Chat plugin by BoWoB Chat for Drupal footer message how to remove

Same here, although I attempted to remove this, but when once logged in, it appears yet again. Which leads me to believe it's implemented via the BoWoB server, one way or another. Not too certain, didn't look into it much... yet.

First time I ever experience something of this sort on a drupal module. I mean even Drupal itself doesn't do this. I know there are open software applications out there which direct users to leave these sort of "copyright" links, such as say Simple Machines Forums etc. but again, even Drupal itself doesn't do this.

Anyone know of similar alternatives to this module?

I like the facebook like feel, but not too certain on it's "dependencies".

I believe something confined to Drupal itself would be much more ideal and thus non-dependent on 3rd party servers.

Not to mention privacy issues come up, in regards to sending chat to unknown servers.

I'd be interested in supporting something more dependent on Drupal, but yet similar to this module's MultiPage, which is similar to Facebook's chat. I don't care much for the MonoPage.

I noticed the set up for this isn't quite straight forward either, was a bit confusing at first. Would be much more ideal and simpler if setting up was done via the Drupal Admin panel rather than another site.

Anyone?

The link "Chat plugin by BoWoB Chat for Drupal" can be removed from the code of the module.
After that, the link only appears when the chat is showed, to remove it you may contact with BoWoB Support at www.bowob.com .

I'm somehow new to drupal also if i've already installed a lot of modules but this is the first odd one i've found.
I tend to agree this is really not a "proper" drupal module since it relies on unkown third party server. I find the layout is nice but i can't really use it because of being in a privacy-broken environment. I have to run drupal on a website where the privacy has a crucial matter so this is not a choice. I guess i'll end with writing it myself as soon as i get confidence with drupal API and modules development.
May I ask to the developer the reason of writing a such third-party dependent module?
Personally i see no good reasons but i wish you can enlighten us.
Regards

I think this module needs some settings page..

In your page.tpl.php put

I tried to message Bowob support several times regarding footer removal. Please respond or check your junk folder.

Hi looks like I'm not the only one here trying to get rid of the "Chat plugin by BoWoB Chat for Drupal" link at the bottom of the page. It's a fantastic module, though I feel that the forced link at the bottom of the page blights this fantastic chat app. I'm sure that if the link was made an optional feature for the user to choose, I'm sure people would be more than glad to display it. However there are sites that can't display such links.

So how does one remove the link. Written to bowop support and still waiting for an answer.

Bowob I can see you've added code to the 'bowob_cfg' database table.
Where it says "Chat plugin by a href="http://www.bowob.com/" target="_blank">BoWoB Chat for Drupal" Every time I delete this it works for a while but then this code is updated from the chat server I presume. I tried to lock this table but then the chat app stopped working.

Looks like you've gone to great lengths to ensure this link appears on the bottom of the page.

Grateful for any help regarding how this can be disabled from the bowob.module file.

The module is great, and would actually be very usefull if the byline could be removed. It is unfortunately not an option for me (and many others) to use the module with the byline forced to the footer.

Bowob, will you respond to this issue with a solution to move the byline? Or, state if it is your position that the byline stays?

This will save me time so that I can either focus on this module or start searching for alternatives.

Thanks and regards Morten

It seems that any attempt to get in contact with the developer fails. I have, together with the rest of you, posted my requests here. I have followed his own suggestion and send an e-mail on support@bowob.com. I have resend my mail again.

In every case there are no reaction.

The conclusion must be that the developer has no interest either in his product, in this issue or in his potential users of the module.

It is sad. It has great potential.

You can get rid of the "Chat plugin by BoWoB Chat for Drupal" if you parse that part out of the $closure string before it is printed. That's what I did. It's been working great on my site.

Where do I find this $closure string?

in page.tpl.php for your theme

Ok, I found this: print $closure;

at the bottom of the page.tpl.php.

How/what do I "parse it out"?

Change that part to

<?php 
$new = substr($closure, 0, strpos($closure, '<div style="float: left; clear: both; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; text-align: center; font-size: 10px;">Chat plugin by <a href="http://www.bowob.com/" target="_blank">BoWoB Chat for Drupal</a></div><div style="float: left; clear: both; width: 1px; height: 26px;"></div>'));
print $new;
?>

Wow, so simple. But it realy works on my site too. Thanks a lot for your help!

It worked for me too, how ever it caused my twitter block module to stop working and it caused shadowbox to stop working on all of my pictures so i had to disable it :(

Well me too. It made my facebook-connect stop working. So though it seemed an easy solution it just adds other issues.

The problem is that when I remove:

print $closure;

from page.tpl.php my fbconnect module stops working. It kind of needs that one.

So, I am still interested in a way around this.

And, still wondering what happend to bowob the developer...?

I'm in the process of learning PHP, but i have coded in different languages before, and from what i can gather the code in post #15 is creating a substring of the $closure string, which starts at 0 and ends at where the bowob footer starts, so anything after bowob gets cut out. To fix this problem, if anyone knows any PHP, use the substring from the post in #15 to get the beginning of $closure all the way through the beginning of the bowob footer, and then concatenate it with a substring starting with the end of the bowob footer through the end of $closure.

Logically, this should work, I just don't know if the syntax is right for PHP.

<?php 
// this is the code from #15
$beginning = substr($closure, 0, strpos($closure, '<div style="float: left; clear: both; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; text-align: center; font-size: 10px;">Chat plugin by <a href="http://www.bowob.com/" target="_blank">BoWoB Chat for Drupal</a></div><div style="float: left; clear: both; width: 1px; height: 26px;"></div>'));

// this should grab the string in $closure starting at where it finds the first occurence of bowob + 292
// 292 is the amount of characters in the '<div style=....' string
// and the substr ends at the end of $closure by getting strlen($closure)
$end = substr($closure, strpos($closure, '<div style="float: left; clear: both; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 5px; text-align: center; font-size: 10px;">Chat plugin by <a href="http://www.bowob.com/" target="_blank">BoWoB Chat for Drupal</a></div><div style="float: left; clear: both; width: 1px; height: 26px;"></div>')+292, strlen($closure));

//I'm not sure how to concatenate strings in php, but $new should be $beginning + $end
$new=$beginning.$end;
print $new;
?>

Edit: added semicolon, code should work now.

@daveeddydotcom, you may be new to php but your code snippet seems to work. You just have to add an ";" at the end of "$new=$beginning.$end".

My fbconnect shows now and the chat byline is gone. Both just as intended.

I will test some more to be sure but it looks good. Thanks a lot for your help :-)

oh yeah that sounds about right, I had just done a lot of bash scripting so I'm not used to that strict need for a semicolon.. thanks!

Edit: Just tested the code i posted and i too can say that it is working!

Edit 2: this fails if the user disables the chat feature (x's it out), because the code still trys and strip it out. Is there any way to check in PHP if it is successful when searching for the 'bowob' string? because we can search for that, and right an if [ string_found ]; print $new; else; print $closure; fi

Yes I see that fail and it is of couse critical.

I have no programming skills my self so I can't help on this one but hopefully some one can.

Right now it brings us back to the initial point again as the problem is not solved yet. But it seems that we on the right course.

Another approach could also be to disable the x-out function in the chat module. But again, I do not not have the skills my self to do that.

Update:

This issue kind of closed it self. The chat module is now offered in two versions: with or without advertising. If you buy the pro version you will not have the byline nor any other adds.

I am therefore closing the thread.

Thanks for the inputs here to all that contributed.