Shoutbox question

Is there anyway to require registration before being able to chat in the shoutbox?  Right now, anyone who's not registered is listed as a visitor.  When we many of them that do not register and just chat away.  Since they all say visitor it gets very confusing.

Any ideas?

make it visible to members only ?

I don't have shoutbox installed so I could not tell you or remember if the visitors can be stopped posting via membership settings

Then they would not see all the chat, thus, may not be interested in registering.  Would like them to see the chat, just not participate without registering.

Under the Non-Member membership level actions, untick the "shoutbox use" option and save. This will keep theme from being able to post. To hide the box entirely from visitors, go to the page builder, select homepage, and click on the shoutbox item to launch the edit window. Untick the display option for Guest.

 interesting ... so you are using your shoutbox as main way for members to chat and not main chat room ?

Check your settings in admin --> settings --> membership levels ---> Actions (non member)

Place a check next to 'shoutbox use'   Then click the disable button at the bottom of the actions list

That worked perfectly.  Thanks Nathan Paton and houstonlively.  Is there anyway I can change the access denied message to please register to chat?

Yes.  We use both.

Admin > Settings > Languages

language key: _ACTION_NOT_ALLOWED

Go to Administration -> Settings -> Languages Settings and use the search box for "access denied" or similar. Find the related result and edit the text to your liking.

Because I saw this posted and then quickly deleted, to be clear, the language files should never be directly edited.

In language keys; however, access denied is sort of a system wide message.  So make it generic "You are not logged in or you are not a member. If you are not a member, consider registering to use the great features of this site." Something along those lines.

Edit, maybe not all access denied keys are shared; I have not used the shoutbox so I don't know.

Shoutbox has it's own access denied filter.  I've adjusted this for the site.  Thanks guys!

Don't forget that if you are not logged in, you are a guest.  Which is why I add, "not logged in" so that members don't get agitated by seeing the message telling them to register.  Psych classes are worth something after all LOL.

Any way to tag someone in a shout box post?

Thank you

 RE

No, but that would be a great way to drive people nuts!  They'd get a notification that someone mentioned them in a shout, and they'd probably never find out what was said about them.

True, and if you get a notification for each tag you could fill someones inbox quickly.

If you really wanted to have fun, you could set the shoutbox to clear the messages every 30 seconds directly AFTER the tag notification was sent.

Who on earth would want to expand the abilities of the shoutbox anyway? Seems pointless since it's supposed to be a way to quickly communicate with someone else you KNOW is viewing the page at the same time anyway....