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Shoutbox

Questions answered by this recipe

1. How can site visitors easily communicate with each other across all my Wiki farms?
2. How can I provide live support?

Description

Fox-forms (no javascript), low-overhead shoutbox

Notes

After surveying dozens of shoutbox and chat alternatives, I decided to stick with a simple, low-overhead Fox-forms-based solution. A shoutbox (we call it a hollabox) can be a delightful source of wiki fun, as well as provide live help, if desired.

Installation Steps

We send all shouts across the Wiki by posting to a common page (in the example below I use Site.ShoutBox, but any common page will do, of course). In the following example, you must have an Author name already established in order to participate:

1) Download and install Fox.

2) Edit any skin's sidebar wiki page (usually Site.SideBar for most skins).

3) Add the following markup:

(:if ! equal {$Author} "":)
>>shoutbox<<
%sidehead%shoutbox
(:fox shoutbox #top target=Site.ShoutBox:)
(:input hidden author value='{$Author}' :) 
(:input textarea class=shoutbox shout cols=20 rows=2:)
(:input submit post Enter:)
(:foxtemplate "'''{$$author}''' [-{$$(date:M j, 'y  g a)}-]\n{$$shout}[[<<]]":)
(:foxend shoutbox:)
(:include Site.ShoutBox lines=30:)
%right%[[Site.ShoutBox|more >>]]
>><<
(:if:)

4) Style >>shoutbox<< as a Wiki style.

Couldn't be simpler! And what FUN everyone has!

NOTE: For a Farm installation, the Site.ShoutBox should go in the shared.d folder of your Farm.

Release Notes

Initial release -- 9/27/2007.

See Also

Contributors

KMcC September 27, 2007, at 01:15 AM

Comments