Table of contents



Introduction

ARSC Really Simple Chat is a webchat software written in PHP, and it uses MySQL as its data backend. ARSC allows the visitors of your website to chat with each other in realtime.

Features

The main design principles during the development of ARSC where: interoperability, security, ease of use, and flexibility, in that order.
ARSC is known to run with every webbrowser in existence, even textbased ones like Lynx or w3m, and is known to work great with screen readers for blind people.
ARSC is able to run with the PHP option register_globals set to Off, and every single user input undergoes a sanity check, in order to avoid SQL injection. Strong hash values are used for session and password data, and mechanisms against session theft have been implemented.
Installing ARSC is quick and easy, with no programming skills required, using a web based installer. No file permissions have to be changed, and only one file needs to be edited.
The look and feel of every user-visible aspect of ARSC can easily be edited using a straightforward web based administration system, on a room by room or even user by user base.

Using ARSC as a chatter/visitor


Language selection


Usually the first page is the language selection page. This shows a dropdown list of available languages.

ARSC tries to automatically detect which language the user might want to use by asking the browser which language(s) it supports and prefers. This is something the user can change in his or her browser preferences. However, the choice ARSC makes for the user can be overridden by the user.

Some web sites do not present the language selection page. They are simply directing people to the login page through a web link which points at the login page's URL, with a default language already selected.

Login page


Upon clicking the Next button, the login page is presented to the user. Here, the user enters his nickname, provides a password (if he wants to use a registered user account), chooses the chatroom he would like to enter, and can choose between different interfaces. He also sees a list of the users currently logged in to the chat, and in which rooms those users are. Furthermore, there is a link to the registration page. Depending on how you configured the option register_force, the user can log in without the need to register (this is the default), or he can only log in using a registered account.

Chat page


Once the user successfully logs in, he is presented a 4-paneled chat interface (assuming you did not yet change the layout ARSC ships with).

In the right frame you see all users who are currently in the room.

Users with an @ in front of their name are operators and can kick users out of the room, give operator status to other users, and take away their operator status.

If you click on a name on the right, the input field will be filled with the command that is necessary to send a private message to this user. You only have to append your message to the end of the command line.

General Commands


/me message — Symbolizes an action, e.g. /me feels fine writes * User feels fine
/msg user message — Sends a private message to an user
/j AnotherRoom — Leaves the current room and enters room 'AnotherRoom'
/room AnotherRoom — An alias to /j

Operator commands


There are commands which can be used by operators and users with additional privileges.

Operator Commands:
/bann user X — Blocks IP of user for X seconds
/deop user — Takes operator status from user
/kick user — Kicks user out of the chat
/lock user — Lock account of (registered!) user permanently
/move user room — Moves user into room
/msgops message — Whispers a message to all operators
/op user — Gives operator status to user
/rip user — What user says is not shown
/unrip user — What user says is shown again
/whois user — Shows information about user

Administering ARSC

Using the web based administration interface, you can change many aspects of ARSCs behaviour, and basically every aspect of its look and feel. First, you will probably want to have a look at the Parameters section. Every parameter has a detailed description of which values it accepts and what it does, thus this is not discussed here.

Users


The Users section allows you to create, delete and alter registered ARSC user accounts. Upon creation, the only value you have to supply is the username. You don't have to provide the password, but note that it does not make much sense to create a user without a password, because then everyone can log in using that account. Please note that the password field will always be empty, even if you view existing users or just created one with a password. This is because the passwords itself are not stored in the database, only their hashes, in order to protect your user's privacy. If you want to change the password of an existing user, simply fill in the new password and click on Save changes.

You can define which chat layout a user will see upon login by changing the Layout field. Try the Display user. Please note that users can not (yet) change their layout themselves. You can also define layouts on a per-room basis, but user layouts override room layouts (except for users that have the default layout defined).

Rooms

The Rooms section allows you to create, delete and alter ARSC chatrooms. There are three different room types in ARSC: standard rooms, like the room Lounge, moderated rooms, like the room VIP Lounge, and private user rooms. Using this interface, you can only create the first two of them. Private user rooms can not be created here, but are created from within the chat using the /croom command. Private user rooms are always password protected, standard and moderated rooms are never password protected.


Permissions


There are five standard permission levels. Level 0 is for guests, level 10 is for operators, level 20 for VIPs, level 30 for moderators, level 99 for admins. Individual sites can alter the configuration through the administrative interface.

Messages from users of level 20 (VIP) and higher are automatically moderated.

The default permissions are:

Command Level 0 Level 10 Level 20 Level 30 Level 99
bann
X
color
X
X
X
X
X
croom
X
X
X
deop
X
X
invite
X
X
X
kick
X
X
X
move
X
X
X
msg
X
X
X
X
msgops
X
X
X
X
op
X
X
opcall
X
X
X
X
X
rip
X
X
X
room
X
X
X
X
X
roomlist
X
X
X
X
X
smilies
X
X
X
X
X
unrip
X
X
X
userlist
X
X
X
X
X
whois
X
X
X


Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2001-2005 Manuel Kiessling
This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details. A copy of the GNU General Public License is available at the GNU website. You can also obtain it by writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.