Preserved Topic: Chatroom Software

I have been looking at buying some chatroom software, and have been looking on the net and havnt really came across anything that looks professional.

I am searching for somthing that can support multiple rooms, private chatting, possibly webcams, and of course good security features.

I am toying with the idea of running a Chat server that families and friends can come too and chat without the fear of being booted or harrased.

Basically in light of the recent announcements from MSN to close their chatrooms, i want to TRY and make an idea that both myself and Pink have come up with, to give people a safe place to chat.

Has anyone ever had experience with chatroom software, if so, could you recommend anything.

My answer might sound dull, but why don't you use IRC ? you can

• create a channel and give it a password if you want
• go in several channels and even several servers ( at worst you'll need to open another IRC client for that )
• have a private discussion with someone
• send somes files via DCC
• log the discussions for further reading

There's some great, free and easy to use IRC clients.

Best regards,
Mathieu "POÏ" HENRI

[This message has been edited by poi (edited 09-25-2003).]

Thanks Poi ! I have already thought of that, but i was looking for something that is very simple to navigate for the visitor and nice to look at. Something like Yahoo Chatrooms or MSN perhaps, but something i could admin from within a control panel environment.

I'm not looking for a freebie, i am willing to pay for such software, but of course, a suitable freebie would be welcome.

No need to pay Jabber is open source and quite good.

May be a bit complicated though



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

Weadah had a sweet little Flash chat thingie running on another site of his for a while. He might let you borrow that if you can get ahold of him.

:::11oh1:::

There was also the simple (yet elegant) chat app that Steve and Piper made for the gurusnetwork that you should be able to grab.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

Thanks for the info folk, i will get a hold of these guys and ask if they can assist me with this project.

Many thanks

Unity is a Flash framework for that sorta thing that looks really cool, if not expensive. Lack of prevalence and support scares me on that, kinda new to me.

Jabber's real nice in theory but all the web interfaces I've tried to implement for it are pretty buggy alpha versions, works great through something like Yabber or Trillian's new client though.

java interfaces for IRC networks are pretty daggum tried and true if you wanna dig through hotscripts or somesuch but yeah, they're mostly ugly and hard to customize.

Wead's last dribble was the best server push client pull I've yet to see, the client is Flash so you avoid that nasty click-on-refresh noise that Win XP makes =

There is some interesting reading in this thread at the guru's:
http://development.gurusnetwork.com/discussion/thread/2037/
the guru's chat is here:
http://development.gurusnetwork.com/chat/


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"Art has to be forgotten. Beauty must be realized."
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