AVChat Software Product Blog

Hello and hope you had a great Easter. But we didn’t rest to much these days and updated the AVChat3 Integration Kit for Joomla! 1.6-2.5 (build 1486). We brought minor updates and bug fixes to the integration kit, and here there are:

• We’ve updated the AVChat Admin Interface page to tell you when the admin.swf file is missing or the installation of the integration kit was not performed properly.
• Changed the minimum Flash Player version necessary to run our software from 10.0 to 10.3 because of new AVChat requirement introduced in build 1461.
• Improved “room dropping” from “Who’s chatting module” in order to perform the “drop” action correctly.
• Resolved issue with popup dimensions not being taken into account when you set it from the AVChat Admin Interface options page.
• Now the integration detects the browser default language site’s current language and tries to use the appropriate language from the translation folder . In the translation folder you should put the desired language file in the following format (suppose the default browser language is German): de-DE.xml  . If it does not find the requested file, the language file will be defaulted to the language file found in avc_settings.php , under avchat["languagefile"].

Hope this update resolves some of your problems and we will continue to update the Integration Kit until there will be close to perfect.

Download will be available from your private client/trial management area .

Update instructions:  Just like a normal extension of Joomla! .

1. Go to Joomla! administration area -> Extensions -> Extension Manager.
2. Click on Browse from Upload Package File (Under Install tab).
3. Locate the com_avchat3.zip archive from the joomla1.6.x_1.7.x_2.5.x_component folder
4. Click Upload & Install
5. Done
   

For further information or new installation , follow this link: http://avchat.net/support/documentation/joomla#123

Hello all,

This is the first build with the new dedicated team for AVChat (more on that in a future blog post) and we’ve tried to implement some of the requests that you’ve asked for but also fix some of the bugs reported and unreported.

The main new feature in this build is the Silence feature which allows admins to block users from doing anything in a chat room for 30 seconds (period can be changed). Here’s how it looks when you’re silenced:

So, here’s everything that’s new:

• Silence option for admins that offers to an admin the option to silence an user for an amount of time controlled from avc_settings.xxx (silenceDuration). There is also a setting (adminCanSilenceOtherAdmins) to control whether an admin can silence other admins and another setting (adminCanSilenceFromRoom) for the state of the silence button. At this time this option silences an user by using his IP address so any user using the silenced IP will be affected.

• Block Buzz Sounds button added in the toolbar under the text chat area
• Erase All Screens button for admins in the toolbar under the text chat area. This will currently erase the screens of all rooms (weather or not the admin is logged in them) for all users. This feature helps the admin remove unwanted stuff (like spam links or images or videos) from the text chat.
• showNumberOfCamsAndMics setting in avc_settings.xxx that controls whether the number of cams and mics are shown to admins in the users list
• Error messages in the client area are now selectable so that they can be copied and pasted.

Here’s what’s fixed:

• Misalignment of the text errors and login/register buttons when resizing the AVChat area
• Fixed issue with some YouTube links that were not properly formatted
• Fixed issue with link on avc_settings.xxx related error messages not working

That wraps it up for the Easter build. A new build will be released at the beginning of May in which we will implement more feature requests.

How to get the new build:

The new build is available in your private client/trial areas.

How to upgrade an existing build:

You need to overwrite your existing AVChat files (both client side and server side) and clear your browser cache.

Forum thread:

There’s a forum thread regarding this build available here: http://avchathq.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1561-new-avchat3-build-1477-easter-build-available/

We’ve been silent for a while now on the AVChat front but ohh boy do we have some news for you today!

Today we’re releasing build 1365 of AVChat, our flagship video chat software. This build comes to fix most of the issues that have appeared since our last build and implements many of the functionalities that have been requested in the forum.

Thank you all for the suggestions for the bug reports for the discussions we had and for helping making AVChat a better software.

Now let’s move on to what changes this new build brings upon us.

First, we have a new emoticons pack

We’ve licensed this 36 square emoticons pack and included it in this build for you guys to use.

It’s a beautiful selection of (almost) square emoticons that fit our chat interface perfectly. The old emoticons pack is still included but it’s not the default anymore.

On the same line we’ve also improved the emoticons placement script and now it can technically take emoticons of any size (however at about 20px in height they do start to overlap vertically so we’re looking at ways to fix this).

There’s a new Ignore New Private Messages button in the text chat area

We added this button to allow popular chat users to block all incoming  PM’s. Private messages will still be shown from users with who there’s already a private tab/discussion open .

The status (enabled, disabled, hidden) of this button can be controlled trough the new showIgnorePMsButton in avc_settings.xxx.

We added a way to specify a custom message to be shown when the chat is full.

The message can be changed from the language xml file:

Formatting options are now remembered between chat sessions.

Chat users will now be more easily recognized between chat sessions. Starting with this build, the font, text color, underline, bold and italic options will be remembered between chat sessions.

Support for animated flash backgrounds

You can now use animated flash backgrounds in AVChat.

To complement that we’ve also added a new way to scale these backgrounds (2 times or 3 times, etc…) trough the backgroundImageScale variable in avc_settings.xxx.

We’ve also added a opacity value in style.css for the text chat and users list area so these new beautiful animated backgrounds can be seen trough those areas.

To use an animated flash background just configure the backgroundImageUrl variable in avc_settings.xxx to point to a .swf file.

We’re looking for some such backgrounds to include in AVChat by default and some for special occasions (Halloween & Christmas). It’s hard to find good such backgrounds with proper licenses that allow us to include them in AVChat.

Admins can now kick users from only one room

You guys have aked for more control over kicking and we’ve delivered. You can now kick a user from only one room.  It does not work (yet) if the user is in only that room (but we’re on to fixing it), in this case you need to use the normal kick feature.

The default admin icon can be changed

Last year (build 900 more exactly) we’ve added the ability to change the icons for male/female/couple . Today we’re adding the ability to change the admin icon trough the new adminImageUrl variable in avc_setings.xxx.

Typing can be disabled

Some webmasters made a very good point when they told us that they do not want website visitors to be able to type. That’s why in this build we’ve added the ability to disable the text chat input text box trough the new typingEnabled variable in avc_settings.xxx.

This is only the first version of this feature, in the future we will present users with a big nice round window asking them to login or register if they want to chat.

Improvements in the video areas

We’ve added the ability to stop broadcasting completely by pressing a single CLOSE button above your webcam.

We’ve tweaked the video areas to work better (not distort) with weird resolutions that some of our clients are using.

We’ve also added the ability to specify how big broadcasting webcam area should be regardless of the resolution in which the video is streamed. This is helping a lot the clients that stream really big videos (entire screens). This is done trough 2 new size options in the video quality xml files.

Basic integration with gifts systems

Larger websites have their own gifting system. We’ve added a small Send Gift link to the side menu of the chat users. You can configure this link to open your existing SEND GIFT page customized with the sender and the receiver (person clicked in the users list) information and available gift.

This is something we will be looking more into in the future and maybe even adding our own gifts system to AVChat.

Auto size rooms tabs

Room tabs are now automatically resized to the length of the room’s name.

Other improvements:

• Wowza 3 support (Wowza 3 has just been released yesterday, here’s the pricing)
• Flash Media Server 4.5 support (released on 8 September)
• Who’s typing box can be skinned and rotated (yes we’ve listened )
• When sending a message to a offline user you will be notified about it in the text chat area
• You can now use wild cards in the badnicks xml file
• Path to badnicks.xml can be specified (badnicksxmlurl in avc_settings.xxx)
• Path to style.css can be specified (stylecssurl in avc_settings.xxx)
• You can now change the color of the welcome message (welcometextcolor option in style.css)
• You can specify how long the emoticons panel should stay up before it disappears (hideEmoteIconPanelDelay in avc_settings.xxx)
• Ability to specify the format in which the time is hown inside the text chat (timeFormat in avc_settings.xxx)
• Ability to customize available users limits for when creating a new room (maxUsersInRoomsLimits in avc_settings.xxx)
• Ability to control the status of the Stop him/her from viewing you button in the side menu (stopViewerButtonEnabled in avc_settings.xxx)
• Several new and updated icons across the chat

Lots of bug fixes:

• fixed issue with being blocked and then unblocked prevents you from seeing that users web cam
• fixed issue with last / in links not being included in the link
• fixed issue with eye icon going over the lock icon in the users list area
• fixed issue with clicking on users brings up the ban/kick panel
• fixed ban issues on Wowza
• fixed many issues with RTL (right to left)
• fixed issue with resizing of non 4:3 and 16:9 video resolutions
• fixed issue with webcam in fullscreen being able to be moved breaking the layout

New options in avc_settings.xxx

timeFormat: a string describing how the absolute time shown in the text chat area should look. The main use would be to switch between European time (18:53) and US time (6:53 pm) but there’s so much more you can do like remove seconds ( they’re shown by default) or add the day and month values. For the exact details on what values this config option can take follow Php’s date function documentation: http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php as our implementation follows the same rules.

adminCanKickFrom1Room: configures the status (enabled, disabled, hidden) of the KICK FROM THIS ROOM button in the user side menu window. At this moment a user will not be kicked from the room if that rooms is the only room he is present in, in that case just use the normal kick function (will kick the user from the chat), this issue will be addressed in the next build. This variable applies only to admins connected trough the admin interface (admin.swf).

maxUsersInRoomsLimits: a string containing the list of numeric limits for maximum users in a room available in the drop down menu for Max Users In This Room limit when creating a room. You can use the variable to allow premium/gold/paying members to create rooms with 10 users while the free members and visitors can only create rooms with up to 2 or 5 members for example.

showIgnorePMsButton: there’s a new button in the user interface now, that allows a user to block all new incoming private messages (private messages from users with who you already have a PM window open will not be ignored). This variable controls the status of that button: 0 for disabled, 1 for enabled,  2 for hidden.

stopViewerButtonEnabled: controls the status ( 0 for disabled, 1 for enabled,  2 for hidden) of the “Stop him/her from viewing you” button in the side menu. This button is taken into consideration only for users who are looking at you/watching your stream.

badnicksxmlurl: specifies the path to the xml file containing banned words. You can point this variable to a php file that gets the words from the database and returns an xml list of banned words (use the provided badwords.xml file as a example of what you should output).

stylecssurl: specifies the path to the style.css file that controls some of  AVChat’s looks. You can point this variable to a php file that gets the CSS values from a database and returns them to AVChat.

typingEnabled: this variable a new kid on the block. It controls weather or not the user can type in AVChat. Some sites want to block the ability for visitors to type until they register. In the future, if typing is disabled for a user we will also prompt him to login or upgrade.

hideEmoteIconPanelDelay: this variable controls how much will the emote icons box in the text chat area will stay open after clicking on the emote icons button. By default is set to 3000 ms.

giftsEnabled and giftsUrl: we’ve added a new button in the side menu panel that shows up when you click a user in the users list, the Send Gift button. This button allows you to integrate AVChat with an existing gifts system that you have on your website (someone proposed using this button as a report User button and you can use it like that). These 2 variables control that button.

giftsEnabled controls the state of the button (0 for disabled, 1 for enabled,  2 for hidden).
giftsUrl controls the URL that opens when you click the button. By default giftsUrl is set to:

javascript:NewWindow=window.open(‘sendgift.php?destinationSiteId=DEST_SITEID&destinationUsername=DEST_USERNAME&senderSiteId=SENDR_SITEID&sederUsername=SENDR_USERNAME‘,’newWin‘,’width=550,height=380,left=0,top=0,toolbar=No,location=No,scrollbars=No,status=No,resizable=Yes,fullscreen=No’); NewWindow.focus(); void(0);

This is a line o javascript code and we used it so that when you click the button a pop up window shows instead of a new browser tab/window. You can control the size of the pop up window through the red numbers. In green is the name of the new window and in blue is the URL that is opened.

DEST_SITEID, DEST_USERNAME, SENDR_SITEID, SENDR_USERNAME are keywords that are automatically replaced at runtime.

sendgift.php is not provided by us and should be changed with whatever script you have that handles sending a gift on your website.

How to download and upgrade?

You can download this new build of AVChat from your client/trial area.

Steps to upgrade an old installation:

1. overwrite all old client side files (You can keep your old language files. The missing phrases will default to English until you add them to your existing language xml file.)
2. overwrite the media server files and restart the media server

If you have issues with it after upgrading make sure you clear your browser’s cache. If you still have issues after doing that send us an email at support@avchathq.com.

What’s next?

Well, we’re updating our integrations with respect to these new additions to AVChat and we’re also preparing a new build so stay tuned.

There are some bugs fixed and some new features in this one:

New Features:

• smaller size of swf files. Due to the new framework from Flex the size of the swfs got bigger. We’ve managed to reduce the size to 321 kb.
• fonts.xml will actually do something. You can now specify inside fonts.xml what fonts will be available for the client in the fonts drop down selector from the text chat area.
• Drupal 7, vldPersonals 2.5.x and 2.6 compatibility.
• Red5 1.0 RC1 support.
• There is a new flash var named userId that you can send to index.swf /admin.swf via GET. The variable and value will be sent back to avc_settings.xxx via GET.
• The build number is now present in avchat3.properties/settings.asc on every media server( FMIS, Red5 and Wowza) so we can check compatibility with swfs version number after update or install.
• Private cam info in the users and rooms list xml generated by writeuserslist.xxx.
• There are some UI improvements: bigger “is typing area” and the last 5 photos added preview on the right side of the text area  ( needs to be activated in avc_settings.xxx).

Issues fixed:

• admin kick function on Wowza.
• admin ban function  on Wowza.
• licenseKey functionality on Wowza.
• Forward slashes on URLs are truncated.
• Youtube and send files buttons bugs fixed.
• The known issues with the text messegaes for REd5 0.9

Security issuses:

• Red5 only : New admin security option (based on admin.swf filename) in avchat3.properties: adminSwfFileName for countries where there are only dynamic ip’s  . This will allow you to set the name for the admin swfs that are allowed to connect to your Red5 server.

How to upgrade?

You can download the latest build from your client/trial area, to install just overwrite the old files (including the files on the media server: Red5/FMIS/Wowza)

We’ve made a little test today with the latest version of AVChat (1059) which has some optimized media server file for Red5.

Old Pentium M @ 1,7Ghz with 1G of RAM we used

1) We’ve installed Red5 0.8 on an old Toshiba M70 laptop with these specs:

• Pentium M 1.7Ghz (FSB:400Mhz with 2Mb of 2nd level cache)
• 1G DDR2 RAM
• 60GB HDD @ 5400rpm
• 100Mbps Intel network card
• Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

which is connected to our LAN via wire.

2) Once Red5 was up and running on the laptop, we used an internal flash app named “AVChat Virtual User” to create load on the Red5 server! This app creates a lot of virtual users, once each user is created it connects to the avchat30 app on the media server. Once connected  it starts  generating the  kind of  load that a normal user would generate: sending text messages, changing status (idle, online), etc… . These virtual users are not able to stream/view video that’s why this quick test today covers AVChat 3 in text chat only mode.

AVChat Virtual User (not much to it right now)

We will release this app when we polsih it so that anyone can test their own servers!

3) With AVChat Virtual User we’ve gradually connected 550 users (100 -> 450 – >550) and observed the load on Red5.

To monitor Red5 we’ve used several tools:

• Java VisualVM: http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/visualvm/index.html
• top command on the laptop running Ubuntu/Red5 : http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lucid/man1/top.1.html
• Ubuntu System Monitor

4) The results: CPU usage

CPU Usage

5) The results: Memory consumption

Memory consumption

6) Conclusion:

• a user connecting generates more CPU usage than a user that is already connected
• Red5/AVChat 3 uses about 6-7Mb of RAM for each 100 users (in addition to the memory used by Red5 by default)
• the cheapest VPS servers (256Mb of RAM) can hold a few hundred users online!
• this server would hold 1000 users (in text chat mode) before reaching 80-90% CPU usage!
• in a real world scenario you would not have the peak CPU usage caused by connecting 100 very ast ( AVChat Virtual User app connecs 1 user every second )

This is by no means an attempt  to squeeze as much performance as we can out of this server! There are many ways one cand do that first being the choice of OS.

Note: this is not a clear reflection of real world usage as video creates a lot of load on the media server! The video usage on the server creates a lot more load than the number of users online!

Later edit: for tips on how to improov the performance of AVChat on Red5 see this thread on our forum.

We’ve taken our time with this one as we’ve found a memory leak in our Red5 server side files and spent a lot of time trying to fix that!

Here are some of the new features and bug fixes:

1. Connections from swf files hosted on localhost are not allowed anymore by default. To allow localhost connections edit the avchat30 settings file on the media server (avchat3.properties or settings.asc) and set allowLocalhostConnections=true.
2. There are no name limits on the application/folder name (avchat30) on the media server or/and on the instance name (_definst_). This will allow you to connect AVChat 3 from several web sites to the same media server, each one with their own key and personalized (media server) settings file!
3. Full .NET support (we’ve dropped support for Classic ASP).
4. Moved the position of free video time/day display to the top bar, the free video time/day was displayed on all cams and it was confusing, people thought that the person thei’re viewing has that much time left:
5. There are new options to limit the powers of admin.swf (adminCanKickOtherAdmins, adminCanBanOtherAdmins and adminCanViewHiddenAdmins) in avc_settings.xxx .
6. New clean text chat button in the text chat area:
7. BuddyPress compatibility for the Word Press Integration Kit.
8. New option in avc_settings.xxx to hide the Preview Button: showPreviewButton.
9. showYTVideosPreview settings in avc_settings.xxx now also affects the preview of images.

Security updates:

• Fixed security issues with previewing external .swf files masked as images

Bug fixes:

• Fixed memory leak in Red5 server side files, whoever is using Red5 as their media server should see lower memory usage from Red5 when using AVChat.
• Fixed issue with web cams going behind the text chat area when clicking the text chat area.
• Fixed issues with some whois links not working.

How to get the new AVChat 3 build:

• download the software again from your client area.

How to update your installation:

• in the usual way: overwrite ALL the old files (including the en.xml language file and the media server files) and restart the media server!
• if the above fails make a clean  install!

The online demo of AVChat 3 has been updated to build 1052 .

Here are some of the new features:

• full .NET support (dropped classic ASP support)
• moved position of free video time/day display
• new admin limitations & settings in avc_settings.xxx
• clean text chat area button
• fixed some security issues with previewing files
• fixed issues with some whois links not working
• fixed issue with web cams going behind the text chat area

This build will be made available for download later this week after intensive testing!

We get a lot of questions regarding support for peer 2 peer in our applications. This post will answer most of them!

The Stratus service

Right now the only way to add p2p capability to a Flash video chat application is to use the Adobe Stratus service which is in beta.

According to the Stratus Terms of Service you are not allowed to host an application using Stratus, the service might be terminated at any time, your use of the Stratus service can be revoked, etc… .

What does this mean?

It means that right now the Stratus service is offered to test p2p capabilities in Flash Player, not for use in commercial/production apps.

But isn’t chatroulette using Stratus/p2p?

Yes it is and it was a great way for Adobe to test their Stratus servers and technology.

When will we be able to use/buy apps using p2p in a commercial/real-life/production environment?

When the next version o FMIS comes out, according to Adobe the next version of FMIS will include the Stratus service!

Will Red5 or Wowza support p2p?

Most probably yes, but it will take some time after the official inclusion in FMIS, maybe 3 months  to 1 year? Check out the blue 5 project for a future open source alternative to Stratus.

Will AVChat 3 and AVConference support p2p?

Certainly! When Stratus will be available in the next version of FMIS we will nail out the details. We can run everything trough p2p (text, audio & video) or just the audio and video.

What is the main advantage of Stratus/p2p ?

The fact that the huge ammount of audio and video data does not go trough a media server thus resulting in lower latncy video and huge reductions in bandwidth usage on the media server!

What is the main concern now with p2p in Flash Player?

The fact that data trough p2p goes trough UDP which is blocked by the more restrictive corporate firewalls! Computers behind a NAT might also have issues! People who could connect to a media server (FMIS,Red5,Wowza) might not be able to use p2p in its current from in Flash Player. Hopefully Adobe will provide solutions to these issues or easy fallbacks to non p2p cmmunication via FMIS!

Have we done any work with p2p/Stratus so far?

Yes, we’ve built a dummy instant messenger which you can test on http://avchat.im .

Red5 0.8 support

We are glad to announce that AVChat 3 for Red5 0.8 is now available.

Only Red5 0.8 is supported! We do no plan to support Red5 0.7 or earlier versions because  0.8 is the most stable Red5 release yet and we encourage everyone to upgrade their Red5 installation if they have not done so already!

To purchase AVChat 3 now visit the purchase page! When you purchase AVChat 3 you will now get both the FMIS and the Red5 media server files.

Other Enhancements

• after logging in the chat, when joining the first room the welcome message is shown at the bottom of the existing text chat (history)
• you can now change the amount of lines of previous text (history) chat that you see when joining a room
• the code in avc_settings.asp has been changed from JavaScript to vbScript
• default text used throughout the software is now Tahoma instead of Verdana. Verdana caused RTL text to be displayed in an awquard way!
• you can now configure the path to the .xml language file (translations) in avc_settings.xxx (languagefile variable)
  
• you can now configure the software to automatically start broadcasting the users webcam and mics only if they have a webcam (if they have only a mic they dont start braodcasting, autoStartMyCamAndMicOnlyIfIHaveACam variable )
• if you post a link to a image, the image will be automatically shown in the text chat

Bug fixes:

• if you started braodcasting your webcam/mic while you were in two rooms, your broadcast could fail and other users could not see/hear you.
• the external users list was not updated when a user started his webcam/mic
• freevideotime=-1 in avc_settings.xxx now disables the free video time limit
• the history shared object for each room became large over time and joining rooms took too long
• the SEND text chat button did not have a translation in the language file
• When using the Joomla component  or Drupal module you could not take a webcam fullscreen
• when clicking the U/I/B buttons the text chat input box does not loose focus anymore

How to get the new AVChat 3 release

You can obtain the latest AVChat 3 files by downloading the software again using the download link from the delivery/trial email. You will automatically download the latest build which includes all the bug fixes and feature enhancements mentioned in this post and the Red5 0.8 server side files. After downloading them do a clean install or overwrite all the old files including the FMS server side files!

What’s next?

We will start working on adding support for Wowza.

We are also gathering feedback on what major/minor features to add so if you want any features implemented send us an email at contact@avchat.net or leave a comment!