LIVE CHAT???????Any one please help me?

[rajmohan]

Hai guys,


i am having few experience to do projects in php/Mysql but now i am in trouble because my new project came with LIVE CHAT i dont know how to do ? Can any one give me a code or

tell me where i can collect the code please i think it wiil take too much time right? guide me please waiting for your results.

[Ninjakreborn]

Live chat can be programming in php a little but not like your thinking, it's going to be something else, like java, perl, c languages, or something a cgi bin or plugin.
http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/support.html

[rajmohan]

i your point of view it is easy man for me this is the first time i am doing this i dont know how to start please tell me how to do it. you have coding for that

[tomfmason]

I created a live support script that uses php and ajax.  It is not finished or I would post some code for you.. I would recomend that you use a third party script until you get more familar with php and maybe something like javascript(Ajax). A decent chat script is a farily complicated undertaking.

Good Luck,
Tom

[rajmohan]

can you tell me how to do in simple way. is there any options you have.

[tomfmason]

Ok I will write you a very very simple chat script tutorial. It will come with basicly no features other then a login.

It will take me a little bit so be patient.

[tomfmason]

ok where to start... I guess I will start with what you will need in the database. Like I said this is going to be very simple. You will need two tables.


Here is the sql for the first table called chatSessions

[code]
CREATE TABLE `chatSessions` (
`chat_id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`session_id` VARCHAR( 33 ) NOT NULL ,
`nick` VARCHAR( 25 ) NOT NULL ,
`start_time` TIMESTAMP NOT NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY ( `chat_id` )
) TYPE = MYISAM ;[/code]

And here is the sql for the second table called chatText

[code]
CREATE TABLE `chatText` (
`text_id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`nick` VARCHAR( 25 ) NOT NULL ,
`text` VARCHAR( 500 ) NOT NULL ,
`chatDate` VARCHAR( 10 ) NOT NULL ,
`chatTime` VARCHAR( 10 ) NOT NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY ( `text_id` )
) TYPE = MYISAM ;[/code]


Now we move on to the back end php script.

I will explain it as I go.

[code]
<?php
session_start();//start the session
include("db.php");//your database connection file

//now we create an array with valid actions.
$valid_actions = array('login', 'sendChat', 'sessionCheck', 'getChat');
//now we check the action to see if it matches our array.

$action = strip_tags($_GET['action']);

if (!in_array($action, $valid_actions)) {
    //if the action dosn't match then we stop the script
    die("invalid action");
}

function getaction($action) {
    switch($action) {
        case "login":
              $nick = mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($_POST['nick']));
              $session_id = session_id();
              if ($nick == '') {
                  //I know that this seems simple but you will see why I only echoed 'empty' later in the script
                  echo "empty";
              }
              $sql = "INSERT INTO `chatSessions` (`session_id`, `nick`) VALUES ('$session_id', '$nick')";
              $res = mysql_query($sql);
              if (!$res) {
                  echo "error";
                  exit();
              } else {
                  $_SESSION['nick'] = $nick;
                  //we will use this later to make sure that we do not get any chat messages that were entered before the user logged in
                  $_SESSION['chatDate'] = date('Y-m-d');
                  $_SESSION['chatTime'] = date('Gi');
              }
        break;
        case "sendChat":
              $text = mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($_POST['text']));
              $nick = $_SESSION['nick'];
              $chatDate = date('Y-m-d');
              $chatTime = date('Gi');
              $sql = "INSERT INTO `chatText` (`nick`, `text`, `chatDate`, `chatTime`)
                        VALUES ('$nick', '$text', '$chatDate', '$chatTime')";
              $res = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());;
              if (!$res) {
                  echo "error";
              }
        break;
        case "getChat":
              $chatDate = $_SESSION['chatDate'];
              $chatTime = $_SESSION['chatTime'];
              $sql = "SELECT * FROM `chatText` WHERE `chatDate` = '$chatDate'";
              $res = mysql_query($sql);
  if (mysql_num_rows($res) < 1) {
      echo "Ready to chat";
}  
              if (!$res) {
                  echo "error";
                  exit();
              }
              while ($rw = mysql_fetch_assoc($res)) {
                       //now this will only echo the messages that were entered at the same time or after the user logged in.
                      if ($rw['chatTime'] >= $chatTime) {
                          echo '<b>' . $rw['nick'] . '</b> ' . $rw['text'] . '<br />';
                      }
              }
        break;
        case "sessionCheck":
               if (!$_SESSION['nick']) {
                   echo '
    <form action="#" onsubmit="return loginSubmit();">
     Please choose a nick name<br />
     <input type="text" id="nick" />
     <div id="loginButton"><input type="button" onclick="login();" value="Login"/></div>
    </form>';
               } else {
                   echo "logged";
               }
        break;
   }
}

//now this will call the getaction function.
getaction($action);
?>

[/code]


Now we will move to the html. Here is the simple css for this script. You can change this around to fit you page.

[code]
h1{
  font-family: Tahoma;
  color: #000000;
  font-size:16px;
  font-weight: bold;
}
 
#main{
   width: 500px;
   margin: 0px auto;
   padding: 0px;
   background-color: #CDCDCD;
   float: left;
   overflow: hidden;
   border: 2px solid #555555;
}

#content{
   float: left;
   width: 420px;
   background-color: #CCCCCC;
   padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;
}

#chatBox{
   width: 418px;
   height: 150px;
   background-color:#FFFFFF;
   /*This will allow us to scroll up and down with in the chatBox div*/
   overflow: auto;
   border: 1px solid #555555;
   padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
   font-family: Tahoma;
   font-size: 14px;
   font-weight: normal;
}

#form{
   width: 100%;
   padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px;
}

#button{
   padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
   float:right;
}
[/code]

Now we are on to the Javascript(Ajax)

[code=php:0]
function startChat() {
   sessionCheck();
   document.getElementById('text').focus;
   getChat();
}

//this creates a XMLHTTP instance. Provided by ober.
function createRequestObject() {
    if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // Mozilla, Safari, Opera...
        var xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
        if (xmlhttp.overrideMimeType)
    xmlhttp.overrideMimeType('text/xml');
    }
else if (window.ActiveXObject) { // IE
        try {
            var xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
        } catch (e) {
            try {
                var xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
            } catch (e) {}
        }
    }

    if (!xmlhttp) {
        alert('Giving up :( Cannot create an XMLHTTP instance');
        return false;
    }
    return xmlhttp;
}

//these variables will be used later on in the script
var sendReq = createRequestObject();
var recieveReq = createRequestObject();
var sess = createRequestObject();
var http = createRequestObject();
//we declare the chatTimer variable
var chatTimer;

function sessionCheck() {
   //this opens the php file in the get method
   sess.open('GET', 'chatTutorial.php?action=sessionCheck');
   //we are not sending anything to the php file so we do the following
   sess.send(null);
   // now we send the results to another function
   sess.onreadystatechange = handleSessionCheck;
}

function handleSessionCheck() {
   if (sess.readyState == 4) {
       //the response from our script
       var response = sess.responseText;
       if (response == 'logged') {
   //if the user is loggedin then we call the get chat function
   getChat();
       } else {
    // if the user is not logged in then we will show the login form.
    document.getElementById('form').innerHTML = response;
       }
   }
}

function login() {
   //this is how we get the imputed data from the text field
   var nick = document.getElementById('nick').value;
   if (nick == '') {
       alert('You must enter a nick name to enter the chat');
   } else {
      //now we open the php file in the post method
      http.open('POST', 'chatTutorial.php?action=login');
      //now we set a request header
      http.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
      //now we send the nick name to the php file
      http.send('nick=' + nick);
      http.onreadystatechange = handleLogin;
   }
}

function handleLogin() {
   if (http.readyState == 4) {
       var response = http.responseText;
       if ((response == 'empty') || (response == 'error')) {
    if (response == 'empty') {
alert('You must enter a nick name to join the chat');
    } else if (response == 'error') {
alert('There was an error. Please contact the web master');
    }
       } else {
    getChat();
       }
    }
}

//now the get chat function
function getChat() {
   //now we open the php file and get the chat messages entered after the user has loged in
   recieveReq.open('GET', 'chatTutorial.php?action=getChat');
   recieveReq.send(null);
   recieveReq.onreadystatechange = handleGetChat;
}

function handleGetChat() {
   if (recieveReq.readyState == 4) {
       var response = recieveReq.responseText;
       if (response == 'error') {
   alert('There was an error is retrieving the messages. Please contact the webmaster');
       } else {
   //this will check to see if the user has scrolled up or not
   var check = scrollCheck();
   var chat = document.getElementById('chatBox');
   if (check == true) {
               //if have not scrolled up then we set the top of the scroll box to the height of the scroll box
               chat.innerHTML = response;
       chat.scrollTop = chat.scrollHeight;
  } else {
      //if the user has scrolled up we do not move the scroll box down untill they scroll down again    
      //now we write the chat to the chat box div.
     chat.innerHTML = response;
  }
  //now we set a timmer to check for new messages every two seconds.
  chatTimer = setTimeout('getChat();', 2000);
       }
    }
}

//this is the scroll check function. This will tell us if the user has scrolled up or not
function scrollCheck() {
   var chatBox = document.getElementById('chatBox');
   var top = chatBox.scrollTop;
   //150 is the height of the div chat box
   var height = chatBox.scrollHeight - 150;
   //in FireFox when you subtract the scroll Top from the scroll height the value is -86
   //and sometimes if the user has entered a message the just fills one line the chat scroll height will
   //be less then 5. This took me a while to figure out.
   if ((top == height) || ((height - top) < 5) ||(height < 20)) {
       return true;
   } else {
       return false;
   }
}           

//now we send the chat.
function sendChat() {
    var text = document.getElementById('text').value;
    //now we open the php file for posting.
    sendReq.open('POST', 'chatTutorial.php?action=sendChat');
    //now we set up a request header
    sendReq.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
    //now we send the results from the text input to the php file
    sendReq.send('text=' + text);
    sendReq.onreadystatechange = handleSendChat;
}

function handleSendChat() {
    if (sendReq.readyState == 4) {
var chatBox = document.getElementById('chatBox');
        var response = sendReq.responseText;
if (response == 'error') {
   alert('There was an error in sending your message. Please contact the webmaster.');
        } else {
   //now we clear the chat timmer
   clearInterval(chatTimer);
   document.getElementById('text').value = '';
   chatBox.scrollTop = chatBox.scrollHeight;
   getChat();
}
    }
}

//now this is the block submit function. If the user hits enter instead of clicking on the send button
//you will see the text in the address bar of your browser. This function will prevent that.

function blockSubmit() {
   sendChat()
   //this is the part that keeps the results from showing in the address bar.
   return false;
}

//this is basicly the same as the blockSubmit function. This is for the login form
function loginSubmit() {
   login();
   return false;
}[/code]

Here is the html for my example. minus the script tags and the link to the style sheet.

[code]
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Ajax Chat Tutorial</title>
<!--Place the link to the style sheet and the javascript here-->
<body onload="sessionCheck();">
<div id="main">
<div id="content">
   <h1>Ajax chat </h1>
  <div id="chatBox">
  </div>
  <div id="form">
   <form action="#" onsubmit="return blockSubmit();">
    <textarea id="text" cols="50" rows="2"></textarea>
<div id="button"><input type="button" onclick="sendChat();" value="Send" /></div>
   </form>
  </div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>[/code]

I have attached the chatTutorial.html and the chatTutorial.php. Both are working fine.. Also, here is a link to a live version [url=http://www.thomashostings.net/chatTutorial.html]http://www.thomashostings.net/chatTutorial.html[/url] . I am only going to leave this up for a few days.

Hope that helps,
Tom

[rajmohan]

ok TOM i will try this one. few min. please

[HuggieBear]

Here's a very good Ajax IM solution....

http://www.unwieldy.net/ajaxim/

You can even try it out when you get there, although it's less of a chat engine and more of a messenger engine.

Regards
Huggie

[Gruzin]

Hi Tom,
I've tryed your script and I get this error:

[code]Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /users/3d_cn~1/html/test/chatTutorial.php on line 54
emptyerror[/code]

Any idea how to fix that?
thanks,
George

[HuggieBear]

Change this on line 52...
[code=php:0]
$sql = "SELECT * FROM `chattext` WHERE `chatDate` = '$chatDate'";
[/code]

To this:
[code=php:0]
$sql = "SELECT * FROM `chatText` WHERE `chatDate` = '$chatDate'";
[/code]

I believe there's a case-sensitivity issue... You'll also need to change line 42 from [color=red]chattext[/color] to [color=green]chatText[/color]

Regards
Huggie

[Gruzin]

Thanks Huggie,
But now the textfield displays only "emty"... I don't get it  :-\ does it mean that someone else should be loged in to send the message?

George

[HuggieBear]

I've amended my previous post too, as there's another change to make.

Huggie

[Gruzin]

Well, I've done that, but still the same  :)
Here you go:
http://3d.caucasus.net/test

Hope we can solve this kind of a simple problem :)

Regards,
George

[tomfmason]

[quote author=HuggieBear link=topic=111025.msg449789#msg449789 date=1160485525]
Change this on line 52...
[code=php:0]
$sql = "SELECT * FROM `chattext` WHERE `chatDate` = '$chatDate'";
[/code]

To this:
[code=php:0]
$sql = "SELECT * FROM `chatText` WHERE `chatDate` = '$chatDate'";
[/code]

I believe there's a case-sensitivity issue... You'll also need to change line 42 from [color=red]chattext[/color] to [color=green]chatText[/color]

Regards
Huggie
[/quote][quote author=HuggieBear link=topic=111025.msg449794#msg449794 date=1160485809]
I've amended my previous post too, as there's another change to make.

Huggie
[/quote]

Thanks Huggie.

I fixed it on the script that I have but not here..lol Forgot to. I had been up almost all night.

[quote author=Gruzin link=topic=111025.msg449791#msg449791 date=1160485707]
Thanks Huggie,
But now the textfield displays only "emty"... I don't get it  :-\ does it mean that someone else should be loged in to send the message?

George
[/quote]

Now that is rather simple to change that. You can do this by changing the following line

line 55.
change [code=php:0]echo "empty";[/code] to what ever you want..

[rajmohan]

sorry to say this guys,

actually i put all the files and saved as chat.php and create a table for both chatSession and chatText but it is not working i got a error  like this

Warning: Undefined index: action in E:\mohan\Oct06\11Oct06\navo\chat.php on line 8
invalid action

[rajmohan]

Help please i have a problem in executing this one it

[tomfmason]

Ok are you trying to access the php processing file directly? That is the only reason that I can see that error popping up. Have a look at my source code at the link that I provided. The user never actually sees the php file. That is all handled with javascript(Ajax).

I have been up all night trying to finish a project so I will post a complete fix to my script in about 8 hours.. (after I get some sleep)

Tom

[rajmohan]

yes it is working but i received error in this line

if (!$_SESSION['nick'])

[b]error is[/b]
Warning: Undefined index: nick in E:\mohan\Oct06\14Oct06\navo\chatTutorial.php on line 69

i changed it as

if(!isset($_SESSION['nick'])

error is gone but after entering the name i click Login button but there is no reaction what is the reason

please tell me

[Ninjakreborn]

Ok no offence, but this was rather sad.

You needed help and tom set here and created you an entire damn application, took him well over 6-9 hours.  For free at that, and you didn't even say thanks to him once, I read this whole thread 3-4 times to make sure I wasn't wrong, you should have atleast said thank you towards him for building it for you.