As I said in my previous post we're integrating third party scripts with our Etano community package and will continue to do so.
Obviously, instant messengers are high on our list and one of the requests was for v3messenger.
At first I contacted v3chat to ask for documentation on integrating their messenger with a custom database. As I said in the forum that didn't went well at all.
Then one of our customers purchased it and asked us to integrate it for him. I still have nightmares about the mess that is their code.
But first about the included documentation: zero. This is the only documentation in their readme file for integration with custom databases:
Developers, refer to the folder 'include/pro_system/user_defined.php' to enter your members MySQL table details.
I'll give them this: they have enough comments in their code to allow a developer to figure out what they need. But not more.
And to those that might comment that Etano doesn't have much documentation either: at least we answer any question in the forum and email. And we're working on the docs.
Now on to the code for those that want to hear the juicy technical details:
- their code relies on register_globals. This is the worst "feature" php makers created, one that they admitted that is bad a long time ago, one that doesn't exist anymore in newer versions of php, one that every php book is advising against. I am aware that their code was probably written a long time ago but since they keep taking money for the script they could at least upgrade it.
- all sql queries are like "SELECT * FROM ...". Select all from a table when they only need 1 or 2 fields. They were trying to do this with the db table from Etano holding member profiles which can have like 30 fields. They needed the name of the user and were selecting everything: hair color, eyes, gender, location, etc. That's a database killer combined with the next issue below.
- by default their db polling script is connecting once per second to the database to check for new messages or events (from the IM window). I'm pretty sure that no server with some traffic will be able to sustain such a flood. Not to mention shared hosting. Even Flashchat from www.tufat.com is using a default of 3 seconds.
- in contrast with the above, if someone wants to chat with you, you will be notified of this only after you move to a new page. So if you're reading a blog or some comments, the other person will have to wait a while till you see the notification and answer him.
- and a little gem from the inline comments - see if you figure out the funny part:
Url to photo upload folder, no backslash / at end (eg. http://www.yoursite.com/members/uploads/)
So the conclusion is that we're not going to release an integration addon for this. If you want it on your Etano powered site we'll integrate it manually as a custom job.
V3chat sounds like it has issues. Funny to see the back slash advice they give; while going on to include the back slash themselves in the very next line's url.
The bandwidth issue has always been a concern to me, when we run IM devices from our servers. The 3 second probe of our DB by IM devices, like that offered by tuffat, puts me off such devices.
I'm far keener to go with a totally separate third party option - e.g. an addon for yahoo messenger; msn messenger, skype, icq. I'm gonna be offering free/very inexpensive site subscriptions. Thus I want to minimise my own costs from the outset. Things that hog bandwidth are things to be avoided.