ShoutChat allows developers to add an instant message (or IRC) like shout box to Web sites. The shoutchat is an iframe element (Mozilla compatible), and the script operates using Javascript and stores the messages in a MySQL database (a file gets complicated with synchronous posts, so a database was favored). The look of the box is controlled through styles. All the modern browsers are supported (including Konqueror). In order to act more like an instant chat, it handles some of the details that other shout boxes do not. It uses Javascript head requests to check for new messages, refreshing the iframe and scrolling down to the new message when one is detected. Several IRC features are included, such as channels. Finally, a text formatting engine called FastFormat code is used to decorate text and create special links.
