Over the course of the summer I have tried hard to install a shoutbox into a new forum I was developing. I went to the Invisionalize forums and found several mods for shoutboxes, but none of them seemed to work. I first tried to install the D-Shoutbox, but upon this first try, I was unsuccessful. Eventually, after much frustration, and trying other mods, which didn't seem to stack up to Dean's features, I was determined to make it work. For some, editing your files (to the newbie that is) can be difficult, with everything looking like a foreign language (basically it is).

So I dedicate my time to fellow members of Trap17 who want a shoutbox for their Invision Power Board. I want to make it easy for you, the newbie, to install and run your very own shoutbox. I hope you will find this easier than reading the actual D-Shoutbox instrucitons.

Here is a link to my forum with the shoutbox installed if you would like a demo
www.johnstownchiefs.trap17.com/forum
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Let's start the process.

1. First off, if you would like to install a shoutbox into your forum, you must go to the invisionalize forums and register. GO TO THE FORUMS AND REGISTER FIRST!

http://forums.invisionize.com/index.php

2. After registering, it will say you must wait until receiving the confirmation email, but that is not true, go ahead and log in (you must log in in order to download the D-Shoutbox package).

3. After doing this, click on the below link to take you to the D-Shoutbox mod.

http://mods.invisionize.com/db/index.php/f/1287

4. At the bottom of the page, click on "download", then on the next page, agree to the terms. At this time, the download notification should pop up. Click on save to save the compressed folder.

5. After the download, the D-Shoutbox folder should pop up. You will want to extract all files, so extract them to a place of your choosing.

6. After doing this, you will want to open the D-Shoutbox folder. Inside, you will see many additional folders, such as "html, style_images, sources, lang, Skin, and SQL Queries". For the newbie such as I once was, you should know that these are folders located in the name of your IPB (Invision Power Board) directory (in file manager(inside www folder)).
Important: For all folders and files you will involve, change, and upload, you will need to change your permissions to "777". To do this simply click on the folder or file, and on the right hand screen you will see "Change Permissions". Click on that to change them.

7. First lets take care of the "html" folder. In your file manager, in your IPB folder, click to access the contents of the html folder. Create a new folder "shoutbox" and change permissions to 777. Now click to go inside this new folder. Now create folders from the number 1 through the number 12. After doing so, click inside folder "1", then click on "upload file(s)". From there, browse to your downloaded D-Shoutbox folder, click on html, then shoutbox, then 1, and upload all of the images. (For some reason, I thought I didn't have to upload all of these images from folders 1 through 12, but the shoutbox wouldn't work when I didn't, so to be safe, go ahead and do it). After uploading these images, go to folder "2", and go ahead and proceed to upload all of the images located within folders 1-12. You don't have to change permissions for the images.

You are now done with uploading with the "html" folder.

8. Lets take care of the "lang" folder. Click to access its contents, you will see the "en" folder. Click to see its contents, and click to upload files. Browse your downloaded folders to find the "lang_shoutbox" file and upload it.

You are now done uploading files under the "lang" folder.

9. Next is the "Skin" folder. Click to access its files and folders, then click on "s1". Inside, click to upload files and browse to find the two files "skin_shoutbox" and "skin_shoutbox2". Proceed to upload.

You are now done uploading files under the "Skin" folder.

10. Now lets access the "sources" folder. Inside you will need to see these three folders - "Admin" "Shoutbox" and "storeitems". If you do not see these folders you need to create them and type them exactly as punctuated. After this, go inside your "Admin" folder. Proceed to upload the file "ad_Shoutbox". Now go back and click to get inside your "Shoutbox" folder and proceed to upload the five files located under the same folder of your downloaded folder. Now go back to "storeitems", click to access inside and create the folder "dshoutbox". After creation go inside the folder and upload the 9 files you should see under the same folder of your downloaded folder.

You are now done uploading files under the "sources" folder.

11. Now go to "style_images" folder, and click to access its contents. You will see the "1" folder, click inside to access and upload the files you will see under the same folder of your downloaded folder.

You are finished uploading into the "style_images" folder.

Now go back to your main set of folders (where you will also see "sources, style_images, Skin", etc...). Create the folder "SQL Queries", click to access its contents and upload "Install SQL".

You are now finsished with the "SQL Queries" folder.

12. Only a few more things to upload. Now, under your main set of folders, go to upload, and upload the following files you downloaded - "dinstall" and "sb_iframe". Now only one more file to upload. Go back to you "www" folder and upload the following file "sb_web"

*Check point* Now this may be easier if you have an FTP client, but if you don't like me then this has taken a period of time to do. Take a breath there fella, relax for a second. But, make sure everything you have clicked and uploaded has had its permissions changed to "777". This is important. Also change your IPB folder's permissions to "777". Now you are ready for the installation. This is where I will try to make it as easy as possible for you.

1. Open up the "read me" file in the D-Shoutbox folder you downloaded. This is our reference.

2. Go to your IPB main folder, click on "dinstall.php", and on the right hand side a the bottom click on the option of opening it in a browser. In the opened browser, click on install button, and afterwards, delete it out of your directory.

3. Now, back in the D-Shoutbox read me file, click to do the edits for index.php. To be safe, go ahead and change permissions to 777 for all of the files you will be editing.

It will tell you to look for the following, but when inside index.php you will not see this.



Instead, look for the following located a little more than 2/3 the way down the file.



Above this, go ahead and copy and paste the code...



Next you will need to find the following code.


You can find this code relatively close to the previous code in the first step, it is basically right below it.

Insert the following below the code.

Save the file and move on to admin.php editing.

4. In admin.php, the code you need to find is almost at the very bottom of the file. Go ahead and find

and paste below that...


Save the file and move on to editing sources/functions.php.

5. After opening the file, the code you will need to find is a little before 2/3 of the way down. You can find it relatively after


After finding

you will want to add this below


Next find

It is located about 7/8 of the way down. Copy and paste this after the previous code


Save the file and move on to editing sources/Usercp.php.

6. This one should be easy to do, not hard to find what you need to look for. Scroll down not to far from the very top and you should see the code you need to find.

Go ahead and proceed with the instructions, adding the following below

After this, scroll all the way to the bottom, all the way, and paste above

the following code shown in the instructions (extremely large code, I won't paste it here, but you should know what the code is to paste).

Go ahead and save the file and move on to editing sources/Admin/admin_pages.php.

7. This step is also fairly easy. Simply scroll all the way to the bottom, you will immediately see the code you are told to find. Copy and paste the code instructed above the ?> and save the file.

8. Open up sources/lib/usercp_functions.php. This is another easy edit. Simply scroll all the way to the bottom and paste the large instructed code above
Go ahead and save the file and move on to editing lang/en/lang_error.php

9. Very easy one again. At the very beginning of the file, you'll easily find the code

Go ahead and paste the instructed code below.

Save the file and move on to editing lang/en/lang_online.php.

10. This is not a large file, so you should have no trouble finding the code. Follow the instructions, find the code, and place below the added code.

Save the file and move on to editing lang/en/lang_ucp.php.

11. This is easy as well. At the very top you'll see the code you are looking for. Follow the instructions placing the new code below the code you were told to find.

Save the file and go to edit skin/s1/skin_global.php.

12. The first step is easy, the code to find is once again at the top of the page. Copy and paste the new code below the code you were told to find.

The second code you are to find is located just about 1/2 way down the file. Find the code

and simply place

below that.

Save the file and proceed to edit skin/s1/skin_ucp.php.

13. The first code you will need to find in this large file is between 1/2 way down and 2/3 way down the file. If you can come across the code

then a few lines below that you should find what you are looking for. So go ahead and find

and place below the following.


The second code you need to find is easily found at the very bottom of the file. Simply copy and paste the added code above the
Go ahead and save the file.

*NOTE* If you have more than one skin already, you will need to do steps 12 and 13 for every other skin you have (such as if you have a folder s2, s3, etc...).

Wow, time for the breather. Get a drink, stretch, whatever, you the newbie is about to see your new shoutbox. Go to your forum, log in and access your admin CP. Go to the board wrappers section under skins and templates, select the skin to edit and find the Place below that. Do this for every skin.

Boom, it's over. Go to your forums homepage and see if your shoutbox is there. You can change your shoutbox settings in you admin cp if you want to, it is found at the bottom of your admin cp controls.

- Common errors -

If you have errors, then one of the following may have happened.
1. You did not change your permissions to 777 for everything you edited, created, or uploaded.
2. The database may not have been automatically updated.

If your database was not updated, simple go to your main control panel, click on phpMyAdmin, select the database your forum runs on, and run the following quiery.



If this still doesn't work, let me know and I will see what I can do. The support forum for this mod over on the invision forums basically no longer gives support, so if anything goes wrong let me know and I'll be sure to do my best to help you.

I hope this makes it easier for all of the newbies out there. It seemed like a overwhelming task to me at first, but with some patience, it turns out it wasn't that hard. Good luck to everyone out there who uses this to install their new shoutbox, and I hope to hear good results.

- elevenmil

interesting tutorial it should help those starting out in the forum making to install a shoutbox for quicker communication.

thanks man your the best i was just trying to do this. it never installed to so hopefull i will understand this and get my shoutbox set up thanks again

I'm not sure if I'm for or against this tutorial.
Everyone who has already installed IPB and extensions knows that those addons come with tutorials just like yours and if you follow you can install it very easy... But... every tutorial is welcome, so... Thanks!

Yes, the mods have their own installation instructions, that is mentioned in the tutorial...to use the D-Shoutbox instructions as a reference...

This tutorial is aimed at the newbie, it breaks down the instructions and gives you a better idea of where to find the codes. Also, it is important to note that when editing the index.php file you won't find the code it tells you to look for, so this fixes up that little problem too.

I am a newbie and I have encountered an error when I finished the installation and editing.

When I want to access my website it shows an mysql eror like this:


on my adminCP all works perfectly, also the Dshotbox menu appears and most of its functions works except the main page on it.

DO you have some suggestions?