[pmwiki-users] Simple AJAX chat?

[kirpi at kirpi.it]

> > Hsing-Foo:
> > any chance you can take a look at 'integration' of phpfreechat and
> > pmwiki including user (automatic) authentication?

> Luigi:
> I personally happen to be the most unskilled one within this whole community.
> That said, I'll try and look into it for you.

Ok, failure :-(
I've been trying for a few days but, alas,...

I could not find my way into integrating Phpfreechat [1] and Pmwiki.
I'm confident, though, that in this community there are enough people
who have the skill and the will to make the right steps towards it.

Chats (whatever the form) are brilliant and highly valuable tools;
they sit right next to wikis, billboards, emails and mailing lists
where cooperation and knowledge flow is needed within communities.

Indeed Phpfreechat stands out of the crowd as one of the best chats
available today: installing is quite straightforward, and it is
feature rich although still in early development (about one year old
product). It's quite flexible (the ChatCreator [2] suggested by Jon
seems to run on it, as well) and, which is maybe more, seems reliable:
I've not (yet) found people alerting about security issues for this
particular chat.

As a hobbist carpenter, I'm under the impression that, often, using
the right tool for the right job makes life easier and helps obtaining
better results. There is more: using a screwdriver to hammer nails
would most probably spoil the tool; likewise, precious time would most
probably be wasted if one was to build a non-basic chat within pmwiki.

Do not misunderstand me, Dan, please: you are doing an interesting job
with Zap! Just, let me make an example: while it's nice and worth to
have simple forums developed right within the wiki (we actually have
more than one, and good working), I might well think of many
situations where full featured boards like phpBB or punBB are to be
considered as the most suitable tools for the job.

Here is why I am inclined to suggest that somebody (cleverer than I
am) please try and find a way to integrate Phpfreechat and Pmwiki.

I fancy here that, about the same way Phpfreechat can effortlessy be
integrated with phpBB [4] and punBB [3], some practical
recipe/instructions/settings could be developed for pmwiki without too
much hassle.

Last but not least, the guy behind Phpfreechat is quite kind and
helpful, anyway.


Luigi




[1] http://www.phpfreechat.net/
[2] http://chatcreator.com/chatbox/
[3] http://www.phpfreechat.net/faq.en.html#punbb
[4] http://www.phpfreechat.net/faq.en.html#phpbb