1.2.1. Configuration overview, syntax and conventions

Configuration overview

RealChat Client is configured by editing plain text configuration files and/or by passing name,value pairs to the applet. The configuration files reside in the conf/ sub-directory of the client installation path ( e.g. /home/username/public_html/chat/conf/ ).

Changes to the configuration files are only recognized by RealChat Client when it is started ( i.e. you must reload client applet HTML page in your browser in order the latest changes to take effect ). The client will, by default, look for configuration file called RealChatClient.conf, however you may override the default name.

You may also override any of the configuration directives specified in the config file by adding a <param> tag somewhere in the <applet> section in the HTML page of the chat client. For each directive the client will, by default, first look for a corresponding <param> tag in the HTML page, and then check the config file. Note that if you don't specify a value for a parameter, the client will use a default value.

Common conventions

You should keep as much directives as possible in a config file, and put in the HTML page only parameters which are supposed to change dynamically ( e.g. user name / profile data ). This will make your life easier, as you won't need to update your HTML pages every time you change applet colors, for example.

You may also have several different config files, each one describing a different user interface, and run the client from several parts of a site, each leading into a diffrent chatroom. For example you may want to give your registered users access to all the features, and say, disable features like images, color settings or emotion list for non-registered visitors.

Syntax of the Configuration Files

The configuration files contain one directive per line. Directives in the configuration files are case sensitive. Lines which begin with the hash character # are considered comments, and are ignored:

# user preferences ( default values )
showFontStyles = yes
showFontColors = yes

# port number
PORT = 8088

Syntax of the Applet Tag

Below is how the applet tag for RealChat Client should be specified in the applet HTML page. The codebase parameter identifies the base URL for the applet code. The code parameter specifies which class is the applet class (which class the browser should run initially). Archive is a parameter that tells the browser to download a .jar file and use the classes that are stored in, for faster load. Width and height give the overall dimensions of the applet. MAYSCRIPT allows the applet to interact with the browser and store cookies for user profiles and preferences.

It is safe to leave the global parameters unchanged. You can however change the width and height parameters, and add custom configuration directives using param name, value pairs:

<applet 
  codebase = "."
  archive  = "RealChat.jar"
  code     = "rcs.client.RealChatClient.class"
  name     = "ChatClient"
  width    = "300"
  height   = "100"
  MAYSCRIPT>

  <param name="PORT" value="8088">

  <param name="fontFace" value="Dialog">
  <param name="loginPanelColors" value="333366,AEAAAE">
    .
    .
    .

</applet>