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Voodoo chat. About
What's so special about Voc-engine?
There are 2 classes of html-chats. Classic-type, with refreshing messages-window, And stream-type.
Refresh-type is known to everybody, so let's think about streams.
What is the common way to introduce such functionality?
Webmasters make cgi-script (PHP-script, jsp-srcpt, e.t.c) which checks for new messages every second (2,3...) and prints something to the client.
Of course, you need one instance of the script for each client.
Now calculate how many data-requests you need to process every second... At least two for each client -- get messages, get users-list.
Also don't forget about memory and CPU usage. For instance, if you have PHP-scripts and PHP is compiled as an Apache-module,
be ready to spend 5 Mbytes of memory and 0.1-1% of CPU for each client (only for messages-window)
Multiple it to number of users online.
Do you still want to use such scripts? :)
Is there any solutions? I guess, yes -- try Voodoo chat.
It uses Perl- or C++-daemon which processes users-requests to a messages list. And you need just one daemon for all clients.
This daemon takes approx. 10 Mbytes of memory for 100 users. CPU usage is also small (of course it depends on your CPU, i.e. for 100 users online it is 0.5% of Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz).
Do you see the difference now? :)
BTW, this chat includes four different chat-types. It's
- Daemon-stream type (recommended)
- Classic-type (with refreshes)
- PHP-stream script (read text above and use this type only when you have less then 20 simultaneous visitors and cannot use daemon-type)
- JavaScript stream-emulation (refreshing hidden frame which just add text to the main message-window)
So even if you don't want to use the daemon, you still can use the voc-chat, and probably you'll like it because it includes a lot of features:
- Themes-support. You can use one of exisitng designes, or easily create your own.
- rooms
- private messages
- ignoring
- you can enable to use bold, italic, underlined messages
- inline images
- personal info-page with photo for registered users
- avatars
- internal mini-mail system
- status (online/offline/not available/don't disturb)
- web-indicator (see example at the left)
- nick & string highlighing for personal messages
You as admin will also get some options:
- anti-flood
- messages and ban/unban logging
- limits for maximum number of users and maximum number of users from one ip (anti-nick-flooding)
- graphical statistic, example
- admin-zone to manage the chat
- moderator-levels for registered users, so you can give someone permissions to ban/unban users, change rooms-info, edit/delete registered users
The Voc now has 3 engines, based on:
- Files
- MySQL
- SystemV SharedMemory
You can select engine which you want.
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