AVChat Software Product Blog

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 protetion gains 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).

But now it’s back up for members, and in a few days we will make it available for visitors again too.

For security reasons we hat to delete all the accounts up to 1 October with 0 posts.

When we first started the forum we did not realize how much maintenance it needs, but it does , alot of it. On of the issues that require a lot of attention is security. There are a huge number of spam bots and spam companies out there that can make your life very miserable, and they did it for us last week.

We woke up on Monday morning with a call from the hosting company saying the forum server is comming under immense load and they’re taking it down. This was not a good time. Between the work going into AVChat to fix the infamous dissappearing bans issue, the ongoing work at the IM to support video chat, the new guy’s 1st days at the office (we’ve hired a new developer to help us out more on that soon) and a few other things we have going on, we had no time to deal with the forum. On top of that, to put it back online we also had to sync up with the guys from the hosting company.

But one entire Friday of researching Ip.Board and forums security later we felt confident we could put it back up. So here we are 1 week later  doing just that.

I hope it being down has not caused any major troubles for anyone. We’ve learned a lot from this experience and with the new security measures in place it should be much more harder for anyone to take it down.

As you probably know, Joomla! 1.7 was released last week. The second day we tested our Joomla! 1.6 Integration Kit and it worked like a charm with Joomla! 1.7 .

The only problem we found was that JomSocial 2.2 and Community Builder 1.4 are not yet compatible with Joomla! 1.7.

So if you want to use AVChat 3 with Joomla! 1.7 you can use the AVChat 3 Integration Kit for Joomla! 1.6, but without the support for JomSocial and Community Builder.

We will announce here and on our forum (dedicated topic for Joomla! 1.7 Development) when news are coming on the way.

One week from the official integration kit for Joomla! 1.6 release we’re pushing the first official update that includes some awesome new features and a few bug fixes.

There’s a whole new revamped Who’s Online Module, new permissions for user groups and full control over how AVChat opens (in a pop up or embedded).

New, revamped Who’s Chatting Module for Joomla! 1.6:

• Quick info about rooms and users
• Detailed user info: indicators that users have their cam and mic turned on and indicator if a user’s stream is private
• Detailed room info: We added a  rooms list in the module and next to each room you will find how many users are logged into that room. But , the coolest feature is that clicking a room takes you directly into it. Private rooms have indicators and they can be clicked only by admins or moderators.

Here’s how it looks now:

Impressive isn’t it?

New features for the AVChat Component for Joomla! 1.6 :

• Controll weather AVChat will open in a pop up or embedded in a page on your web site:
• Control over the Upgrade button in AVChat directly from the Joomla! admin area (you can specify an upgrade link)
• Control in what rooms users will be dropped directly from the Joomla! admin area (by specifying the room id)
• 2 new permissions for each User Group:
  • Allow users to browse the rooms list (if denied, users will not be able to click rooms in Who’s chatting module also)
  • Allow admins/moderators to login as hidden.

New features for the AVChat Component for Joomla! 1.5 :

• auto detect if the AVChat client files have been installed properly and show proper error (instead of a huge black empty box).

Bug fixes:

• JomSocial gender detection dropped for the moment because the gender is stored in various string formats across websites and might cause conflicts with your websites.
• Fixed online users list height (usefull for websites with a large number of logged in chat users)
• Fixed profile image paths

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! 1.6 integration kit update (just download the Joomla! archive again from your client/trial area).

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.

Give us feedback:

We love feedback so if you want a feature that is not included yet in the component/modules, you can suggest it in the Joomla! 1.6 forum topic or email it to contact@avchathq.com.

Update packages will keep on coming .

Most of the work this month has gone into developing the AVChat Integration kit for Joomla! 1.6 but we have a few updates regarding AVChat too here they are:

• No more (blue) chrome around the text chat area (was kind of useless)
• Mute all streams button in the status bar at the top
• Different sounds for when receiving:
  • private messages (different beep, sounds/private.mp3)
  • request to view your private webcam (short ring sounds/videorequest.mp3)
• Different icons for the OFF states of some buttons in the text chat area
• Admin can now view the banned usernames list and remove any of them
• When banning ip ranges you can now use spaces betwen the ips and the dash like this: 127.0.0.1 – 127.0.0.255
• Top Status bar now has rounded corners (or not), in line with the rest of the UI, depending on the values in style.css
• Better design integration for the  Joomla!, Drupal, and SocialEngine integration kits. The AVChat background is now transparent, the website colors come trough.

See the attached image for an overview of the changes:

Changes in AVChat build 1245

Also fixed:

• FMS ony: Issue with banning offline users (banning users that have left trough the ban links in the text chat area) not working
• Red5 only: In the rare cases where non-admins try to execute admin functions their ip and the function they were trying to execute are now properly stored in the avchat30 log.
• In the admin login area the ADMIN and HIDDEN gender labels are now properly coloured with the value from style.css
• There were 2 profileUrl vars in avc_settings.aspx.cs and no upgradeUrl

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)

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)

You want to find out what version of Red5 is running on your server?

There are a few ways:

1) Look at the Red5 welcome page on port 5080.

To see the welcome page just go to http://yourred5server.com:5080 in your web browser. It’s not the most accurate but it’s the fastest and you don’t need access to the Red5 installation. Here are the welcome screens for different versions.

Red5 0.8 welcome page:

Red5 0.9.1 welcome page:

Red5 1.0 RC1 welcome page:

2) Look in docs/changelog.txt

Look in the Red5 installation folder/docs/changelog.txt . You will immediately see the Red5 version there:

3) Pay attention to the Red5 startup log

During startup, Red5 will show the Red5 version, here is where to look when starting Red5 standalone on Windows:

4) Look in log/red5_service.log

When starting Red5 as a service on Windows it will create a new log file: Red5 installation folder/log/red5_service.log . In it you will find the Red5 startup log mentioned above and thus the Red5 version.

You know any other way? Post the method in the comments section below.

A few tiny updates this month:

• index.swf and admin.swf are down again to about 400+ Kbytes  in size.
• fixed issue in Wowza where the shared object holding the text chat history would grow a lot.
• AVChat now works with an empty welcome message in the language file (en.xml).
• there is a new ban option: 3 days.
• there’s a new option in avc_settings.xxx named showUserSideMenuOnTextArea which controls what clicking an underlined username in the text chat area does: it can either bring up the side menu shown below or put the username in the text chat input box.
• the fonts available for text chat can now be finally changed using fonts.xml.
• expired bans are not shown anymore in the banned ip’s list in the admin area of AVChat.

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 done a few silent builds lately in order to fix some particular issues some of our clients had. For a while build 1162 has been online and available for download, this blog post will summarize most of the bug fixes that have been done since our latest build (1106).

There are only a few tiny new features:

• rooms panel now covers more area inside the video chat (about 80% of the available space), we had complaints that the rooms panel was too small.
• you can now change the appearance (font, size, color, bold, italica) of the texts in the LOGIN, LOADING SETTINGS and CONNECTING screens, see  fontMainLabels in style.css :
  
• you can now change the size and color of the text in the input text field, see fontInputText in style.css:
  
• removed all documentation from the integration kits as it has all been moved (and improved) to http://avchat.net/support/documentation/
• ability to specify and show flags (or any other icons or images) besides a user in the users list , see profileCountryFlag in avc_settings.xxx
  
• ability to show UPGRADE button in the top bar for some users, see upgradeUrl in avc_settings.xxx
  
• revised Social Engine 4 module (compatible with SE4.1)
• profileUrl in avc_settings.xxx can now take the whole profile URL, the value is not dependant on profileKey anymore

Security improvements:

• when admin functions are called on the media server, we now first check the callers ip against the list of pre-approved admin ips
• files in the avchat30 folder can not be accessed any more via the browser when port 5080 is open

Issues fixed:

• fixed issue with users list being very slow when using the debug version of Flash Player . The debug version of Flash Player is itself slower but the users list was just  unsusable, and it was our fault!
• fixed issue with running multiple instances of one avchat30 app on Red5
• fixed issues with running multiple avchat30 apps on the same Red5 server
• fixed issue with delivering &gender=admin from avc_settings.xxx to index.swf
• removed Red5 0.9 folder from the delivery archive because people would assume it worked correctly on Red5 0.9 (it does not and there’s nothing we can do about it)
• fixed issue with token_request.php having some sort of weird invisible charcter at the beginning preventing it from working on some php setups

How to upgrade?

Download the new files from the client/trials area and overwrite all the old files (including the ones on the Red5/FMIS/Wowza media server) . If that fails make a clean install.