AVChat Software Product Blog

Hello and may I wish you a wonderful year!

We have the pleasure to begin this year with an update to the AVChat Integration Kits for Joomla! This update adds 2 new features and fixes some reported bugs.

Here is a quick list of what we’ve added:

1. When available, the age is added to username in the user’s list (only for JomSocial). As an  administrator you can also change this option from the AVChat General Settings page.
2. You can add a custom image/badge to users by setting the path to the image in the AVChat General Settings page. You can also control what user groups (Premium/Gold/Paid) inherit the badge.
   
3. You can now turn off the ability for certain user levels to watch video streams in AVChat permissions page.
4. We’ve checked and improved the automatic room login from the Who’s Chatting Module.

We hope that this solves a part of your requests and we gladly invite you to send us feedback for this update through this blog, through our forum or contact us at contact@avchathq.com .

Pricing and purchase:

If you currently own a license for AVChat 3 and the  Joomla! 1.0 , 1.5 and 1.6 integration kits, you will automatically have access to the new Joomla! 1.7 integration kit update.

To update or make a new installation just download the Joomla! archive again from your private  client/trial area and install it as shown in the instructions page).

If you are planning to purchase it, the price will be the same as for all other integrations: $49 and it will come together with the Joomla 1.0 and 1.5 integration kits. You can buy it from here .

Sincerely,

Stefan

It’s been a while since the last time we talked about the IM, but we’ve not stopped working on it. We’ve previously made a silent launch (as in: there was no mention f it on our blog) of the new management area (Update 6) and today we’re announcing and launching a host of new changes (Update 7).

The new management area (completely replaced)

We’ve completely replaced the old and dusty IM management area with a new one.

Here’s what’s new in this one:

• Completely new easy to use design
• Dashboard for each website for quick access to the most important information including IM news from this blog
• Settings area with 9 options for fine tuning your IM installation
• Statistics area with a nice line chart that shows you the number of messages sent over the last 30 days (3 more charts are under development)
• Themes area from where you can choose the theme for your IM
• Install area with easy to access plugins for 3rd party CMS systems and embed codes to add the IM to your website

You can login your new IM management area from the AVChat IM website: http://avchat.im/m/clients/ .

Here are a few screenshots to get you excited:

Dashboard

IM Settings

Themes Selection

IM Usage Charts

Changes to the  conversation tab (better and faster)

The conversations tab has suffered a rather drastic overhaul.

• We’re now keeping the clickable area at the bottom so you don;t have to move the mouse when you want to close it after opening it
• We’ve reorganized the information in it on 2 lines instead of 3 for better scanning and reading:
  

  New conversations tab has the information organized on 2 lines

• The focus is now on the last message from the user instead of the user itself
• We’ve also added a cool loading graphic, that shows up while the conversations are loaded:

The new conversations tab now shows a small loading animation

Changes to the embeddable area (separation of functions)

Until now the [send message] button had 2 functions:

1. initiate IM window
2. show status of member (online, offline, idle)

These functions have now been separated and are shown separately:

New embeddable area separates the status information from the [send mesage

In the future we will also separate the embed codes for each element (chat button, status, reply rate and quick message) so that you can put the reply rate under profile pictures and th [send message] button in search results.

Themes support (2 themes, more to come)

Yes, we’ve added themes support today. You can choose between 2 themes at this moment:

• the default grey+green one
• a new blue theme that fits very well with the default Social Engine 4 theme:
  

  Blue theme for Social Engine 4 web sites

You can choose the theme from the new IM management area.

New themes will be added in the future, we might even throw in an Easter or Christmas theme or two!

Much improved IM caching mechanism (faster than ever)

The IM uses quite a bit of java script files, icons and graphics, this means your member’s browsers need to load all of them.

We’ve taken a deep look at how these files are loaded and cached by the browser and server and we’ve made changes to improve the loading times. And they have improved considerably, the conversations tab now shows up almost instantly

All files are now cached by the browser and instead of asking the server if there were any changes the browser just loads them from it’s memory.

This is not the be all and end all of fast IM’s, we still have a few good speed-improoving ideas we want to implement in future builds.

That’s it for now. We’ll continue to improove the IM as long as you keep the feedback comming so please email us at contact@avchathq.com with your thoughts or comment below.

Update: you can discuss the changes in the dedicated forum thread: http://avchathq.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1437-avchat-im-updates-5-and-6-bring-new-management-area-faster-im-and-themes/ .

We are pleased to announce that the integration kit between phpFox 3 (released last week)  and AVChat 3 is ready.

The integration has momentarily the same great features as the integration kit for phpFox 2. We will work on improving this module in the future so please send us your feedback and desired features.

Features in the new phpFox 3 module:

• automatic user name, gender and profile picture integration
• independent permissions control for each user group (in admin control panel)
• user profiles integration
• automatic integration with the user and admin menus
• it installs as any other phpFox 3 module
• compatible with SEO friendly URL’s in phpFox

The price for the integration kits for phpFox is $49 (includes the plugin for phpFox 1.6 and the modules for phpFox 2.0 and 3.0) and its available when you buy AVChat 3.

To buy the AVChat 3 Video Chat Module for your phpFox 3 website go to the purchase page and select a AVChat 3 license + the phpFox Integration Kit.

To install the AVChat 3 Video Chat Module for your phpFox 3 website go to the documentation page and follow the instructions.

For more details and screenshots visit the AVChat 3 Video Chat Module for phpFox 3.0 page.

We’re doing a small new build today of AVChat in an attempt to fix some of the issues that have popped up since our last build, here they are in no certain order:

• fixed issue with showWhoisInfoIntextChatArea in avc_settings.xxx not working
• silent ban was not working on Wowza
• profileCountryFlag in avc_settings.xxx was not working on Wowza
• added protections against several errors reported on Wowza
• fixed issue with the number of unread messages not showing up in tabs inside AVChat
• fixed issue with bans not showing up in admin.swf when used with Red5 (admin.swf increased to 600kbytes )
• empty connection string in avc_settings.asp

We’ve also added a few new features here and there:

• duration GET variable in seconds is now added automatically at the end of the banURL opened by AVChat when you get banned (this will allow you to save the ban in a separate database as well, banURL can be specified in avc_settings.xxx)
• weather or not web cam areas should show FPS info can be controlled trough the showVideoFpsInfo variable in avc_settings.xxx
• you can now control the columns that show in the rooms panel trough the columnsInRoomsPanel variable in avc_settings.xxx
• beta auto create rooms feature now available on FMS (check the end of settings.asc)

As usual the new build is available for download from your client/trial area.

All files have changed, so if you upgrade make sure you replace both the client side files on the websrver and the avchat30 application folder on the media server (lib/avchat3.jar if you’re using Wowza).

2 weeks ago we did an update that solved a lot of the issues and bugs that had shown up on IE and other browsers.

Today we’re back in “new features” mode with an update that among others ads the ability to limit the  IM features for each member or member level in particular. This will allow you webmasters out there use the IM as an incentive for free members to upgrade to a paying plan (GOLD Membership for example).

We’re introducing 2 member level limits today with more on the way:

1. Ability to block the reading and sending of text messages

When a member has this limit applied he is not able to

• open the IM window to read his incoming messages
• open the IM window to send text messages to other users.

When such a member:

• clicks the REPLY BUTTON in the Conversations tab
• clicks the SEND IM BUTTON that shows up on member profiles

a Java Script function is called. You can edit that function to add your own UPGRADE message, action or image like we did in the image below:.

Website member being asked to upgrade when clicking the REPLY button.

2. Ability to block initiating video calls

When a member has this limit applied he is not able to initiate video calls. he is able however to receive video calls.

More information about how to enforce these limits is available in your account area on http://avchat.im .

Our AVChat IM integration kits have also been updated expose in the website admin area the ability to turn on/off these features for each user/member level in your website.

The Conversations Tab now contains all messages that have never been replied to

Until now if you sent a message to a user and that user had not replied yet, the one way conversation with that user was not shown in the conversations tab. We’ve just fixed that in this build.

The image above highlights a conversation that holds only one text message sent by me to the other person. These were not shown until now.

We’ve also improved our integration kits

The Joomla!, vldPersonals, Social Engine 3 and 4 and phpFox have all been updated with:

1. New general options:
   • Upgrade URL for when users click on an upgrade link in the IM
   • a way to configure what CHAT image to use for when a user is idle, online or offline (one could have changed these images before this update, right now we’re just exposing the functionality in the admin back end)
     

     General IM Settings for the Social Engine 3 integration kit

2. Ability to allow or not access to some IM features (mentioned at the top) to each user/member level in your website
   

The screenshots above show the new options in the Social Engine 3 integration kit for AVChat IM.

The same options are available for the Social Engine 4, Joomla! and vldPersonals integration kits.

2 weeks ago (Monday 21 November) we did a silent update (update 4) to AVChat IM, here’s what we added at the time:

• You are now notified in the IM window when the other person leaves or enters the room (you can only video chat with someone if he is in the room with you):
  
• New “Don’t tell your password…” message in the IM window:
  
• A camera icon shows up in the CHAT NOW button, in the Conversations Tab and in the IM window besides people who have a web cam:
  
• First branched build, your website members will now get the latest IM right away without the need for their browser cache to expire
• Many user interface bugs fixed, especially on Internet Explorer

It has been a while since we last updated the Video Profiles Module for Social Engine 4 .  Today we’re proud to release the 1st major update to it. As you will see this update brings significant improvements in all areas.

So, without further ado, here’s what’s new:

1. New video player

Until now we’ve used a rather old video player but in this build we’ve added a new one that looks and feels just like the video recorder itself. This new video player brings consistency to the record and view video profile experience.

2. Ability to delete a video profile

We’ve heard you guys and we’ve implemented this much requested feature. Thank you for bumping us about this obvious feature.

3. Wall updates with snapshots, comments and like buttons

Every time someone records a video profile, their wall will now be updated.

There will be a snapshot of the video and others will have the ability to comment and like the wall post.

On top of that, at the same time , every one’s news feed will be updated with info about the new video profile.

These new content items will bring a lot of attention to the video profiles and make them much more popular.

4. Ability for webmasters to control who can record, view and comment on video profiles.

The Video profiles integration kit now allows you to control what member levels can record, view and comment on video profiles. This will help you a lot if you have a website where each member lvel has access to a different set of content. This canb also help you if you don’t want visitors to view the video profiles.

5. [View Video Profile] & [Delete Video Profile] buttons appear only if there is any video profile to view or delete .

When visiting a profile page of a member that does not have a video profile the [View Video Profile] button will now show up anymore. The same is true in the case of the [Delete Video Profile] button on your prsonal profile page.

6. Other improvements:

• Close buttons on all modal windows
• Improved language consistency and explanations in the SE4 admin area

How to get it:

You can download this build from your private client or trial area. When you purchased this product (or requested a trial) you received a link to this area. If you don’t have the link anymore email us at contact@avchathq.com and we’ll send the link again to you.

How to install it:

1. New installation:

Detailed installation instructions for both the Video profile Module and HDFVR are found in the documentation area on hdfvr.com, here’s the direct link: http://hdfvr.com/documentationse4#1 .

2. Update existing installation:

If you want to update your existing Social Engine Integration Kit please contact us at contact@avchathq.com . Because of the major new features, the update process is complicated and need to be done manually by our integration expert.

Note:

• Social Engine has a caching mechanism.
• By default, it is set to 5 minutes.
• This caching applies to the  “View Video Profile” and “Delete Video Profile” from the front end menu.
• That’s why it might take up to 5 minutes for the Video Profile related menu items to show up.
• To change the maximum caching time or disable it altogether you can go to  your admin area and then in the Settings menu go to Performance & Caching and set up the desired items.

Today we’re releasing a small update to our AVConference software, an update that finally implements some of the low hanging features we’ve had on our plate:

1. We’ve added a way to specify which language files AVConference should use ( languageCode option in avc_settings.xxx ) . This will allow webmasters to keep 2 or more AVConference translations available at the same time.

2. We’ve added the ability to change the color of the windows and of the send text button (windowsColor and sendColor options in avc_settings.xxx).

3. We’ve removed the small keyboard icon that was annoyingly showing up above the text chat input area.

AVConference screenshot showing changed colors and no more keyboard icon

Where to get the update:

The new AVConference archive (build 46) is now available for download from your private clients/trial area.

How to update an existing installation:

Only the .swf files and the avc_settings.xxx files have been changed so is is enough to overwrite the old ones with the new ones (also clear your browser cache in the process).

Today we’ve made 2 small updates to our audio recording and video recording software, here they are:

FLVAR build 124:

• added the ability to specify the name of the recorded file trough the streamName variable in avc_settings.xxx

HDFVR build 440:

• fixed issue with snapshots showing white bands sometimes
• I situations where HDFVR asks from a webcam a resolution that the webcam does not support:
  • the displayed video stream is not distorted
  • snapshots now are the size of the actual stream resolution and not the size of the resolution configured in HDFVR
• new onPlaybackComplete RAD JS API cal
• Continue and Cancel buttons from the settings window can be translated

How to update:

You can download these new builds from your client/trial area.

Only the client side files have changed, so just overwrite those with the new client files.

If it’s one thing we heard again again from webmasters using AVChat IM is that they need video chat, and last week we finally delivered that feature the third AVChat IM update which went live last week.

All about the new video chat feature

We’ve tried to make the video chat as seamless and as simple as possible:

• There’s a new Video Call button which enables itself only when both persons are in the room.  Clicking it brings up the video windows interface and reduces the text chat area.
• We’ve positioned the video windows in perspective as to give the impression that the 2 persons having a call are opposite of each other.
• The video chat is peer to peer so that the latency is as low as possible.
• We made sure the video chat works as expected when someone refreshes the IM window

What’s next

As you can see a lot of thought has gone into this feature and we’re not stopping here, we already have a huge list of improvements for the video chat feature that we will implement in the next builds. Things like full screen video chat, being notified about when a user comes in the room, improved echo cancellation and more.

How to update your AVChat IM

Existing webmasters running AVChat IM on their websites don’t have to do anything. The video chat feature should already have shown in their IM windows.

Webmasters who are new to AVChat IM and want to install it on their websites need to follow these the steps:

1. Sign up for an account on http://avchat.im/m/c…ts/registratio
2. Verify your email address
3. Sign in http://avchat.im/m/clients/login with your email/password.
4. Add the website you want to use the IM on to your account on http://avchat.im
5. Download and install the provided Modules/Components or use the custom embed codes.