Fastcat Chat Toolbar V1.2
Product Overview

Features
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What is unique about the Chat Toolbar?
  • The toolbar concept provides an easy and unobtrusive way to enhance an existing site with full featured chat capabilities. This is the ideal product for sites that are content or topic driven (forums, blogs, news sites, guides, etc.), and want to incorporate a chat element.

  • Allows your website visitors to see who is online, or signed in to your site, at any given time, and provides the facilities for them to engage in real time group discussions and private chats.

  • Maintains state across multiple pages. Once you sign in to the chat, you remain connected to it as you browse the site. You are only disconnected when you leave the site or move to a web page that does not have the Chat Toolbar embedded in it. In this way, your site visitors may engage each other even when they are not actively participating in a chat room.

  • Using the "Split-screen Mode", a web visitor may display your web site and the chat rooms side by side, simultaneously chatting and utilizing the other features of your site.

  • Mixes flash and DHTML components for a "best of both worlds" solution. Flash provides the connectivity and multimedia support. DHTML gives the interface the look and feel that users are most familiar with.

Adding the Chat Toolbar to your site
The toolbar comes ready to add in to most any site. No programming, scripting, or database knowledge is required. You just upload the Fastcat Chat folders to your site, cut and paste the required inserts into your web pages, and start up the chat server (for self hosted chats). A detailed installation guide comes with the product, which leads you step by step through the installation. If you have any questions, our support team is ready to assist you. The support forums are another good place to look for help on particular issues.

Hosting options.
You may host our chat server yourself or allow us to host it for you on our servers. That chat server is fully "self sufficient", requiring no maintenance other than starting and stopping it. If you decide to host the chat server on your server, make sure you ask your site administrator, first, whether you are allowed to run java programs. For those who have dedicated or virtual dedicated servers, this should not be an issue. If you don't want to host the chat server, or are unable to, then you may opt for our hosted solution. With this option, we host and maintain the chat server for you, for a monthly fee.
 
Feature List

Below is a list of the primary features of the product. For more in depth information, refer to the online manual.
User Interaction
  • Live text chat.
  • Auto-login features
  • Chat in up to 50 rooms.
  • Embed multiple images in chat messages.
  • Private chats in private conversation window.
  • Add friends to private group.
  • Send a private message alert to any logged in user.
  • Block individual users.
  • Custom profiles/Link profiles to chat users.
  • View users online status/idle time.
Image Sharing/Smileys and Avatars
  • Users may upload multiple images to be used in chat messages.
  • Customizable smileys. Download smileys from any source and easily add them to the chat interface. Supports animated GIF smileys.
  • Customizable avatars. Download avatars from any source and easily add them to the chat interface. Supports animated GIF avatars.
  • Users may upload their own avatars.
  • Users may link their forum avatar to the chat.
Chat controls
  • Clear group or private chat windows.
  • View group or private chat message history.
  • Toggle chat room entry/exit alerts.
  • Send bold/italic/underlined text.
  • Embed images or smileys in message.
  • Filter private conversations.
  • Change Rooms/View number of users in each room.
  • Change font display size or color.
  • Toggle message timestamps.
  • Switch between Window and Split-screen mode.
  • View help window.
  • Turn chat on or off.
Administration/Moderation
  • Comes with a built in, detailed moderation system.
  • Two tiered system of privileges. Administrators and moderators.
  • Administrators may promote any online user to moderator status, or predefine moderators.
Administrative controls
  • Ban users temporarily or permanently by IP.
  • Boot users.
  • Censor individual messages.
  • Censor all messages by a particular user.
  • Block user from chatting in any room.
  • Block user from sending private chats.
  • Search and display status of any user.
  • Manage banned IPs.
  • Add or remove a phrase from the word filter.
Anti Spam/Bot control
  • System automatically detects spamming or suspicious activity and blocks users accordingly.
Configuration
  • Change visual aspects of the toolbar such as background colors and images, font styles, and border styles.
  • Change placement of chat toolbar on page.
  • Customizable skins. Custom branding.
  • Administrator may set rooms through an easily modified room list.
  • Administrator may create password protected rooms and member only rooms.
  • Administrator may link a certain web page to a particular room.
  • Administrator may configure a permanent list of administrators, moderators, filtered phrases, and banned IPs.
  • Turn on/off image and avatar support.
  • Turn on/off user profile support.
Chat Server
  • Server is Java based and can be run on any platform.
  • Employs Java NIO technology with socket multiplexing. Easily handles over 1000 simultaneous connections.
  • Server license allows you to run the server on up to 2 different IPs.
Video Chat
  • Server is Java based and can be run on any platform.
  • Built on RED5's flash server.
  • Load balancing features built in. Can be installed on several machines.
  • Send both audio and video streams.
  • View up to 5 users webcams.

If you have a pre-sales question, submit your inquiry via our sales contact page. For general, non-sales inquiries, contact us at support@fastcatsoftware.com.

Solution Graphics