Communique Chat Version 2.01a TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Introduction II. Copyright and License Information III. Installation and Configuration ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Communique Chat is a Perl/CGI script for Windows NT that will allow an unlimited number of people to chat at the same time. Topics of conversation can be easily organized into an unlimited number of rooms. The Communique Chat was designed to be FAST and to be easily customized. Features: - Supports an unlimited number of people. - The price is right. - Supports an unlimited number of rooms. - No plug-ins are needed for people using the Communique Chat. - Supports public and private rooms. - Supports the use of user icons. (Must be supplied by you.) - Easy setup and customization. - Allows HTML, partial HTML or HTML can be totally disallowed. - Supports the logging of rooms. - Last but not least, it is FAST! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE INFORMATION ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Communique Chat is Copyright (c) 1998 by Creative Matrix, Inc. and is distributed under the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 2 of the License. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- * chat.pl This file is responsible for making the Communique Chat work. You should put this file in your cgi-bin or scripts directory (or any executable directory). Before you put this in your cgi-bin or scripts directory, you will need to configure it by changing the variables listed below. Variables: 1) @room_names This array defines the room names that users will see if you set the variable $sys_create_rooms, listed below, to 1 (NO). If you set the variable $sys_create_rooms, listed below, to 0 (YES) - then this variable is not needed. 2) @room_values This array defines the file name of the rooms that you wish to have for the chat script. If you set the variable $sys_create_rooms, listed below, to 1 (NO) - then you MUST enter the same amount of entries in @room_values as you have in the array @room_names. This variable is not optional. 3) $html_tag_font_begin This option defines how you want user text to appear. This is simply a HTML font tag. 4) $html_tag_font_end This option is the ending HTML font tag that goes with the $html_tag_font_begin variable listed above. 5) $msg_bad_referrer This option defines what message you want displayed to a user who does not enter the chat through the proper logon page. 6) $msg_error_file_open This option defines what message you want displayed to the user if there is an error opening a file. 7) $msg_error_file_create This option defines what message you want displayed to the user if there is an error creating a file. 8) $msg_not_post This option defines what message you want displayed to a user who arrives at the chat.pl script via a GET method. 9) $path_to_chat_files This option defines the physical path the the directory where your chat room and log files are kept. An example may be: $path_to_chat_files = "c:\\htmlroot\\chat"; 10) $path_to_templet_files This option defines the physical path the the directory where your templet files are kept. An example may be: $path_to_templet_files = "c:\\htmlroot\\chat\\templets"; 11) $sys_allow_html This option defines whether to filter out all HTML tags or to allow them. 0 = Yes 1 = No 12) $sys_allow_images This option defines whether to filter out all HTML image tags or to allow them. 0 = Yes 1 = No 13) $sys_allow_java This option defines whether to filter out all HTML applet tags or to allow them. 0 = Yes 1 = No 14) $sys_allow_javascript This option defines whether to filter out all SCRIPT tags or to allow them. 0 = Yes 1 = No 15) $sys_create_rooms This option either allows or disallows the creation of private rooms. This variable takes two values: 0 = Yes 1 = No If this option is set to 0, a listing of public rooms will be outputed in HTML and the current room will appear in a standard textbox. If this option is set to 1, a listing of public rooms will be outputed in a listbox and the currect room will be selected. You will also need to manually create a file for each room that you have defined in the @room_value array (i.e. for @room_value = ("commons","pub"), you would have to create two files in the /chat directory named commons.room and pub.room). 16) $sys_display_ip This option toggles, on or off, the display of the IP address of a user when they post a message. This variable takes two values: 0 = On 1 = Off 17) $sys_log_rooms This option toggles, on or off, logging of the chat rooms. Room logs will end in the extension .log. This option takes two values: 0 = On 1 = Off 18) $sys_num_of_posts This option determines how many posts are displayed back to the user's screen. You may put any number in this option but we suggest that you not go over 40, for performance issues. 19) $url_of_referrer This option defines the URL of your web server and is used to make sure that no one comes from a form outside. An example might be: $url_of_referrer = "www.my_domain.com"; 20) $url_to_images This option defines the absolute URL to the directory where your icons will be stored. An example might be: $url_to_images = "http://www.domain.com/chat/icons"; 21) $url_to_script This option defines the absolute URL to the chat script. An example might be: $url_to_script = "http://www.domain.com/cgi-bin/chat.pl"; * chat/ Create a directory named "chat" (without the double quotes) in your document root. This directory will store the room files, log files and the index page. The chat.pl script will need the permission to write in this directory. * index.html This HTML document needs to be in the directory /chat and is the starting point of this chat script. You may customize the HTML inside this page to meet your liking. See this file for specific documentation. * chat/templets/ Create a directory named "templets" (without the double quotes) in your chat directory. This directory will store the templet files used for this chat script. * error.templet This templet file needs to be in the directory chat/templets/ and is used to display error messages when something goes wrong with the chat.pl script. You may customize the HTML inside this page to your liking. See this file for specific documentation. * chatpage.templet This templet file needs to be in the directory chat/templets/ and is used to display the chatroom contents back to the user. You may customize the HTML inside this page to your liking. See this file for specific documentation. * chat/icons/ Create a directory named "icons" (without the double quotes) in your chat directory. This directory will store the icon/image files used for this chat script. * hp.gif This image file needs to be in the chat/icons directory and is used to display an icon link to the user's homepage. * email.gif This image file needs to be in the chat/icons directory and is used to display an icon link to the user's e-mail.