Extension talk:Chat

Read this before reporting issues
When reporting a problem please include the version of MediaWiki you are using and anything else that may help debug the problem, such as the version of MySQL. This helps me conserve what little time I have available to support the extension. Thanks. --Firebreather 23:13, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Great Idea
This extension will be very interesting when be done. It's really an amazing idea, thanks for developing it and let mediawiki better and better. Lleoliveirabr 18:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Problems
Hi first off i want to say thanks and what a great idea this extension is, i'm using it on an internal wiki and it's great for full windows domain pcs i have, although we use citrix and for some strange reason the chat function doesn't load. It sticks at the chat loading page and just has the animated loading bar scrolling round.

I've been trying to think of a few things i can check to troubleshoot this as the citrix server that i've been testing it on is no different (really) from a normal windows 2003 server using IE 6. Can you suggest anything to help me solve this? Thanks!

Progress on this, Firefox 3 works fine, is nice and quick and successful at loading wiki chat. Although IE6 and IE7 it seems can't load this - can anyone suggest any reasons why?

Chat doesn't load
I installed phpfreechat 1.2 at Mediawiki 1.12.0. At standalone phpfreechat works fine. But if I embed phpfreechat in mediawiki I will get the following Message: Chat loading ... Please wait. After that nothing happens. The Chat doesn't load. What could be the reason? Andy ideas?

Ideas
I think the chat page could have all people that are browsing all pages, and not be separated by article. So in the chat will appear the user name of people and what "article" pages they are browsing. I don't know if is a good idea store all chats in discussion page. i think it's a lot of information. The idea of show in top of pages how many people is browsing the page is an excellent idea. But i think the way the message appear could be easily customized. Lleoliveirabr 03:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Keeping Chat off of public pages
I run a members only wiki, so I have a few public pages but the rest is private. In LocalSettings, I use $wgGroupPermissions and $wgWhitelistRead to keep guests out of the members area. With this extension, it puts a chat tab on every page. Despite the above settings in my LocalSettings, guests can still bring up the chat screen. I don't want this. In the future, it looks like there will be an option to include the tab only on certain pages.

I don't know php, but modified WikiChat.php from:

function onUnknownAction($action, $article) { global $wgOut, $wgSitename, $wgCachePages, $wgUser, $wgTitle; $wgCachePages = false; if($action == 'chat') { if($wgUser->isAnon) { $nick = "Guest";

to:

function onUnknownAction($action, $article) { global $wgOut, $wgSitename, $wgCachePages, $wgUser, $wgTitle; $wgCachePages = false; if($action == 'chat') { if($wgUser->isAnon) { return true;

I know someone just cringed, but it seems to work as guests cannot now chat. They are taken to a MediaWiki error page about a bad URL. I've never seen that error come up before, so I changed the error message to something like "You must be a member to chat".

Does anyone have something better I could stick there to keep guests from getting into chat? David Shenk 19:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I would do something like:

function onUnknownAction($action, $article) { global $wgOut, $wgSitename, $wgCachePages, $wgUser, $wgTitle; $wgCachePages = false; if($action == 'chat') { if($wgUser->isAnon) { $wgOut->addWikiText('Anonymous Users are not allowed into this chatroom'); return false; --Firebreather 09:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * In fact I just added an option to disallow anonymous users and display a message to login. See the ChangeLog for version 0.2, review the Optional Parameters section and download/install the new version from WikiChat.php --Firebreather 09:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Firebreather, I'll try the newest version. Thank you for your work on this extension! David Shenk 09 Sep 2007

Special Page Version error
After adding Chat (and it works great!) I'm getting the following error when I try to view the Version page, it won't come up at all:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WikiChat could not be converted to string in domain.com/wiki/includes/SpecialVersion.php on line 241

Any ideas?
 * I've had that before on some of my extensions too and found a fix which I've added to WikiChat, try downloading again and see if it's fixed. --Nad 07:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I also applied a fix about 2 weeks ago for a problem that caused the Special:Version page to crash, so should hopefully be all sorted now. Please post a comment if not. --Firebreather 08:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Can't add the tab
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at C:\xampp\htdocs\wiki\extensions\WikiChat.php:1) in C:\xampp\htdocs\wiki\includes\WebResponse.php on line 10

This might have to do something with the fact that I already have an extra tab (Extension:Attribute) although I can't find any special page for chat in Specialpages either. 354d 17:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * For future reference - this problem happens if you have lines or spaces after the end of the php closing tag - ?> you need to delete them.Firebreather 08:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Multiple Chat Room Problems
I have a problem using the "$params["channels"] = array($wgTitle->getPrefixedText);" setting. It seems that whenever I go to the WIKI after manually clearing the cache ( or reinstalling) - I get the chatroom created for the first page I try the chat tab from. It will not create separate rooms for each page. Any thoughts?

MediaWiki 1.11 - using MYSQL container

Error: GetScriptFilename function returns a wrong path
When I click on the "Chat" tab, I get the error:

"Error: GetScriptFilename function returns a wrong path"

Can anybody please point me in the right direction. Thank you. Polo

chat in sidebar
I would like a small footprint chat program. It would always be on the page. (perhaps on the right)So that even when you are viewing and article you would still see the chat program. That way a person does not have to click on a tab to get to chat. --72.165.30.2 01:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Pb with title and user witch is connected
Problems with the title of room when I want a room per Page : $wgTitle->getPrefixedText in WikiChat.php return wrong name. Username is sometime wrong. Could you help me to make it run with on chat per page ?

question
wich price has the download?--87.179.244.252 22:53, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Same Chat Across Multiple Wikis
I am trying to let users from multiple wikis chat. I have been able to get users from multiple websites to chat using the phpFreeChat, it is just a mater of changing the serverid parameter to be the same for each site, instead of being generated. Change $params["serverid"] = md5(__FILE__); to $params["serverid"] = "SOMENAME";

but when I try the same from the extension change $params["serverid"] = $wgSitename; to $params["serverid"] = "SOMENAME"; the page starts to load, but will never finish. Anybody have any ideas? --Jeff.worldwide 20:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually it worked with a shorter server name. This will alow multiple wikis to speak, just set the server id to something other than a hash of the wiki name. --160.79.105.46 19:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Need Help on phpfreechat-1.0-beta11
I have installed phpfreechat-1.0-beta11 on my mediawiki-1.13.3 and cant login chat room as user, I can only login as admin. What can I do???

KimLorentz, kimlorentz@hotmail.com

Wikichat.org site is down


Any chance someone could post an alternate link? or, paste the last code they downloaded into this wiki? Please? --24.218.221.150 02:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well it is still down, but I found this. Rgoodermote 19:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Chat won't load
Hi! after I installed the last version of phpfreechat (1.2) and Wikichat the chat won't load in any browser or computer, I've looked for solutions elsewhere to no avail )=

Anyone got a sloution?
The problem: 'Chat loading ... Please wait' still exists ... Anyone? --Adam42 14:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

is a bit tricky, you have to ad just the Path in freechat config (src/pfcglobalconfig.class.php) and try somehow to ln the missing things, take me over 3 hours to find that solution --Thorsten -at- Projekt1 -dot- org 00:11, 6 Apr. 2009 (UTC+1h)

Updates Needed
This extension currently makes use of phpfreechat-1.0-bea11. Can someone update it to work for phpfreechat-1.2?

Solution for phpfreechat-1.2
http://www.phpfreechat.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2180 --Nfora

Updated to phpfreechat 1.2
Also fixed 'Chat loading ... Please wait' problem. Updated source code here Firebreather 09:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem Still Exists
I'm having the 'Chat loading ... Please wait' problem. I updated everything today, but haven't checked the solution above. --4.225.209.8 05:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I've checked the solutions above and they don't seem to apply. The problem seems to be that my wiki's index.php is calling: { src="../phpfreechat/data/public/js/..." } when it should be calling { src="/phpfreechat/data/public/js/..." }. Nothing I've tried has been able to fix this. Advice would be appreciated.--4.225.209.8 06:47, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * What version of MediaWiki are you using? Are you using PhpFreeChat 1.2? Are you using the 0.3.4 source code here? Are you using MySQL? What version? Does the "chathistory" table exist in your database? What browser and version are you using? Please try and give me as much information as you can. I want to fix this problem once and for all.
 * To me that path looks right because its relative from the phpfreechat/src directory. But try using the next release WikiChat 0.3.5 it sets the following parameters in function configurePFC_Params


 * $params["data_public_url"] = "phpfreechat/data/public";


 * $params["data_public_path"] = "phpfreechat/data/public";


 * Make sure to set define('WC_PFC_DIRECTORY', 'phpfreechat') to point to your phpfreechat directory
 * Also, check the detailed instructions at Install WikiChat to make sure you did the installation correctly.
 * Firebreather 19:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki from mediawiki-1.15.1.tar.gz
 * PhpFreeChat from phpfreechat-1.2.zip
 * For WikiChat I've used both that link and the 0.3.4 sourcecode on wikichat.org
 * MySQL version 5.1 and chathistory exists
 * Firefox 3.5.7 and IE 8.0.6001
 * { src="../phpfreechat/data/public/js/ ..." } is being called from { http://www.monticello21st.com/rpg/nfwiki/index.php? ... } and phpfreechat directory is under nfwiki directory. (The site is currently down, and is in development in any case.  I haven't been able to test the 0.3.5 release yet.)
 * I've set the WikiChat.php file to no anonymous logins and a single site-wide chat room.
 * --4.225.210.133 22:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I've found a fix

I suspected that the problem was because you have your wiki installed a few directories down from the web root directory i.e. in /rpg/nfwiki. So I installed a wiki with the same configuration and managed to replicate the issue. It appears your initial guess was correct phpfreechat can't find the directory you installed it in.

The solution requires two steps.

The first step is to replace your WikiChat.php with the 0.3.6 (or later) source code here.

The second step is to look in phpfreechat/data/private for a directory called 'cache'. Remove this directory (this is known as manually 'rehashing' and forces the parameters from $params to be updated). Then try loading the chat again. Fingers crossed. Please let me know if this solves your problem Firebreather 07:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Chat for SubPages
Works fine, Thanks for the extension. However, the chat room does not work for sub pages, like
 * http://lopedevega.es/donlope/wiki/index.php?title=Comenius:Solutions_-_Political_aspects/Spain&action=chat

generating a Warning which I cannot read because its hidden behind the tabs (it´s something like: "function file??? failed to open stream...". Help would be appreciated: Horst.Salzwedel@gmail.com, Thanks --Horst Salzwedel 09:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for reporting this issue. I've fixed it in the latest release WikiChat 0.3.7. Firebreather 01:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * this site no longer has the chat extension: http://lopedevega.es/donlope/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Version Adamtheclown 05:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion
When WC_ALLOW_ANNOYMOUS_USERS is set to false, would it be possible to link the online users listed on the right side to their wiki user page ? Thank you for this useful extension!
 * You're welcome and thanks for the suggestion. While it could be done, the trouble is that it means modifying the PhpFreeChat code which is maintained by the vendor of that software. This means it won't be in new releases of their software and I'd have to redevelop the feature every time they did a release. That said, I'm working on something that should address that issue and allow deeper integration of the Chat into the Wiki. Too early to announce it yet though. Firebreather 06:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

How to become admin of the own chat?
Hi,

first of all thanks for this great extension. Now i am able to run the phpchat within a wiki, which is fantastic. Today i tested in on a temp.server but i could not igure out, how to become admin in the chat. I decided to have only 1 chat tab pointing to a single chat room. It takes the username from the wiki, but i am not the admin. what to do?

thanks in advance best regards TurboKanne
 * OK, now it seems to work, i have a golden shield as admin. But kicking and other commands seem to have no effect. How does /kick work?
 * answer:now i found out that kicking and banning does not work if the username includes spaces like Mister Noname. I made a change to the script where username is given to param[nick] to replace whitespace with underlines.
 * i added $params["admins"] and now it works, but is there a way to make admins or moderators by wiki privileges? currently i have to make the commands /nick admin and /identfy password. i would like admins to be admins by wiki priviledges.
 * thanks
 * regards
 * --TurboKanne 14:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi. I'm glad you like the extension. In answer to your question - no there is currently no way to make wiki admins also chat admins. You have to configure the $params["admins"] as you have found out. It is possible to develop this feature, and in fact I intend to, in time. I have something for WikiChat in the pipeline that I believe will expand the WikiChat extension's relevance to the community significantly, and will announce it when the time is right. Firebreather 09:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

$params don't always update
I'm having trouble configuring the chats parameters. I've tried increasing $params["max_channels"] and $params["height"] and it doesn't seem to get updated in the actual chat. I've added additional dedicated channels using the $params["channels"] variable, and that works fine, but for some reason I cannot get height and max_channels to be any values other than their default. Any idea why it's not working?

Parameters that I've changed: $params["channels"] = array(str_replace('_', ' ', $wgTitle->getDBKey), 'dev', 'int', 'eval'); $params["max_channels"]  = 5;        // limit the number of joined channels tab to 3 $params["height"]        = "350px";  // height of chat area is 230px

Problem: Database would not load (error 1071)
I also cross-listed this on: http://www.mwusers.com/forums/showthread.php?14763-Problem-with-WikiChat&p=49035#post49035

The freephpchat by itself works (that is, I can browse to the directory and start chatting). But, when I clicked chat on one of the articles, I got the following error:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "". MySQL returned error "1071: Specified key was too long; max key length is 1024 bytes (wik101360809XXXX.db.5617XXX.hostedresource.com)".

Can anyone advise? Thanks in advance.

Dana


 * problem should now be fixed. You'll have to update the WikiChat code to > 0.3.8 and remove the chathistory table from the database if its there from a previous installation of WikiChat Firebreather 03:10, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

errors...
i think $wgHooks['SkinTemplateTabs'] [] = $this; is messing up my wiki... if i dont disable it.. it will give me errors... alot of em.... i added: $wgShowExceptionDetails = true; for more details... ignore the root path.

Warning: Parameter 1 to WikiChat::onSkinTemplateTabs expected to be a reference, value given in D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Hooks.php on line 133

Warning: Parameter 1 to WikiChat::onSkinTemplateTabs expected to be a reference, value given in D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Hooks.php on line 133 MediaWiki internal error.

Original exception: exception 'MWException' with message 'Detected bug in an extension! Hook WikiChat::onSkinTemplateTabs failed to return a value; should return true to continue hook processing or false to abort.' in D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Hooks.php:155 Stack trace:
 * 0 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\SkinTemplate.php(863): wfRunHooks('SkinTemplateTab...', Array)
 * 1 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\SkinTemplate.php(490): SkinTemplate->buildContentActionUrls
 * 2 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\OutputPage.php(1572): SkinTemplate->outputPage(Object(OutputPage))
 * 3 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Wiki.php(376): OutputPage->output
 * 4 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\index.php(118): MediaWiki->finalCleanup(Array, Object(OutputPage))
 * 1) 5 {main}

Exception caught inside exception handler: exception 'MWException' with message 'Detected bug in an extension! Hook WikiChat::onSkinTemplateTabs failed to return a value; should return true to continue hook processing or false to abort.' in D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Hooks.php:155 Stack trace:
 * 0 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\SkinTemplate.php(863): wfRunHooks('SkinTemplateTab...', Array)
 * 1 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\SkinTemplate.php(490): SkinTemplate->buildContentActionUrls
 * 2 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\OutputPage.php(1572): SkinTemplate->outputPage(Object(OutputPage))
 * 3 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Exception.php(164): OutputPage->output
 * 4 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Exception.php(191): MWException->reportHTML
 * 5 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Exception.php(289): MWException->report
 * 6 D:\xampplite\htdocs\Martijn\mediawiki\includes\Exception.php(348): wfReportException(Object(MWException))
 * 1) 7 [internal function]: wfExceptionHandler(Object(MWException))
 * 2) 8 {main}

if anyone knows what this is.... message me ><

Flipp0


 * There has been a change in MediaWiki 1.16 to fix a 'bug' see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21650. Unfortunately this bug fix breaks all extensions using the SkinTemplateTab hook. I don't think there's anyway to fix it without making WikiChat incompatible with with all MediaWiki releases prior to 1.16. So I've put up two versions of the WikiChat.php extension, one for prior to release 1.16 and one for after 1.16. See WikiChat.php. Could you let me know if the new code works for MediaWiki 1.16 as I haven't got time to test it. --Firebreather 22:58, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

hello Firebreather ok the error dissapeared by adding an & at "$this" in skintemplate.php at line 863 its now: "wfRunHooks( 'SkinTemplateTabs', array( &$this, &$content_actions ) );" but the tab havent shown up yet.. everything is just working fine right now.. but no chat tab. thanks for helping ^^ Flipp0 14:55 15 September 2010 wait... i switched my skin to monobook.. and the chat tab is there.. i clicked on it but it keeps loading. i normally use vector skin for the sidebar, cuz in the other skins its just ugly.. (i think) is it because the vector skin cant add tabs? just wondering. i cant wait for ur reply ^^ Flipp0 15:23, 15 September 2010 Lol sorry for so much updates.. i found something else.. the tab doest show up. but i can get acces to the chat page. so if i make a link on a word.. then i can chat anyways :D the only problem is.. its not loading.. its stuck on "Chat loading ..., Please wait" Again i cant wait to ur reply.. trust me, i cant :D Flipp0 16:15, 15 September 2010 hello.. again ^^ i think i fixed it, i deleted the "cache" folder like you told ppl earlier in this page.. and it works! i can chat now!! =P now i want to be an admin of the chat.. you said earlier this page something about $params["admins"], but how do i configure it? like $params["nick"]?? nick is just an example for a nickname. or $params["admins"] = 'nick';? Thx alot ^^ Flipp0, 11:00, 16 September 2010

wfQuery and version 1.17
--Daemonraco 00:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi! i've been trying to use this extension on version 1.17 and it looks like it's not compatible. Digging a little more, I found that in version 1.17, we don't have a file called DatabaseFunctions.php neighter a function called wgQuery, ergo, the extension fails showing some in apache like: PHP Warning: require_once(/var/www/wiki17/includes/DatabaseFunctions.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/wiki17/extensions/WikiChat.php on line 26, referer: http://localhost/wiki17/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=submit PHP Fatal error: require_once: Failed opening required '/var/www/wiki17/includes/DatabaseFunctions.php' (include_path='/var/www/wiki17:/var/www/wiki17/includes:/var/www/wiki17/languages:.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear') in /var/www/wiki17/extensions/WikiChat.php on line 26, referer: http://localhost/wiki17/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=submit Does anyone have an idea?
 * Database functions was removed in 63241. It was really old at the time, and nothing was supposed to be using it. You could try manually downloading the old DatabaseFunctions.php file to see if it makes it work. Its available at http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/includes/DatabaseFunctions.php?revision=59969&view=co&pathrev=63240 Bawolff 18:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Not accessible w/ Vector?
It does not seem to show up anywhere on vector, is it incompatible with this skin? It shows up with all the other skins.

the wikichat example given is terrible
The example given is terrible. You can't login to the page, as only admins can register. I dont see any chat section, except for some text on one page, and their is no button for chat. Terrible. Adamtheclown 05:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

How Do You Even Set This Up
I need more detailed instructions on how to set this up!

Subpages
Is there a way to only have the chat for main articles and not subpages. I still want the chat tab to show for all pages but all subpages for a specific article should have the same chatroom. Is this possible? Thank you, nice extension!

Bug: Pages with > 32 chars don't connect
I'm using MW 1.16.0 and PHP 5.3.2-1, and I've got the 0.3.8, 2010-09-03,1.16 version of WikiChat.php. WikiChat works great, unless I'm on a page that is more than 32 bytes long. If that happens, I get the message You must be connected to send a message as soon as I start typing, including /help. I tested this using these URLs (it's an intranet site, don't bother clicking): The pages don't exist, I was just using the chat hook. The maximum number seems to be 32, I haven't seen a case of 32 or less fail, and I haven't seen a case of 33 or more work. In a connected chat panel, I can type /join 01234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789 and it works fine. --Skew 07:33, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * http://wriki.abc.com/main/index.php?title=01234567890123456789012345678901&action=chat (intranet)
 * Works
 * http://wriki.abc.com/main/index.php?title=012345678901234567890123456789012&action=chat (intranet)
 * Fails