Visual Chat is a freely distributable avatar chat system, 
featuring 3d perspective, upload of user images, 
different moods to which keywords and avatars can be connected, 
predefined avatars, creation of public or private chat rooms and an
intuitive graphical user-interface.

The client is a java applet running in your web-browser, 
the server-side components and detailed instructions 
on how to set up your own Visual Chat server are included as well.

Installation Instructions 

(1) Invoke install.exe, which will guide you through the installation process. 

(2) Copy the following folders and files to your webserver's document directory: 
admin/
chat/
images/
symantec/
chat.cab
chat.html
chat.jar

(3) Start the server process by invoking the program "chatserver" 
The exact commandline syntax is:
chatserver [ port [ serverkey [ storagefolder [ imagefolder [ roomfolder [ roomfilename [ loglevel ] ] ] ] ] ] ]
When starting up for the first time, the server will create the the user "Admin" with the default password "Admin".
Change the password immediately.
Use the admin-applet under admin/admin.html for remote server administration.
Store banned ip-addresses in a file named "banned_ip". A default "banned_ip"-file is included. 

(4) Start the chat client by opening "chat.html" in your browser.
Important note: The webserver and the chat server need to be running on the same physical machine.
Go sure that when testing the server connection you call the client applet via your webserver:
http://<your_server_name>/visualchat/chat.html
- don't run it over a file-codebase like
file://c|/visualchat/chat.html
because some browsers won't allow you to connect to the server (MSIE won't, Netscape will though). 

Please send a mail to arno.huetter@jk.uni-linz.ac.at in case you experience any difficulties when installing Visual Chat. 