Support: AVChat Documentation

osDate 2.x

The AVChat Plugin for osDate handles the integration between your osDate web site and our AVChat software. Here's what it will do:

  • user name integration
  • profile url integration
  • profile image integration
  • placement of video chat within the web site (user and admin interface)
  • show how many users are in the video chat on every page of your web site
  • choose which Membership Types have access to the video chat

If you cannot find the answer you’re looking for here, we encourage you to try our FAQ or forums. There's also more documentation regarding AVChat in the documentation area for the main standalone version.

All the specific documentation regarding osDate is on this page so if you're looking for something specific just hit Ctrl+F on your browser.

Here are the osDate related topics we will cover on this page:

1. Installing the AVChat Plugin for osDate

First you have to download 2 archives from the client/trial area on avchathq.com to your computer. These 2 archives are:

  • AVChat 3.0.zip (contains media server files for Red5/FMIS/Wowza and AVChat Standalone)
  • avchat3_osdate21x_component.zip (includes the actual osDate Plugin)

Extract the 2 archives somewhere on your computer to have all the files handy! We will use files from both archives!

After installation, the first time you will log in the video chat you will be asked or a license key, it's in your client/trial area.

1.1 Setting up the avchat30 application on the media server

First you need to install the avchat30 app on your media server. If you don't know what a media server is check out the requirements. If you already have a media server (Red5, FMIS, FMIS hosting, Wowza) here's what you need to do:

Red5 0.8
installed on a
dedicated or VPS server		 Wowza
installed on a
dedicated or VPS server

1. Upload the avchat30 folder from the AVChat 3.0.zip/Files to upload to your media server (Red5 0.8) folder to the webapps folder of your Red5 0.8 installation (C:\Program Files\Red5\webapps on Win, /opt/red5/webapps/ on Linux).

2. Linux only: Chmod the new avchat30 folder to 777.

3. Restart the Red5 server

You're done, move to Part 1.2 below

1. Upload the applications, lib and conf folders from the AVChat 3.0.zip/Files to upload to your media server (Wowza) folder to the root folder of your Wowza Media Server installation (C:\Program Files\Wowza Media Systems\Wowza Media Server Pro 1.7.2\ on Windows).

2. Restart the Wowza server

You're done, move to Part 1.2 below
FMIS
installed on a
dedicated or VPS server		 FMIS
hosting from
http://influxis.com

1. Upload the avchat30 folder from the AVChat 3.0.zip/Files to upload to your media server (FMS) folder to the applications folder of your FMIS installation (C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash Media Server\applications on Windows, /opt/macromedia/fms/applications/ on Linux).

2. Linux only: Chmod the new avchat30 folder to 777.

You're done, move to Part 1.2 below

While logged in your Influxis.com account:

1) Go to File Manager:
2) Click the root folder
3) Click the folder icon at the top labeed New Folder
4) Give the new folder the name avchat30 and click OK
5) click the avchat30 folder in the list to the left
6) At the top click the red arrow labeled Upload
7) In the empty list that shows up add main.ase, settings.asc and Application.xml from the AVChat 3.0.zip\Files to upload to your media server (FMS)
8) Cick Upload

Done.

Your connection string used in Part 2 will look like: rtmp://123.rtmphost.com/avchat30/_definst_ where 123.rtmphost.com is shown at the top of your Influxis.com account.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to installing the AVChat Plugin on osDate.

1.2 Installing the actual AVChat Plugin for osDate

  1. Extract the avchat3_osdate21x_component.zip archive and upload the avchat3 folder inside it to your web site's plugins folder.
  2. Now open plugins/avchat3/avc_settings.php in a text editor and set the value of
    $avconfig['connectionstring']     like this:
    $avconfig['connectionstring']='rtmp://myFMSserver.com/avchat30/_definst_';
  3. Chmod the plugins/avchat3/uploadedFiles folder to 777 (otherwise the upload function might not work)
  4. Create a new folder tokens (plugins/avchat3/tokens) and CHMOD it to 777 (otherwise we might have token generation issues later on)
  5. Now log in as an admin in your osDate web site, go to Tools > Plugins > AVChat 3 and click Install .
  6. Refresh the page and Go to Plugins > AVChat 3, log in using a username and enter your license key (it's in your client/trial area on avchathq.com) in the dialog box that shows up after you connect:
    avchat insert license key

2. Accessing the AVChat admin interface in osDate

From the osDate admin area go to Plugins > AVChat 3

3. Location of AVChat files in a osDate installation

All the AVChat Standalone files including language files, audio/video quality profile files, avc_settings.php and, well, everything else are on your osDate web site in:

[your site root]/plugins/avchat3/includes/

In there you will also find some special integration files like integration.php, these contain all the logic behind the integration! How they work is that they modify the default values in avc_settings.php depending on the logged in user/browser requesting them.

4. Opening up the video chat in a pop up

Bummer, we're still writing this one...

5. Placing ads around the video chat

Bummer, we're still writing this one...

6. osDate's user levels and AVChat

You can configure who has access to the video chat by going to: Tools > Plugins > AVChat 3 > Edit .

7. Allowing visitors/guests to join the video chat

By default the AVChat Plugin for osDate does not allow visitors of your web site to enter the video chat. Only signed in users are allowed in the video chat.

To allow visitors/guests to join the video chat login via FTP to your web site and edit this file: [your site root]/plugins/avchat3/includes/integration.php .

At the end of the file set $avconfig['showLoginError']=0;

Save the file and upload it back to your web site.

 

8. Changing the looks of AVChat to better fit your osDate web site

Changing the design of AVChat is explained in detail in the documentation for the standalone version.

When working with the osDate Plugin keep in mind that AVChat is installed in [your site root]/plugins/avchat3/includes/ so all the files you need to edit (like style.css for fonts and colors, avc_settings.php for the background image,) are there.

Also the HTML code used to embed the video chat throughout is in :
[your site root]/plugins/avchat3/templates/default/avchat3.tpl (and [your site root]/plugins/avchat3/templates/default/avchat3admin.tpl for the admin interface) so if you want to change the size of the video chat in the html page (or the size of the popup window) or the background color this is the file you need to edit.