Scripts for Educators Presents:

Chat-N-Time

A simple real-time chat script

Contents:

Program Summary
Who's Using Chat-N-Time?
System Requirements
Files Needed

Program Summary:

Chat-N-Time is a simple Perl real-time chat cgi for the web. It lets you hold real-time conversations on a web page. Users log in, and then can type what they'd like to say into a text box, and click a button. The chat window refreshes itself every 10 seconds or so, so that others looking at the page will be able to see the new addition to the conversation. This program requires the use of frames, though, so non-frame browsers won't be able to use it. Works with Internet Explorer v3.0 and 4 and Netscape 3.0 - 4.7 but possibly not with Internet Explorer 5 (please let me know if you use this with IE5 and it works) due to an apparent bug in how they implemented the onUnload function. While it also makes use of a META "Refresh" tag, users who can use frames but not META tags can refresh their own screens by clicking another button.

BUG FIX: 01/29/00: Almost completely rewrote all the code for this program. Added auto-logout to get rid of stray logins, logging option to log a record of all chatroom activity, and worked out some other bugs.
BUG FIX: 07/28/99: Fixed some problems with Logouts logging everyone or several people out instead of just the user who is actually logging out. There is still a bug where if you hit the "Logout" button, it will show you logging out twice.

(Yes, I know, this would be better with Java, but hey -- what do you expect for free? :-)

There is a working version online for you to play with (on a Unix system).

This was ported to an NT server with no modifications, but if you put in the full paths to the various files, they need to look like this (double backslashes): C:\\InetPub\\wwwroot\\yourlogin or like "c:/InetPub/wwwroot/yourlogin" depending on your version of Perl.


Who's Using Chat-N-Time?:

Well, I know that hundreds of people have downloaded it, but where they've put it, they're not telling. If you've gotten it to work, let me know! :)

Here's a few that I searched up on the net (these are version 1.0):

http://www.cannonball.be/chat/chatntime.html: This one is in French Thanks, Dominique!
http://rmfloris.hypermart.net/chat/chatntime.html Ralf Floris' site. Thanks, Ralf!
RePatterning, Inc
NEV (German) This one is an extremely nice-looking and well-designed implementation of a very simple script. Great job!
NetFXX Web Design (Click on Chat Rooms). This is another nice looking site.
BannerPost (Click on "Chat with us")
Emiel's ChatBox
Flummi Softwär Chatcenter.
PGA Professional Joe Keefe


System Requirements:

The machine where your script will be run should be a Unix or Windows NT server with Perl 5.000 or higher and a web server that supports CGI such as Apache, Netscape, NCSA, IIS, O'Reilly Website, etc.

You must be able to execute cgi programs on your web server. If you're not sure whether you have permission to do this, or are not sure how to configure the files, please ask your system administrator. (Usually "root@your.machine.name." For example, if your email address is 'bob@mysite.com' then you can often reach your system administrator at 'root@mysite.com'. AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy users should look for "technical support" or "member services.")


Files Needed:

The following files are required. You may download the package in a gzipped tar file. Also, version 1.0 of this program is still available. If you have Netscape or Internet Explorer, and you want to download this, try holding down the "shift" key while you click on the link. This should give you the option to download the file.

Unix: Type "gunzip chatntime-2.5.tar.gz" then type "tar -xvf chatntime.tar" to uncompress and expand the package. If you are using Windows, then I suggest you get WinZip, which will handle tar.gz files. You can find WinZip at TuCows.Com.



The following files should be included with this distribution:

chatntime.cgi
the actual program that processes the data from the form.
chatmain.html
The HTML file containing the frame source for the chat room.
chatntime.rules.html
the HTML page that contains rules and/or instructions for users of the chat room. This is displayed in the upper frame of "chatmain.html" at first.
chatntime.list.html
Should be BLANK when you start out. This will contain the actual chat.
chatters.txt
Should be BLANK when you start out. The program uses this to keep track of users online.
README.chatntime
contains information on how to get started using the program. READ THIS before you get started!
This file


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