Question

Has anyone had any success embedding a chat application on their TWiki site? I would love to do this but unfortunately since I have TWiki aliased to "http://myurl.com" I cannot access the open source chat program scripts I attempt to install since I get an "Access Denied." Does anyone know a simple workaround for this? I have a feeling somewhere, apache is blocking access to it because of a TWiki .httpd policy.

My aliasing is set up as follows in httpd.conf:

ScriptAlias /bin "/wikiserver/htdocs/bin"
Alias /pub "/wikiserver/htdocs/pub"
Alias / "/wikiserver/htdocs/bin/view/"

The chat I am looking to use is: http://www.phpfreechat.net/ since it offers a simple php-based configuration to install it. I just have to be able to put it in a location where apache can read it & will not deny me access to it.

Your comments & help would be greatly appreciated, especially with the whole apache "access denied messages".

Thanks again for all the great help from the TWikiCommunity !

Environment

-- BrianMahoney - 24 Aug 2007

Answer

Can you put the chat application somewhere else, in another virtual apache server? e.g: http://chat.myurl.com so you can set up more easily its apache rights independently from your TWiki?

-- ColasNahaboo - 25 Aug 2007

This is very interesting. Assuming the chat application is successfully installed in another directory outside of the TWiki install tree, how would one embed it on a wiki page? I'm not a web developer and so have no clue how that mix would work.

-- AlanDayley - 06 Sep 2007

I took a bit of time to attempt doing this myself.

• I setup http://www.phpfreechat.net/ on the same server as my TWiki installation
• The chat is working fine at http://myserver/chat with TWiki at http://myserver/twiki/bin/...
• Based on the information at IncludeTopicsAndWebPages, I created a topic in my sandbox web like this:

---

---+!!Test Chat
Will it embed?  That is the question!
---
%INCLUDE{"http://myserver/chat"}%
---

---

This resulted in:

---

Test Chat
Will it embed? That is the question!

Warning
    This site does not allow %INCLUDE% of URLs 

---

Well, after thinking about that result, I realized that "This site" in the error message referred to my TWiki. I found the setting {INCLUDE}{AllowURLs} in the configure page and set it to allow. After that the chat application loads. Sort of.

The chat text, etc loads into the topic but without all the boxes and other formatting that make it usable. So, it works but not in a usable way. I am guessing that the chat webapp is PHP based and this does not mix well when feeding through the Perl CGI of TWiki. Adding verbatim or pre tags around the INCLUDE only changes the arrangement of the chat webapp text and does not allow it to run properly.

-- AlanDayley - 14 Sep 2007

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Closing this after more than 30 days of inactivity. Please feel free to re-open if needed.

-- PeterThoeny - 01 Nov 2007

Change status to: AskedQuestions AssignedQuestions AnsweredQuestions ClosedUnanswered