PHP Flat Visual Chat [Review] [Video]
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Today I will be reviewing PHP Flat Visual Chat from CodeCanyon. This is part of a series of reviews which I will do of some of the most popular support chat scripts and plugins available on CodeCanyon. I will be using the standalone PHP script however there is also a Wordpress Plugin available here. If interested in my video review please visit this link to head over and watch it on YouTube.
We will begin with the installation. The provided documentation is pretty clear and the installation is simple, simply drag the included folder to your website root. This folder will be where you access your admin panel.
Once that’s done we will need to edit the config.php file and add our database settings. If you don’t have a database for this script you will need to create a new one.
Next step is to first add the root url to the flat-visual-chat.js file and then include the javascript code in the footer of your page. Usually you will have a footer.php file or something similar as I do in my wordpress theme. If you have a standard html site you will have to add this javascript code to the bottom of every page that you want to show the chat on. If you need help with script installations you can have Anveto install this script for $30, click here to order. I added the javascript right next to my Anveto and Google tracking code which was already on the page.
Now you should be ready to try to see if it works. Navigate to the folder that you uploaded and you should see a promt to create the admin account. Then login with the details you just entered and you will be presented with your home page along with an overlay which is your admin control panel. You can test that this works by opening another browser, I used safari. I can type in a name and start chatting right away. The chat shows up at the bottom of the screen and a notification is heard when I receive a message.
Now what really sets this script apart from the others is that you can help the user navigate to different pages on your website. This is great if you need to show a user where to find something in the knowledgebase or perhaps where the user needs to go to begin the order process for a specific product or item.
I would greatly recommend this script to any person or business who needs to run any kind of chat support on their website. The chat is easy to use for both client and admin and I am impressed by the helpful features which I have not seen in other chat scripts that I have used in the past. Hope you liked the review, please leave any comments, suggestions and feedback below. I will work on getting more reviews up in the future. Oh and please do let me know if there is something which you would like to see reviewed!