Hello, welcome to the Soap Box Example. The Soap Box Example is on the right side of the screen. As a safety precaution against spam bots, only registered users can post in the box. Please register to try it out for yourself. I
The purpose of the Soap Box is to provide a simple chat box that can be placed on any page for your users to continously follow the conversation as they move between pages, without upsetting the flow. For instance, if you were to install the DNN Chat client into the side bar of your Forums, than everytime a user moved from one post to the next, the Forum client would report (User X has entered the chat, User X has left the chat) which would become unworkable with hundreds of people browsing your website at the same time.
Soap Box is a lot more relaxed. A user can move about your website with the Soap Box on any page and they will not interrupt the flow of the conversation. While they are waiting for people to respond, they can do other things and not risk breaking the flow. If they leave and come back to the site, the last ten messages are saved to the screen, so they are always up-to-date on what's been happening.
Soap Box updates its content in three ways. The first is that whenever it is redrawn to the page (When the user moves about the DotNetNuke portal) it updates with the latest messages. The second is when a user submits a new message, it will refresh the Soap Box with any new messages, and the third way is a timer that you can change in the settings. Whenever the timer goes off, the message information updates. The process is transparent to the user. You wouldn't want to set the timer in too short of intervals, however, because each time it goes off it conducts a hit and some processing on your server which can impact your server's performance if many people are logged in at once. A good rule of thumb is above 10 seconds. I tend to check once every minute, which is often enough for people who are using the chat and not browsing the site at the same time.
In addition, there are two text areas that you can set in the settings. The button TEXT and the word At: between the user's name and the date. In this way you can make it language specific or give it your own style.
All the controls are linked to a CSS file that you can edit for color, size, font, etc. You can make the form wider or taller depending on your CSS settings.
Currently only registered users can post in the Soap Box. Unregistered users can view the Soap Box activity but cannot post. This reduces spamming from bots that could appear if the Soap Box was open to unregistered users.
There are a full compliment of Emoticons that you can use. These are 25x25 pixel png icons found in the image folder. You can replace them with your own emoticons.
Here is the list, feel free to try them out.
Z:(
:)
>)
:]
:(
:O
:p
m|m
(bh)
(cb)
:|/
>:)
(dm)
:/
(O)
(FLAG)
(fu)
(ht)
>%(
(sp)
>%(
(ht)
(fu)
(FLAG)
(O)
:/
(dm)
>:) =
:|/
(cb)
(bh)
m|m
(JEDI)
(SD)
(YIN)
(MUSIC)
(8B)
(RIP)
System Requirements
DotNetNuke 4.8.x and up.
Microsoft.NET 3.5
Microsoft LINQ
If you don't have LINQ setup on your installation, you can look at the base of this website to find the changes you will need to make to your DotNetNuke version. Or ask your webhost before installing the application.
If you have Microsoft.NET 3.5 installed and LINQ installed properly the application should install without issue. However, if the application fails to install properly, delete the entire VGN_SOAPBOX folder out of your Desktop Modules folder and App Code Folder. This should allow you to login and then delete the module out of Module Definitions.
If you have any problems or concerns we'll do our best to help you out. We want you to enjoy using this module, as we intend to write others and would like repeat customers.
If you have any issues, please send an email to use at info@vgn.us