Interaction Chat Service

The Chat service of Interaction provides live conversation through any standard web browser. Interaction's mature chat server has provided chat rooms on the web since 1995.

Features and Benefits

Accessible by Any Web Browser

A standard web browser on any platform is all it takes to participate in a chat provided by Interaction. It doesn't require your guests to download IRC software, Java Applets or browser plug-ins. This makes your rooms available for a wider audience.

Specialized for the Mac

We focus on making our chat server software the best it can be for the Macintosh, taking advantage of what the platform has to offer.

Easy Configuration

Interaction chat is configured in a convenient dialog. No need to mess with cryptic files or edit script code yourself.

Unlimited Number of Rooms

There are no limitations on the number of rooms you can create.

Optional Browser Administration

Chat rooms can also be created and maintained from a web browser. Different sets of chat rooms can have their own administrator, so the webmaster can delegate responsibility to various people.

Avatars

Each participant can have an image associated with their nickname.

Private Messages

Participants can send private messages to others.

Detailed Control over Privileges

Access restrictions control when and for whom a chat room should be available. Restrict a chat room to a specific group of people, make the room available only outside office hours, or limit access to specific domains.

Membership Support

The membership features of Interaction also works with the chat service, facilitating a subscription-based community.

Secret Rooms

Rooms can be kept hidden from those that don't have access.

Allow Markup in the Conversations

You can decide whether particpants are allowed to submit markup in statements or use markup in their nicknames.

Min and Max Number of Statements

Optimize the conversation by configuring the the minimum and maximum number of statements shown on a page. The chat service adapts the list of statements so that each participant only sees new statements or a set minimum for continuity.

Themes

Changing the appearance of a room is as simple as selecting a theme in a pop-up menu. The theme controls the look & feel of the room.

Highly Customizable

The themes can be tailored to your needs. Make your own themes using HTML or server-side XSL.

Dynamic Content

Most dynamic features of Interaction can also be used in the design of the chat rooms, making your chat rooms social places with Banner Ads, Conditional Content, the Occupancy of a room (You are the only one here), Random Content, Welcome Greetings

Custom Statement Formatting

The formatting of statements can be customized using a special template.

Optional Frames

The chat rooms can be framed. The Framer facilitates the use of frames when designing chat rooms and makes it possible to allow visitors to disable the frames.

Optional Automatic Refresh

Rooms can have automatic refresh. You can provide a pop-up menu to allow the participantns to control the refresh rate.

Optional Streaming

The chat rooms can have streaming conversations for fast paced chatting. A streaming conversation is one where new statements are pushed to all participants without need for manual update.

Selected Extensions

Statement Filter

Substitutes specific phrases in a submission with custom text, markup or graphics.

Monitor

A dialog on the Mac where the webmaster can follow the conversations, make a statement in a room, broadcast a message to all rooms or send a message to a specific participant.

Transcripts

Transcribes a conversation to file.

Chat Purger

Server-side tool that removes all statements in a room.

Chat Purger entity

Allows administrators to purge a chat room remotely through their web browser.

Occupancy

Let the participants know how many others are in the room or on the site.

Visitors list

Gives an overview of who is participating in a conversation or is currently visiting the site.

Staytime

Reminds the participants how long they have been on the site.

Timestamps

Provides the current time at the server for the benefit of visitors that are in other time-zones.

Hitcounters

Keep track of how many times the room has been accessed.

Installing the Interaction Chat Service Component

1. Download the Interaction Chat Service archive.
2. Unstuff the archive (most browsers will do this for you).
3. Find the appropriate version of the component in the folder that best matches your version of Interaction.
4. Put the component file in the Components folder of Interaction
5. Restart Interaction to activate the component.