - of course - on the number of users that your chatroom has in it, and how much chatting they do. It also depends on: 1) the size of the background JPG images (should be under 40 KB) 2) the frequency of the Flash refreshes (default is 3 seconds, set in config.php) Most users have told me that FlashChat consumes less bandwidth than most other chat systems that they have used. When the SWF retrieves messages from the database, it receives ONLY the most recent messages, which allows the system to be very efficient. There is some XML meta-data which is also sent with each transmission, but this does not add substantially to the bandwidth. In addition, you can tell FlashChat to ping the server less frequently when a user has the "AWAY" status set by opening /inc/config.php and editing this variable: msgRequestIntervalAway The higher the value of this variable, the less frequently the server will be pinged for new messages when a user is "AWAY". To ensure smooth chat operation, you should use FlashChat on the fastest server that you have available, especially if many chatters are using the system. If you expect to have over 30 simultaneous chatters, it is strongly recommended that you use FlashChat on a dedicated server with ample bandwidth. ****** CHANGE LOG & ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ******* Please go to http://www.tufat.com/chat.php to view the FlashChat ChangeLog and to download free, user-contributed resources for FlashChat, like new themes and background images, updates to CMS integration files, etc. ****** GETTING ASSISTANCE ****** If you need specialized tools for FlashChat or some customization that is not available in the config.php file, then please email me at g8z@yahoo.com. I am usually willing to do such customizations for free if I think that they will benefit all users. If they are extremely specific and not generally applicable to most users, then I will charge my standard programming rate of $25/hour. For simple questions, please post your questions or concerns on the TUFaT.com forum: http://www.tufat.com/phpBB2/ This forum is a PEER (user-to-user) support forum, not necessarily a developer-supported forum. In other words, if you post a message, you may get a response, but it is not necessarily guaranteed. In general, FlashChat users have been quite willing to assist other FlashChat users. ****** LICENSE ****** The license for FlashChat permits you to install this software on a single domain (.com, .org, .net, etc.). You may make any modifications that you wish to the source code, but you may not claim credit for it, and you may not, under any circumstances, re-distribute or re-sell FlashChat. You may also not remove the "About" screen which shows the copyright information and credits. The purpose of FlashChat is to give companies, organizations, and individuals a simple way to add live chat capabilities to any PHP/MySQL-enabled website. Technical support and upgrades are always FREE! All terms of this license are subject to change in future releases of FlashChat. ****** ADDENDA ****** If you liked FlashChat, then please go to whatever forum you downloaded it from (e.g. www.hotscripts.com) and give the program a favorable rating! Thanks. :)