Plugin: Shoutbox
A shoutbox plugin I wrote for Wordpress. It uses Wordpress comment functions to approve or format shouts. Basically subjects the same stuff to shout entries as your comments are. More details available in the source.
Feel free to feedback any comments or bugs.
Update:
- Version update 1.8 - I believe is the only shoutbox plugin to work with Spam Karma 2, and potentially other anti-spam plugins.
- New version 1.7 - Check the change log for details.
- Now includes an auto installer for the less SQL savy users.
- Edited the download cos I’m beginning to see that some people don’t read instructions.
Trackbacks
Trackback URL: http://waikay.net/2005/03/plugin-shoutbox/trackback
[...] Enfin, il y a du changement du côté du Panneau latéral - Sidebar pour les intimes. 
Une avalanche de plugins s’y est abattue, au risque de la surcharger ; on conviendra de leur utilité et de l’opportunité de les garder ou non en temps voulu. Dans l’ordre d’apparition : Shoutbox (Wai Kay): un “outil de discussion en différé” comme on peut en trouver sur un certain nombre de sites - il m’est souvenir qu’un tel outil existait sur les sites de clan phpNuke. Je vous invite donc à y poster nombreux lors de vos visites, à défaut de commenter… Les derniers articles et commentaires, fonction plus ou moins intégrée d’origine avec le thème K2. [...]
[...] More WordPress stuff: I’m leaning towards this because it’ll get the same fancy spam protection as comments but it’ll take me a while to style it up. And the front page is getting crowded. [...]
[...] Shoutbox - endlich eine gefunden die keine Nachrichten verschluckt und den Spamfilter von Wordpress nutzt [...]
Comments
hi, im using your shoutbox plugin and it’s great. one problem though, i can’t limit the # of posts that are displayed. is that possible? or should I use frame of some sort? 
please help. thanks.
Having a problem!
I created the entry in the database and installed the plugin.
However, whenever I try and input a shout, it just says post not approved. I have tried changing the name, test, email, url, logging in, logging out, everything. It just says post not approved, contact adminsitrator.
i dont think it is the database because it doesnt seem to get to the input to database point. I woner if it is a problem with my comment settings? any ideas?
It could be your comment settings. It approves a post using the same conditions that your comments are approved. Check if you can post a comment with the same information.
Hi, I’m using your shoutbox plugin and it’s GREAT! THe perfect thing I need for my site. Anyhow, since I’m a dummy @ web coding, I’d like to know how to get the shoutbox into a frame like the way your tag board is right now. Hell, I’d like to know if there’s a plugin to have exactly what you’re having a tagboard with scrolls and the hidden form. thanks. love your work check out my website so you can see how long the shoutbox has gotten XD
The latest version has the hidden form and defaults the display to a framed div that scrolls. Let me know if it doesn’t work.
And sorry of the late reply. Was away for the past few days.
Hi, would you mind sharing your shoutbox css, pasting it here maybe? Since i got some trouble editing the plugin file and it really drive me mad. Anyway, great plugin.
if you check the source of this page, you’ll find that the CSS for the shoutbox is defined here, amongst other things.
Sorry I don’t know how to make the formatting more intuitive as I usually redefine all the formatting for the plugins I use.
Hi im getting a massive error on my admin pages because when i use your plugin it says that the headers have already been sent. This looks like a great plugin if you could tell me how to fix it. the error is on line 475 acording to word press
heres the error:
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/calvin16/domains/pseudoweb.net/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-shoutbox.php:475) in /home/calvin16/domains/pseudoweb.net/public_html/wordpress/wp-admin/admin.php on line 10
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/calvin16/domains/pseudoweb.net/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-shoutbox.php:475) in /home/calvin16/domains/pseudoweb.net/public_html/wordpress/wp-admin/admin.php on line 11
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/calvin16/domains/pseudoweb.net/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-shoutbox.php:475) in /home/calvin16/domains/pseudoweb.net/public_html/wordpress/wp-admin/admin.php on line 12
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/calvin16/domains/pseudoweb.net/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-shoutbox.php:475) in /home/calvin16/domains/pseudoweb.net/public_html/wordpress/wp-admin/admin.php on line 13
Hey, the shoutbox plugin is great. one problem though, when i edit a message it deletes the contents and saves an empty message. any ideas??
thanks
how to resize the show form window??
because in my WP the form is so wide specialy the message form
TIA
Hi there, great plugin! One problem though.
The form is automatically open when the page is loaded. Is it possible to get it to be closed initially like it is on yours? Thanks!
No worries, used your stylesheet and it’s working now.
Check it out! http://www.houseofbobat.net (absolutely not safe for work).
hi..i m a newbie to wordpress n SQL..mayb i know how to run the SQL statement that u mention in the beginning of the installation?
if possible please reply to my email.. thank you
Hi there, when I install the plugin, I get a list of errors above my admin bar saying something about headers have already been sent. I am using the most current version of your plugin I downloaded above and WP 1.5.1.2. Any clues?
A common cause of such errors is that you have blank lines at the beginning and end of the file (before ).
This usually happen when people copy and paste the code instead of downloading the file.
When I installed this script, I got this error from my admin page. It reads:
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/vjmarzo/public_html/daily/wp-content/plugins/wp-shoutbox.php:505) in /home/vjmarzo/public_html/daily/wp-admin/admin.php on line 10
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/vjmarzo/public_html/daily/wp-content/plugins/wp-shoutbox.php:505) in /home/vjmarzo/public_html/daily/wp-admin/admin.php on line 11
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/vjmarzo/public_html/daily/wp-content/plugins/wp-shoutbox.php:505) in /home/vjmarzo/public_html/daily/wp-admin/admin.php on line 12
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/vjmarzo/public_html/daily/wp-content/plugins/wp-shoutbox.php:505) in /home/vjmarzo/public_html/daily/wp-admin/admin.php on line 13
I’m using the lastest version 1.5 shoutbox as well as the lastest version of wordpress 1.5.1.3
I hope you guys can help me.
Same problem as what I said in the comment just above yours.
Either download the php file as is or copy and paste it without any blank lines.
Is it posible to insert the shoutbox into a new page? If i want to add it into the box the php-command doens’t work but instead it apperas as text like that -> “” - Please help me!
Thanks
by page do you mean a wordpress page?
I’m not sure if you can insert functions into a page just like that.
Hi me says, 
I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me out here. I’ve downloaded your shoutbox as per instructions - no remaining just dropping straight into my plugins and then activating in the admin panel. I typed exactly and surrounded this with and placed it into my sidebar.
Unfortunately I get the following error:
WordPress database error: [Table 'xxxx_wrdp1.wp_shoutbox' doesn't exist] SELECT * FROM wp_shoutbox ORDER BY shout_date DESC
I’m using VER: 1.5.2 on OS:2003 with XP.
Could you please tell me what I’ve done wrong? I’ve deactivated the plugin, deleted the original source from my plugin folder, removed the code from my sidebar and freshed everything, then repeated said steps. The Shoutbox still pulls this error.
Your help would be really appreciated!
Thanks
Hi again,
Just an update - I switched themes and your shoutbox worked! Don’t really know why - I haven’t touched the core of the theme, merely colours.
Still, thank you for a great plugin!
Cheers from down under!
Hi there, thanks for this great plugin! But I got a problem: when I load the site, the post form is automatically opened. I tried to use your css file but without any effect.
Could you help me? Thank you,
Jorin Bonney
Heidelberg/Germany
I’ve looked at your site and found the solution.
Apparently I have several css files all over the place and think you missed out of the one that defines my shoutform.
Basically you just need to have a definition like this:
div .shoutform {
display:none;
}
Kinda self-explainatory.
Hi.
I’m also using this plugin, which is really nice, so thx
One thing though. Would it be possible to combine it with the Impostercide-Plugin by Skippy ( http://www.skippy.net/blog/plugins ) ? It checks whether the Email entered in any comment-form is a registered user and if so whether he/she is logged in. That way no one could use your “identitiy”.
I’m pretty new to webcoding stuff, so I can’t figure how hard it would be to implement, but I reckon that it shouldn’t be too much of work. Though I just spent about 3 hours on trying to get it to work myself…if it weren’t for the $user_ID-protection, I’d be done by now *sigh*
P.S.: my Plugin version lacks this rather important part in the code “$ss_email = trim(strip_tags($_POST['ss_email']));” (which cost me about half to one hour to find out ). maybe it’s just me or I’m too tired.
P.P.S.: well atleast I now found out about apply_filter() and hooking plugins/functions up and stuff *g*
well i’m not sure how Skippy’s plugin works but my form actually does verify a post by using the same filters that are used to verify a comment.
In other words, if a comment is disallowed due to some reasons, then a similar shout message will also be disallowed.
I’ll look into how Skippy’s plugin work when I have the time. Thanks for pointing this out.
yeah, that’s why I was wondering why it wouldn’t work. anyway, Skippy’s plugin simply looks whether the entered email in the form belongs to a registered user. if so, it will determine whether this user is the currently logged on user (user_ID). so it’s pretty simple. thx for considering this update.
(actually I wonder why I say it is simple, having my own problems getting it to work *g*).
sorry for this doublepost…I just remembered that the method you use for the filter seems to be deprecated. it is now called preprocess_comment (this is where Skippy adds his filter). maybe that will solve the problem.
Oh is it? Oops, haven’t been keeping up with the updates recently. Kinda hard when there’s no fixed documentation on the hooks, or is there one now?
Will rectify it as soon as I have the time. Thanks again for pointing it out.
heh, no problem. it’s for my own benifit if you keep updating and make the shoutbox even better.
Since I’m not so much into SQL/PHP yet, there’s not much I can say. But I’ve had a look in functions.php or post_functions, something like that in the wp-includes folder, anyway: the place where the filters are kept. and there was a comment “//deprecated” that’s all.
take your time and thx again.
Ok I’ve updated the plugin to comply with Wordpress 1.5.2 API. It should work with any up to date comment plugin, I hope.
hiya again
yes, it sort of “works”. it now tells me that the email belongs to a registered user (like it should). Unfortunately being logged in, it will still refuse to accept. It’s 4:35 am, so I’m too tired. Just wanted to let you know. I’ll check things out at the weekend. I’ll keep you up to date if I get it working. Other than that, don’t bother about it, you’ve done so much already, thank you very much
And besides, I think the problem is at some other point. Anyways…good night hehe
*sorry for spamming the comments*
Hmm.. it is working fine here on my blog. Not sure what could be causing your problem. Try disabling all other plugins?
hi!
So I really was too tired. It’s working fine here now aswell. I guess it would have been working even the night I spent hours on modding your plugin + Skippy’s. Sometimes you’re just too blind to see the most obvious
I have the admin account and my other account running with the same email-address. Funny thing that I was able to comment using this, but the shoutbox won’t accept it. Now I changed one address and voila, everything is in order and the way it should be *happy*
Thx again soooo much
Now only one thing left, but I’ll try to do that on my own. Since the shoutbox only shows the name + url, someone could still post pretending to be someone else. I’ll put a “registered” tag somewhere and then it’s finally done.
Keep up the good work.
Hi,
one question (as i find your plugin amazing). When i run the Plugin, all works fine.Used your css for display. When i run it under Firefox i have no problem at all, but when i use IExplorer, it puts the shoutbox to the end of the page. Any idea what could be changed?
Maybe there is something in the css that does not work with IE. But the strange is on your site the shoutbox works even under IE?
Hope you can help
regards
ups, Sorry,
the URL is http://www.corporatebaseball.us
Its a Fantasy League for Baseball. Maybe you could find a solution for this.
regards
And after making the update to 1.52 i can´t edit nothing on the admin Panel (i mean i can´t edit the shoutbox entries).Maybe i have to reinstall it?
But priority has the look. Hope there is a solution for this.
Sorry for making so much questions. After the Update to wordpress 1.52 i can´t install the shoutbox anymore. I delete the sql table (drop table) and put the file into the plugin folder. After that i wanted to start the installation, but it send me an 404 error. The problem is that the Installer link is pointing to a wrong direction
nameofblog/wp-admin/wp-shoutbox/admin.php?page=wp-shoutbox.php&install=yes
So i guess the double wp-admin cause the trouble!?
Any idea for this.
Thx in advance
Hi,
solved the problem above ( with downloading the file and fresh install) But now its funny, the install works fine and the SB is displayed like it should. But now it won´t save the shoutentries. I mean i can´t insert a shout. The SB remains empty. Any idea for this?? Feedback would be great, as i love this plugin.
regards
Hi,
nice Plugin. BUT I have the same problems like Kate.
WordPress database error: [Table 'db_user_xx.wp_shoutbox' doesn't exist]
SELECT * FROM wp_shoutbox ORDER BY shout_date DESC
If I chage the theme it doesn`t help.
Some ideas???
Thanks
I installed the shoutBox, and everything is working great. People can post with virutally no problems. However there remains one problem…
When a user fills out the URL field (along with his name Name, Comment, and/or Email) the forum refreshes the page like normal, but the post doesn’t appear.
I did some further research and it seems that the URL cannot contain the “http://” part. The URL can only be http://www.whatever you want.com. Is this a known issue? Can I fix this somehow?
Currently, I have a note to users to only put www and on.
Sebas: Check that you’re using the latest WordPress version 1.5.2 and that the installation is successful.
Jourdan: It’s working fine for me here and also when I tested on your site.
I see that you tested it It isn’t working for me, nor for some other people. Perhaps it’s another issue?
Have you tried it here? Do tell me exactly what you fill in the fields for me to replicate the problem.
Do note also that the shouts are verified according to the same rules as your comments so maybe there could be some plugin you have that filters your comments.
could you please tell mehow to change the shoutbox background ? I’m a newbie so I don’t know what to do. Thank you very much
This plugin, does not work for me, I get a PHP error.
Parse error: parse error, unexpected $end in ***\www\wordpress\wp-content\plugins\wp-shoutbox.php on line 534
Hi! I just want to ask why the e-mail disappears on the when you try to edit a post. Is it supposed to be that way?
I just installed the shoutbox and I haven’t edited a single thing. So I’m kind of wondering.
i’ve got trouble i cant post it and show :
Error!
Your shout appears suspicious is flagged for moderation.
can you help me?
Oh somehow Akismet flagged your comment and spam. But if you get that Error the post is still saved but tagged as spam and hidden. You can recover the post through the admin interface.
I’m getting the [Table ‘xxxx_wrdp1.wp_shoutbox’ doesn’t exist] SELECT * FROM wp_shoutbox ORDER BY shout_date DESC error.
I’ve correctly uploaded, activated and put the code in the sidebar.
Is maybe because i’m using wp 2.0.3 or what the hell may it be?
it could be wp 2.0.3 having a different table naming structure. i haven’t taken a look at wp2 but i doubt it’s the cause. check if your database tables are correctly named.
Your shout appears suspicious is flagged for moderation. Whatever i change , the name , email , the message i get this
Hey there. I’ve been using your plugin for over a month now and its great. The other shoutboxes for WordPress just get overwhelmed by spam.
I have a question / request (don’t we all hate those): is it possible to show a history or log of all shouts? On one hand I don’t want the shoutbox in my sidebar to get too long, but on the other hand I want to let visitors see more shouts to know what is going on in the conversation.
My current solution is to show a lot of shouts and use a javascript slider (moo.fx accordion) to hide the ridiculously long shoutbox from burying all the other sidebar items But hopefully there is an elegant way to implement a history.
Hi Justin,
I’m currently working on updating this plugin with new features, of which is to add links to older entries and a moderation and spam list where it’ll hold shouts where you can validate.
Don’t worry as your shouts are all stored in the database. It’s just that I haven’t added in a feature to view them yet.
Give me some time as I’m halfway through the testing but currently got bogged down with work and stuff. I’ll try to release it as soon as possible.
Ah yes, a link to older entries would be great. It just occured to me I could probably look through the code, figure out how to print the shouts stored in the database and just make my own page.
A moderation queue for shouts would be great too, as currently shouts that fail the comment moderation/Akismet spam test just disappear. I’m not sure how your plugin really works but possibly the comments aren’t assigned to a post/page?
Anyway good things are worth waiting for so take your time with the update 
Hello,
Just wondering if anyone could help. I did something stupid and started my blog using a numerical archive system, and now I'd like to change it so that the post title is part of the URL for SEO reasons. Is there any Wordpress plugins that anyone knows of that could switch it without sending Googlers to invalid pages? Maybe some sort of redirector to the correct page?
Thanks.
me says,
17 Jun 2006, 2:09 am
Oh somehow Akismet flagged your comment and spam. But if you get that Error the post is still saved but tagged as spam and hidden. You can recover the post through the admin interface.
—————————-
and where’s that??? i searched all categories in my admin area but there’s no hidden comments!
hi, i have been using your shoutbox for some time, and have recently changed to a new theme that uses widgets. i have since been unable to add your shoutbox into the theme’s sidebar. does your shoutbox support widget?
Hey man i was using another shoutbox but its started getting annoying because of spam posts, then i found yours wow i just installed it but i think it will work just fine, i was wondering though if you could in the next version make it use ajax? like this plug in, then it would be the perfect shoutbox, thanks
http://blog.jalenack.com/ajax/
hi Kush, I would like to make it ajax but I don’t really have the time to.
I developed this shoutbox because of my own needs and don’t mind sharing it with others. But as you can tell my the traffic to my blog, I don’t require ajax as my shoutbox traffic is very high.
I’m ok with someone else develop on my shoutbox, as long as the source is shared and credit is given.
That said, there might be a remote possibility of me working on it in the future. Problem is my own “development” build is quite out of sync with the release version, so I might have to plug the gap first.
Hi, I just find your blog. I’m sorry for this dumb question coz I’m beginner, I just want to know how to install your plug-in into my WP-blog? Can you show me where the plug-in lies in the WP (it is in dashboard or Presentation?) because I can’t find it. Thank you.
i just want to share this for those who are having problems with the toggle.
when i installed the plugin the form was visible which shouldn’t be since the link says “Show Form”. inorder to hide the form from default you have to add display: none; to your code
change it to this
i hope that helps.
i got an error that show sql synthax
WordPress database error: [Out of range value adjusted for column 'user_id' at row 1]
INSERT INTO wp_comments (comment_post_ID, comment_author, comment_author_email, comment_author_url, comment_author_IP, comment_date, comment_date_gmt, comment_content, comment_approved, comment_agent, comment_type, user_id) VALUES (’-1′, ‘tes’, ‘babywalk3r@yahoo.com’, ‘http://www.waykay.net’, ‘127.0.0.1′, ‘2007-08-26 16:45:57′, ‘2007-08-26 08:45:57′, ‘huahuahuahuah harusnya dari tadi ini bisa kok jadi dodol begini sih arghkkkkk cape dech hikz (sad) (sing)’, ‘0′, ‘Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6′, ’shoutbox’, ”)
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1]
DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_id =
can u explain what im supposed to do with this error??
two things
1. when you post a shout, it doesn’t get added
2. it redirects to index page instead of the page you are on
and 3 is this plugin where shots have to be approved before being displayed ?
hi ovidiu,
I have not been working and maintaining wordpress plugins for some time. Thus I can’t really say if it is working and compatible through all the different versions of WP. Guess you have to try it for yourself.
I was just asking because with wp 2.3 the table structure changed quite a bit 
and as I saw you are also running wp 2.3.1 ….
btw. don’t you have a demo isntall of your shoutbox running somewhere?
Yah I was running my own shoutbox until I switched to using sidebar widgets and haven’t had time to incorporate it in. Anyway the shoutbox uses its own tables.
I gave it a try, seemed to work pretty well, although I have no clue how to test if shouts really get fitlered through my antispam plugins except for waiting to see if spam gets through…
I was wondering if anyone here using this on Wordpress 2.3 could post their site so I can see what it looks like?
one more thing… when I posted… your sidebar was filled with a litany of errors. Such as…
Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: No ending delimiter ‘:’ found in /home/thebemus/public_html/wordpress/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 668
Does this plugin have an archiving feature? Or old messages will disappear later on as the shoutbox becomes full?
Regarding my sidebar error, it just shows that I haven’t fully transited into widgets yet. But it’s not a fatal error so I’ll fix it when I have the time.
On Can’s question, not to worry as all the old messages are still in the database. I just didn’t write a function to retrieve and display them. They might not be visible but they’re still around.
hey there!
Im trying to download the latest version of the plugin from here but it says that its version 1.7 on both the download link and the view source link, can you direct me to where i can get 1.8 ? Really need it to work with spam karma and i dont think 1.7 is doing that
I think i just forgot to change the version number in the heading. The change log in the file shows that it’s ver 1.8.
Hi,
Can you drop me an email? I wish to discuss with you why your error_log file (generated/updated when accessing: http://waikay.net/2005/03/plugin-shoutbox) is/was being written to a subdirectory in my space.
Thanks,
KM
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