Integrating with FlashChat
These instructions assume that you posses a valid FlashChat license, AND that osDate has already been successfully installed on your web server.
About FlashChat
FlashChat is the Web's leading Flash-based chat system for PHP/MySQL-enabled websites. It provides a real-time chat framework for your users, and integrates with a variety of portals, bulletin boards, and content management systems. FlashChat is not free, unfortunately, but it is dirt-cheap at only $5. Upgrades are free, and with your small contribution of $5 you receive 100% of the source code (including all Flash sources), as well as membership in a rich and active user community.
You can integrate FlashChat with osDate in either of two ways: by direct integration with osDate, or by integrating with phpBB, which comes with osDate. This document describes only the first method. If you'd like to instead integrate FlashChat with phpBB (the "forum" folder that comes with osDate), please refer to these integration instructions.
Step 1: Upload FlashChat
You should upload the contents of the "chat" folder which comes with FlashChat to the osDate "chat" folder, as shown below. There is a "chat" folder already in the osDate download, but it contains only a few files. You should replace any existing files in the chat folder with the FlashChat files.
In the screenshot below, I have osdate loaded into a sub-folder called "osdate".
Step 2: Install FlashChat
Now, open FlashChat's "install.php" file using a web browser (NOT osDate's install.php file!). In the first step of the FlashChat installer, check the box shown in the screenshot below. This indicates that you want to integrate FlashChat with a "CMS" system (content management system), which includes osDate.
On the second step, choose the "osDate" radio button.
If don't correctly, the next step of the installer should show the MySQL login options for your database. These are auto-detected by the installer. If you don't see these, then something is wrong. These textfields are deliberately disabled. Set the rooms that you want, then click "Continue".
At this point, you can just follow the rest of FlashChat's installer pages, following the directions given.
Step 3: Administer FlashChat
With FlashChat installed and integrated with osDate, you'll be able to login to FlashChat using a valid osDate registration. The osDate administrator will become the chat admin, as shown below (this image was made after clicking the "chat" link in the osDate admin panel).
Members will be able to chat with other members who have the "chat" permission - i.e., they have a membership type that permits them to participate in the chat.
