Think5 GroupChat Server

Text, voice and video webchat and Instant-Messaging solution for your portal, website, DotNetNuke and cms system.

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In short, what is technically behind GroupChat Server?

Large-View

GroupChat Server is based on a multi-tier server architecture to provide high performance on heavy load sites and the ability to expose a rich set of functionality like multi-user-conferencing and video chat on standard protocols.

The server core is based on the open instant messaging protocoll Jabber / XMPP, thus allowing the integration with a wide set of clients and Jabber libraries. GroupChat Server also introduces new Jabber protocol extensions to allow video conferencing over RTMP, or moderated / censored chat rooms for example. The according graphical user interface is exposed by the GroupChat Flash-Client, to offer a platform independent web integration. The Architecture-Overview slide shows the parts and services belonging to the GroupChat Server solution. Basically, it consists of the GroupChat Server core, the Admin-Interface, a separate webserver for configuration settings and the GroupChat database engine.

Installation steps for GroupChat Server on a DotNetNuke sytem

This module is designed primarily to run on DotNetNuke 4.x systems. For DNN 3.x support please contact support@think5.de

The installation for DotNetNuke cointains the following 4 sections:

• GroupChat Server installation
• GroupChat DNN Module installation
• GroupChat Role Provider installation
• Chat embedding into DNN Skin

GroupChat Server installation

The whole GroupChat server side gets deployed by running the MSI installer, either the 32-bit or 64-bit version (setup.exe). After entering the product key and activating the product during installation, the GroupChat server solution is up and ready for use. Three startmenu entries will be created for GroupChat-WebControl, GroupChat-Configuration and GroupChat-Product-Activation. It is recommended to set the JID-Domain to a value of myservername.com (change to yours), since this setting affects the creation of unique chat-user ids like myname@myservername.com (GroupChat WebControl > Server Configuration > Jid domain)

For a short video of the GroupChat Server installation click here

GroupChat DNN Module

The GroupChat is integrated into the DotNetNuke portal by installing the dnnGroupChat PA package - like any other module using the common DNN installation way (Login to your DNN Installation then open the DNN Menu: Host > Module Definitions > Install New Module > Upload the ZIP File).

After installation, the DotNetNuke chat module exposes the following ways of portal interaction:

• GroupChat module for placement in a content pane area - this module is mainly for admin purposes. The module itself displays a brief summary of current GroupChat-Server statistics with two links:
• View Control: This control opens the GroupChat-Client for adhoc usage and installation testing
• Edit Control: This control exposes the admin functionality for the GroupChat-Server, e.g. to specify the server network settings (necessary to setup before first usage when the default settings are changed during server installation), to add and delete multi-user-chatrooms, set userrights, view chat-logs and so on (see product features here)
• GroupChat Skin-Control: To place a customizeable Chat-Link and Chat-Status-Info into the template (skin) of dotnetnuke.

For a short video of the GroupChat DNN Module installation click here

Skin-Control properties

The Skin-control itself displays the online status of chat connection, together with the username and the ability to open / close the chat layer. You can set parameters to the Skin-Control to specify how GroupChat should be integrated within DotNetNuke.

The Skin-control allows to set the following properties, here a sample how to extend your skinfile.ascx:

 <%@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" TagName="GROUPCHAT" Src="~/DesktopModules/dnnGroupChat/dnnGroupchat.ascx" %>


 [...]


 <dnn:GROUPCHAT runat="server" id="dnnGROUPCHAT"
 ChatServerHost="myhostedchatserver.com"
 GroupChatPopUp="False"
 GroupChatEmbedded="True"
 GroupChatAdhocCon="True"
 GroupChatForceFramesAferLogin="True"
 GroupChatEnableProductAdvisor="False"
 GroupChatAllowGuests="True" />

When these settings are not specified, the settings from the GroupChat-Edit-Module are used (from the admin side mentioned above). Skin properties will override any module settings.

 <dnn:GROUPCHAT runat="server" id="dnnGROUPCHAT" />

For a short video of the GroupChat DNN Module Skin installation click here

GroupChat User Setup

Callback Authentication

GroupChat allows a configuration to authorize unknown user logins against an external URL. A successful authorization against this URL will create/update user accounts on the fly in the GroupChat database. This callback authorization URL can be configured in the GroupChat administration section. This URL is then requested by username and password from GroupChat Server and expects a return of either auth=0 or auth=1. The DotNetNuke cms module contains a ready to use callback auth script and is used by default after module installation. Customs portals and websites can simply provide such an auth script against any kind of user database, GroupChat will be all the time in sync with this userbase then. Continue reading the CallbackAuthentication documentation.

Role-Provider

The role provider is a separate module for DotNetNuke. It is used to exchange DotNetNuke users seamlessly with the GroupChat Server system (user push). After the module has been uploaded/installed, the settings and role mappings are defined in the web.config file of your portal, described in GroupChatRoleProvider.

Webservice / API

Beside the above two options, a Webservice interface with WSDL can also be used to push users into the GroupChat database. For .Net a wrapper assembly is also available to perform these tasks. Please contact support@think5.de for any further details.

Foreign Client usage

In some situations a big benefit can be to open the GroupChat Server solution to the world of foreign Jabber clients. What does it mean? For example desktop chat programs exist which are tight integrated into your operating system and can perfectly notify you of new incoming chat messages (a browser is limited here to its focus), e.g. for support personal this is nice. What about accessing your whole website chat from your mobile while you are at the seaside? Possible, with available open source jabber clients connecting to your GroupChat Server solution.

Further reading: ForeignClientInstallation

Further reading:

More Background information / Troubleshoot your installation

More Background information / Manual uninstall steps

Known issues in the current beta version

GroupChat skinning

Enable Twitter in GroupChat rooms

GroupChat Hosted Embedding

Home - GroupChatServer Wiki