Huge update with a focus on redesigning the front-end UI.
A Modern User Interface
- Combining Features
Rather than clutter up the user's screen with multiple tabs, we've combined chat rooms, notifications, and moderation into one tab.
- Streamlined Chat Rooms
The chat room windows now look like the user windows. This provides a more friendly user interface and allows for easy group chat integration in the future.
- Chat Tabs
Open tabs have received a fresh look. The user's profile picture is shown in full display. There is also a spot for the user's status, new message count, and typing status. Lastly, users can more easily switch to a closed window when too many are open on the screen.
- Popout/Embed Chat
The popout/embed chat has received the same fresh UI as the desktop experience. It was important for us to deliver a similar experience across all devices and interfaces.
- Mobile Chat
The mobile chat has received the same fresh UI as the desktop experience. It was important for us to deliver a similar experience across all devices and interfaces.
New Features
- No Avatar Improvement
No avatars? No problem! A randomly generated color and text abbreviation of the user will show in place of their profile picture.
- Moderation Panel
Users that are set as an administrator or moderator now have their own moderation panel accessible via the in-chat menu or yoursite.com/arrowchat/mod/. There is no login form, and users will only have access when they are set as a mod or admin by the super admin. Please see our support docs for more information on the different permissions for each user type.
- Welcome Message
A welcome message can now be shown to new users of your site. It will appear once per 30 minutes until the user interacts with ArrowChat.
- Click-to-close
Users no longer have to click an icon to close their open dialogue windows. Settings, notifications, adding a chat room, passwords, and more windows will all be closed automatically when the user clicks anywhere other than the window.
- Embed Chat on Mobile
On mobile devices, the embedded chat will now redirect to the mobile interface to provide a better experience for mobile users.
- Announcements for All
The embed/popout chat and the mobile chat now both support announcements.
- Cache System
The header/footer code has been simplified to one script tag. When using this new autoload script, the browser cache is now automatically managed by ArrowChat. Making changes in the admin panel will now force users to get a new copy of the JavaScript and CSS files.
General
- Removed Applications - We thought long and hard about applications and what to do with them. Ultimately, we decided they were outdated, and it was best to remove them. This allowed us to provide the modern interface that you see today.
- Removed IE Support - Another tough decision. Ultimately, internet explorer was preventing us from doing a lot of cool things. We decided it was best to end support for IE because Microsoft has also ended support, and the browser share is dropping substantially.
- Removed support for bar links.
- Enabling guest chat will now force the user to select a username when clicking on the chat. This was done to help reduce the number of "Guest 12345" usernames appearing in chat.
- Added the option to limit the number of chat tabs open.
- Support for Joomla 4.1 integration has been added (includes community builder, easysocial, jomsocial, etc).
Upgrade Instructions
Due to the amount of changes with ArrowChat v4.0, a complete re-installation will be necessary. All message history and settings will be lost during the upgrade.
- Step 1: Backup your existing files
You can do this by simply renaming your "arrowchat" folder to "arrowchat.old". You must back up your files in case something goes wrong. You'll then have the old files that may help you fix any issues. It is important you backup your includes/config.php and includes/integration.php files as these can be used to help with the re-install.
- Step 2: Download v4.0 and upload to your server
Download the v4.0 update from our site and place it onto your server.
- Step 3: Run the install folder
Run the /arrowchat/install/ folder in your browser (ex. http://www.yoursite.com/arrowchat/install/) and follow the on-screen instructions. You can use your old includes/config.php file to help you with database information.
We recommend that you remove your existing header/footer code and replace it with the new autoload script. This will allow for much better cache management.
Your old includes/integration.php file will work! Simply copy it over to the new arrowchat/includes/ folder.
Config.php Files:
Your old includes/config.php file will work! Simply copy it over to the new arrowchat/includes/ folder.
Languages:
The language file has received a ton of new phrases. You must update your language file to avoid undefined errors.
Themes:
There have been too many changes to themes to count. No existing themes will work, and they must be completely redesigned.
**If upgrading from the beta, simply re-download and overwrite all files.
