CometChat

So I have hardly been checking the CometChat website because it was stagnant and seemed almost abandoned.

I checked back today and it's all changed and updated - it looks nice! http://www.cometchat.com

They now use IP.Board for their forum and documentation, they have revamped the purchasing steps, have improved the license system, and have integrated all of it into a single sign-in.

Also, 1.5 seems to have been updated/released. Last I heard, there were security risks with it. Does anybody know if those have been resolved or what?


They are also introducing integrations for several other scripts and platforms:

 

Just seen it before too It looks very nice.

I would say the security issues are still there in 1.5 as you can rename a php file to gif and upload that directly to the server and im sure thats still a big risk as the script only checks the extension and not if it is an image like how I think vbulletin checks although I may be mistaken. Best thing to do is turn it off in the config and remove that plugs files.

We have it installed and like it other than the file transfer shenanigans.

 

Can't you disable or skip the file transfer plugin? I figure that's probably the safest thing to do if it's even possible. :shrug:

 

In the new config theres a part that says something like $plugins = 'filetransfer','clearchat'. I would just remove the filetransfer one to disable it and also the filetransfer folder in the plugins folder.

The chat rooms I must add are really crap to be honest. No one bothers with them enough as the icons on the bar and not many take notice of the icons on it, at least not on our forums. However that can be disabled too removing the icons line.

 

Well I'm going to upgrade here in a bit, and we'll see how it goes.

 

Are avatars in the db or filesystem? If theyre in the db then avatars will be easy to get working right away but if in the filesystem theres a fix on their forums for it Good luck!

 

The chat is gone now.

 

AA has just been upgraded to CometChat. It has some neat new features and touches, and chatrooms too.

 

Oooh, nice to see this one is out Goes to upgrade haha!

 

Ahh...I just noticed that the CometChat was upgraded!

I'm going to have to go update ours at WDBoards.com in the next few days

 

Have you seen them new add ons theyre charging for at cometchataddons.com? I cant believe theyre actually charging to give you the edited code to go from almost full width to 100% width of the bar. Fair enough the AV chat being whatever price when its out but for simple tweaks surely these should be free.

 

Have to be hionest, I can't stand chat addons and shoutboxes in forums and I never use them, neither as an adminstrator nor as an end user.

Also, Comet Chat just makes me think of the Comet Cursor. I know the two are unrelated but it's an unwelcome connotation nonetheless.

 

I honestly think it depends on the niche whether a having a chats a good idea. With teens most of them like chatting so you would think having a chat on your forum would sound like a good idea but for us it wasnt, we seen activity drop well and truly and now its gone temporarily until we decide what to do with it.

If you have a forum and the chat compliments it nicely then fair enough but when you have a forum and the chat ends up becoming its focus it needs the chop.

I have used cometchat on here to chat to a few people but on our forum I never spoke to a member once through it so as far as me using it, yeah it was useless.

 

i think its good, very useful for talking to a member one on one, because its easier to have a conversation with someone, instead of using pm's, which i find hard to have conversations with, if its just a general conversation

 

Is there an easy way to disable Cometchat for a specific user?

 

yes. dd the user to a group, disable it for that group with an "if" statement.

 

I had to recently remove it as it caused browser freezes for some of my visitors. Really bummed to as I liked the product and so did my users, however if 10 users reported browser freezes, loads more were having them and not reporting and/or returning

 

Be very careful with using the IFs so they cant use it, the chat has a problem where a member can use it still when they have been banned as long as they dont reload the banned page, it is pretty stupid IMO.

 

I created a new usergroup. What would the code actually look like? Something like this:

PHP:

<if condition="is_member_of(usergroup) group number">disable cometchat"</if>

Thanks for this heads up Michael.

 

Actually, in this case, you need a "if member isn't a member of group x, show CometChat" conditional:

Code:

<if condition="!is_member_of($bbuserinfo, [I][B]X[/B][/I])">
CometChat code here
</if>

Replace X with the ID of the group(s) for which the CometChat bar is hidden. If you notice the exclamation point after the equal sign, it means "if _ is NOT equal to _" or "if member isn't in group x, show CometChat".