Instant message with friends online

[Zachariah Boren]

Something that facebook has. The option to instant message your friends that are on-line.

Something you can enable and disable per user, usergroup.

 

[Andrej]

No thanks, the above suggestion should better be a add-on.

If this ever will be made, this should have a global off switch.

 

[Forsaken]

No thanks, the above suggestion should better be a add-on.

If this ever will be made, this should have a global off switch.

I doubt it would ever make it to the core due to how server intensive these things generally are.

 

[adin]

See: Cometchat, Arrowchat, and Envolve.

 

[Deepmartini]

See: Cometchat, Arrowchat, and Envolve.

Which one is the best? Anyone have any experience with any to share?

 

[Deepmartini]

Now I'm totally confused!

I've been looking for a "facebook" style chat toolbar which simply alerts you to your friends online and allows you to send a private message. It doesn't have to be a real time chat, it could be a "private conversation" on Xenforo.

Here are what I've found:

Skysa http://skysa.com/

Wibya http://www.wibiya.com/

CometChat http://www.cometchat.com/

ArrowChat http://www.arrowchat.com/

FooterChat http://www.footerchat.com/

Meebo http://www.footerchat.com/

They all look the same to me. What's the difference and which one is best? I want a low server load and full integration (avatars, friends lists, etc.). Anyone have any experience with any of these? Why is one better than another. They all look the same!!!

Just curious if anyone is using any of these on their forums? I'm looking at cometchat as a serious possibility.

 

[Desire]

My guess is that the entire server would become laggy if this was integrated. That is what AIM and PMs are for my friend.

 

[ibaker]

I have had a dedicated Video/Audio/Text Chat Room on my site, 123FlashChat, and looking at the logs I can clearly say that the forums would miss possibly at the most not even 1% of potential posts. The chat room is full of "OffTopic", personal, fun etc conversations, all of which build up the appeal of coming to the forums. The other benefit is to Guests. Guests see the forums all about the topic and not full of posts like "How are you going...well thanks...what you doing this weekend..." all of which the Chat Room handles.

 

[agison]

Real time chat feature is very server intensive.
If you really need it, have a look at Arrowchat & Cometchat. They can be easily integrated into Xenforo.

 

[ibaker]

I have been going through all these myself. Have looked at:
Envolve
Skysa
123WebMessenger
Flashcoms Site Messenger
CometChat
ArrowChat

I have also looked at other "Social Bars" that have chat like:
Wibiya
Bumpin
Meebo

It has been an exhaustive couple of weeks going through them all and getting users to comment, had a poll, tested on live site etc

The question comes down to whether you want just an instant chat and chat room or a whole "Social Bar" with instant and group chat...and what type of login do you want, integrated with your site or through a Social Media Identity like Facebook etc.

The question is whether you want a free solution or a paid solution...and if paid, do you want a "one off" payment or monthly payment.

So it comes down to what suits your site, number of users, cost and whether you want instant chat only or a Social Bar with instant chat.

At the moment we have started using Envolve "Free" but during testing we found the 25 user chatting limit was hit a couple of times so we will just monitor that and go from there. We already had 123FlashChat for group chat so we have turned the group chat in Envolve off. For "Socialising" our site we are also using the Conduit Tool Bar so users can download and install our tool bar for their browser and use the 123FlashChat no matter where they are on the internet however it has our own links on it so users can come back to our site by clicking our icon on the bar. The tool bar is also something we will be developing further with connections to our site.

The "final" thing that I will be looking at is the whole social thing on our site. What I am going to explore is a menu item "Socialise" that could have a whole range of social media tools for users like tweeting, facebook status updates, linkin updates, our chat room, a widegt of our YouTube channel and more, all from a drop down menu and pop out widget windows.

Hope this helps others

 

[ibaker]

Update to this is that Envolve kept bombing out with our number of logged in users so we have gone up to Skysa as that has great social media components and ready made apps to add to it plus a powerful ability to add your own custom apps and for adding elements of your own site into it.

 

[adin]

Update to this is that Envolve kept bombing out with our number of logged in users so we have gone up to Skysa as that has great social media components and ready made apps to add to it plus a powerful ability to add your own custom apps and for adding elements of your own site into it.

interesting...while we're still on vB, we currently have about 150 users currently showing via envolve with no issues.

 

[ibaker]

Yes, but I was using the free version of Envolve which has a 25 user limit. When I looked at stepping up with Envolve it became a very expensive proposition ($288 a year) compared to Skysa at $50 a year. Envolve at $288 a year with a 75 user limit compared to Skysa at $50 a year with a 500k page view per month and many social media and custom apps tools.

I like Envolve but it just ended up far too expensive for what you get compared to Skysa

 

[adin]

ooooh, I thought you meant you were having a technical issue/crash. my bad.

 

[Deepmartini]

Yes, but I was using the free version of Envolve which has a 25 user limit. When I looked at stepping up with Envolve it became a very expensive proposition ($288 a year) compared to Skysa at $50 a year. Envolve at $288 a year with a 75 user limit compared to Skysa at $50 a year with a 500k page view per month and many social media and custom apps tools.

I like Envolve but it just ended up far too expensive for what you get compared to Skysa

Can you give us an update on things? I am currently looking for a chat bar type addon. One that integrates usernames and avatars and buddylists with xenforo.

 

[ibaker]

Can you give us an update on things? I am currently looking for a chat bar type addon. One that integrates usernames and avatars and buddylists with xenforo.

I stopped using them due to the impact they have on page loading...would like to know if there are any other solutions out there for 1 to 1 chatting that have minimal impact on site performance

 

[swatme]

Yes highly recommended
CHATBOX same sa facebook,
then all chat history will be saved as PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS

 

[Grover]

Maybe this one can be merged with: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/suggestion-instant-message-with-friends-online.927/ ?

 

[Grover]

Maybe this one can be merged with: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/chat-box-same-as-on-facebook-when-somebody-is-online.16491/ ?

 

[Deepmartini]

Anyone have any other ideas? I'm really just interested in a buddy list bar where people can see which one of their friends in online and can instant message each other easily. Hosting a live chat room for special events would be fun but isn't needed. It's really just the bar I need.

 

[ibaker]

What I think would be great is some kind of addon that puts an icon next to a user name when the user is online. When a user clicks it, an instant chat box pops up to have an instant chat with that user...and it stays up whilst navigating around the site.

There is a mod here somewhere that indicates when a user is online so working in with that may be an answer in that any code is not called unless a user clicks the icon making the page loading performance 'normal'...I personally will be looking into this soon.