melange chat server for linux --> description
Author: Christian Walter
Description: melange chat server for linux, online documentation --> description
Keywords: description, howto, about, melange, chat, server, linux, java, client, free, download, vienna, christian, walter

MELANGE USER GUIDE 1.10 - INDEX |

WHAT IS MELANGE ? The MELANGE chatserver for Linux together with the MELANGE client provides an easy way to set up your own Chat server for your Website. Because the MELANGE client is written in Java, your guests don't need any browser-plugins or additional software - no matter what OS they run, they only have to use a java enabled browser. If have tested the client on some browsers, for a result see below. Although Melange was written to be used on a website, you can connect to the server with every telnet client, too. This does not work with WINDOWS Telnet Clients (this is not really suprising, but who cares), cause they send every char typed into the the keyboard immediatly, while linux telnet clients wait before sending the line until a linefeed is found. Melange is also not IRC compatible, although it's commands are borrowed from it for easy usage. From the beginning, it was designed to be used on a website, so please don't complain why it's not working with IRC-clients. If someone wants to do this, maybe IRC-clients will be supported in the future, but I don't want to waste my time (there are already many irc-systems available, and melange was designed NOT to be an irc-client) You can see the server in action at http://melange.terminal.at/chat.
WHICH BROWSERS WORK WITH THE CLIENT ? I've tested the clients (current version 1.10) with the following browsers:
Browser | OS | Standard Client | "Special Edition" Client
Netscape Navigator 3.0 (Build 96223) | Win95 | Yes | No
Netscape Navigator 3.01 | X11 | Yes | No
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 (Build 4.70.1158) | Win95 | Yes | No
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.02a.2916 (JVM 3.02a.0081) | Win 3.11 | Yes | No
Netscape Navigator 3.01 | X11 | Yes | No
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 (Build 4.71.1712.6) | Win95 | Yes | Yes
Netscape Navigator 4.04 (Build 97325) | Win95 | N/A | N/A
Netscape Navigater 4.05 (Build 98085) | X11 | N/A | N/A
Netscape Navigater 4.06 | X11 | N/A | N/A
Netscape Navigater 4.08 (Build 98306) | X11 | Yes | Yes
Netscape Navigator 4.5 PRE2 | X11 | Yes | Yes
Netscape Navigator 4.5 (Build 98286) | X11 | Yes | Yes
Netscape Navigator 4.5 (Build 98293) | Win95 | Yes | Yes
Netscape Navigator 4.5 | MacOS 8.5.1 | N/A | N/A
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5 | MaxOS 8.5.1 | N/A | N/A
Sun Hot Java Browser Ver ?? | Win95 | Yes | Yes
Sun Java Workshop 2.0 | Win95 | Yes | Yes
N/A ... Not available in the moment, i'll try to find it out. It seems, as every browser has it's own method how to view the scrollbar and how it is animated. Nevertheless, the scrollbar works on every browser I've tested.
HOW DOES MELANGE WORK ? At startup two so called "SYSTEM" channels are available: Channel 0: This is the channel where all users go when they connect. Channel 1: Anonymous channel. In this channel, the name of the sender of a message is not shown. This channel is really good for all bad guys. These two channels can not be deleted by normal users. You can add additional SYSTEM-channels at startup using the SYSCHANNEL command in the configuration file. You can also set the ANONYMOUS parameter to no there, which doesn't allow users to go to the anonymous channel. New channels can be opened by any user. It's simply done by joining a channel which does not exist. The id of this channel has to be below the maxchannel value, by default this value is set to 1000. This means there can be 1000 simultaneous channels by default. (I think, this is enough !). Due to the the internal program design, it doesn't matter how many channels are open, the server will not use more bytes of your memory, or slow down either. The user who opened the channel first, is the owner of this channel. If he leaves or moves to another channel, the channel is closed again. (This is to avoid empty channels, and to avoid that one user opens and locks all 1000 channels available). A user can only own one channel simultaneous ! If you don't want users to open new channels, use the ALLOWCHANNELS parameter in the configfile.. Implemented in version 1.10 there is the GROUP-SYSTEM now. Every channel can now be associated to a specific group and only those users, who are in the same group can join these channels. If you don't associate any channel to a group all channels belong to the so called "system-group", and the behaviour of melange is exactly the same as in the old versions. Also new in version 1.10 is the possibility to use unique nicknames. If this feature is enabled a user who connects to the server will be in a situation which could compared to a special channel. He is not able to chat or do anything, but to login into the "real" chat using the /LOGIN command.

Copyright © 1998,1999 by Christian Walter. All rights reserved. Design, Software, Images, Contents, etc. Copyright © 1998,1999 by Christian Walter. All rights reserved.