PhpMyChat

PhpMyChat is a simple, easy to setup script much like the Entropy Chatroom script. However, phpMyChat offers more features and options including the ability to change the look of the chat room, thus better integrating it with your Web site.

Setting Up phpMyChat

1. To access PhpMyChat Setup, click on the icon above the words PhpMyChat on the main screen of your cPanel interface.
2. Enter the URL you wish to install the chatroom to in the blank field next to Install chatroom at this url:
3. Enter the administrator username and password for the chatroom in their respective fields.
4. Click on Install to setup the chatroom. This will then install the script in the specified location. You may customize it from there. All of the files are accessible to you once the script has been installed.
5. To enter the chatroom, either click on its name below "Enter an Existing ChatRoom" or go to the url on which you have installed the chatroom.

Troubleshooting

You must install the chatroom in a top level directory. Example: http://www.yourdomain.com/chat is a valid place to install the chatroom http://www.yourdomain.com/user/andy/chat is not.

Unlike the other chat room script, this script works like a message board. Users must first register their own account before they are allowed into the chat room. Once an account has been made for that user, they can then login and post messages “chat” with other users. The messages are deleted after 96 hours in order to keep disk pace consumption to a minimum.

Simply type in your username and password, if a user doesn’t have an account; clicking on the “Register” link can solve this problem. After a user logs in, they are displayed with a chat room similar to the “Chatroom” script that comes with a users account. Most of the same commands are the same also. This system can become a bit slow after awhile, so users keep this in mind if there are to be a large amount of users chatting in them.

Login

If you have already registered, simply log in by entering your username and password. Then select which chat room you would like to enter and press the Chat button. Otherwise, you must first register.

To Register

If you have not yet registered, please choose the registration option. A small pop-up window will appear.

• First, create a username for yourself by typing it into the appropriate boxes. The username you choose is the name that will be automatically displayed in the chat room. It cannot contain spaces, commas or backslashes (\). It can not contain "swear words".
• Second, please enter your first name, last name, and your e-mail address. In order to register to chat, all of this information must be provided. The gender information is optional.
• If you have a homepage, you may enter the URL into the box.
• The language field may help other users in future discussions. They will know which language(s) you understand.
• Lastly, if you wish to allow your e-mail address to be viewed by other participants, please check the box next to "show e-mail in public information". If you do not want your e-mail address to be viewable, leave the box unchecked.
• Then, press the Register button and your account will be created. If you wish to stop at any time without registering, press the Close button.

Of course, registered users would be able to modify/delete their own profile by clicking on the appropriate links.

Sending Messages

To post a message to the chat room, type your text into the text box in the lower left corner and then press the Enter/Return key to send it. Messages from all users scroll in the chat box.

Note that "swear words" are skipped from messages.

You may change the color of the text of your messages by choosing a new color from the list of choices to the right of the text box.

Understanding the Users List

Two basic rules have been defined for the users list:

1. A little icon that shows gender is displayed before the nickname of a registered user (clicking on it will launch the whois popup for this user), while unregistered users have nothing but blank spaces displayed before their nick name
2. The nickname of the administrator or of a moderator is italicized.

For example, from the image below you can tell that:

• Nicolas is the admin or one of the moderators of the phpMyChat room.
• alien (whose gender is unknown), Jezek2 and Caridad are registered users with no extra "power" for the phpMyChat room.
• lolo is a simple unregistered user.

Leaving the Chat Room

To exit the chat, simply click once on "Exit". Alternatively, you may also enter the one of the following commands into your text box:
/exit
/bye
/quit

These commands may be completed with a message to be sent before you leave the chat room.

For example,
/quit CU soon!
will sent the message
CU soon!
in the main frame then log you out.

Knowing Who is Chatting Without Being Logged in

You may click on the link that shows the number of connected users at the start page, or, if you are chatting, click on the image at the top-right of the screen to open a independent window that will display the list of connected users, and the rooms they are in, in near real time.

The title of this window contains the usernames, if they are less than three, the numbers of users and opened rooms else.

Clicking on the icon at the top of this popup will enable/disable beeping sounds at user entrance.

Customizing the Chat View

There are many different ways to customize the look of the Chat. To change settings, simply type the appropriate command into your text box and press the Enter/Return key.

Order Command

Allows you to toggle between having new messages appear at the top of the screen or at the bottom.
/order

Notify Command

Allows you to toggle on or off the option of seeing the notices when other users enter or exit the chat room. By default this option is on and the notices will be seen.
/notify

Timestamp Command

Allows you to toggle on or off the option of seeing the time the message was posted before each message and the server time in the status bar. By default this option is on.
/timestamp

Refresh Command

Allows you to adjust the rate at which the posted message are refreshed on your screen. The default rate is currently 10 seconds. To change the rate
/refresh n
where n is the time in seconds of the new refresh rate. For example,
/refresh 5
will change the rate to 5 seconds. Beware, if n is set to less than 3, the refresh is reset not to refresh at all (useful when you want to read lots of old messages without being disturbed)!

Show Command

Allows you to adjust the number of messages viewable on your screen. To change the default number, type
/show n
where n is the number of viewable messages. For example,
/show 50
will cause the 50 newest messages to be viewable on your screen. If all of the messages cannot be displayed within the message box, a scroll bar will appear on the right side of the message box.

Features and Commands

Help command

Once inside a chat room, you can launch a help popup by clicking on the image that sets just before the message box. You can also type
/help
or
/?
commands in the message box.

Smilies

You may have graphical smilies inside your messages. See bellow the code you have to type into a message to obtain each one of these similes.

:)	:D	:o	:(	;)	:p	8)	:[	:kill:

For example, sending the text
Hi Jack :)
will display the message
Hi Jack
in the main frame.

Text Formatting

Text can be bold, italicized or underlined by encasing the applicable sections of your text with either the <B> </B>, <I> </I> or <U> </U> HTML tags.

For example, <B>this text</B> will produce this text.

To create a hyperlink for an e-mail address or URL, type the address (without any HTML tags). The hyperlink will be created automatically.

Invite Someone to Join Your Current Chat Room

You can use the invite command to invite a user to join the room you are chatting in. For example,
/invite Jack
will send a private message to Jack suggesting that he join you in your current chat room. This message contains the name of the target room which appears as a link.

Note that you can put more than one username in the invite command
/invite Jack,Helen,Alf
They must be split by comma (,) without spaces.

Changing Rooms

The list to the right of the screen provides a list of chat rooms and the users who are currently in that room. To leave the room you are in and move into one of the other rooms, for example, lick once on the name of that room. Empty rooms do not appear on this list. You may move into an empty room by typing the command
/join #roomname
For example,
/join #RedRoom
will move you into the RedRoom.

Modifying Profile from Inside the Chat Room

The profile command creates a separate pop-up window in which you can edit your profile except for your nickname and password (you have to use the link at the start page to do this). Type
/profile

Recalling the Last Message or Command

The ! command recalls the last message or command you have submitted.
/!

Responding to a Specific User

Clicking once on the name of another user from the list (to the right of the screen) will cause their username to appear in your text box. This feature allows you to easily direct a public message to a user, perhaps in response to something he or she has posted above.

Private Messages

To send a private message to another user currently in your chat room, type the command
/msg username messagetext
or
/to username messagetext
For example, where Jack is the username
/msg Jack Hi there, how are you?
The message will appear to Jack and yourself, but no other users will see the message. Note that clicking on the nickname of a message sender in the main frame will automatically add this command to the input field for messages.

Actions

To describe what you're doing you can use the command
/me action
For example, if Jack sends the message
/me is smoking a cigarette
the message frame will show
Jack is smoking a cigarette

Ignoring Other Users

To ignore all of the posts by another user, type the command
/ignore username
For example,
/ignore Jack
from that time onward, no messages by the user Jack will display on your screen. To have a list of the users whose messages are ignored, just type the command
/ignore
To resume display of messages by an ignored user, type the command
/ignore - username
for example,
/ignore - Jack

Now all the messages by Jack posted during the current chat session will be displayed on your screen, including those messages posted by Jack before you typed this command. If you don't specify an username after the hyphen, your ignored list will be cleaned.

Note that you can put more than one username in the ignore command
/ignore Jack,Helen,Alf
or
/ignore - Jack,Alf
They must be split by comma (,) without spaces.

Getting Information About Other Users

To see public information about another user, type the command
/whois username
For example,
/whois Jack
where 'Jack' is the username. This command will create a separate pop-up window that will display the publicly available information about that user.

Save Messages

To export messages (notification ones excluded) to a local HTML file, type the command
/save n
for example,
/save 5
where '5' is the number of messages to save. If n is not specified, all available messages sent to the current room will be taken into account.

Commands for the Administrator/Moderators Only

Send an announcement: The administrator may send an announcement to all users whatever the the room they are chatting into with the announce command. For example,
/announce The chat system is going down for maintenance tonight at 8pm.

Kicking a User: Moderators and administrators may kick a user out of a current chat room with the kick command. Except for the administrator, the user to be kicked must be in the current room. For example,if Jack is the name of the user to kick away
/kick Jack

Banish a User: Moderators can banish a user and the administrator can banish a user or a moderator with the ban command.

The administrator can banish a user from another room than the one where the user is currently chatting. He can also banish an user forever and from the chat as a whole with the ' * ' setting that must be inserted before the nickname of the user to be banished.

For example, if Jack is the name of the user to banish
/ban Jack
or
/ban * Jack

Promote a user to moderator: Moderators and the administrator can promote an other user to moderator with the promote command. For example, if Jack is the name of the user to promote
/promote Jack
Only the administrator can access the opposite feature (reduce a moderator to simple user) at a dedicated page. There is no command to do it.

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