Chatstack v5.0 Release

Chatstack (formerly Live Help Messenger) v5.0 is available for download in the customer area. The following major features were implemented in this release.

Major Core Rewrite

A major rewrite of the database layer code was implemented for this release. We additionally increased the minimum server requirements to PHP 5.3.7 with PDO and MySQL 5.1 This core rewrite will help speed up future development and allow us to move to a faster release cycle in the near future.

Updated Chat Tab Design

The design of the chat tab was improved in this release, featuring a much cleaner design with easy options to change the chat tab color, without needing to edit CSS files. A cleaner design allows for you to customise the live chat to seamlessly fit your branding.

You can easily change the chat tab color to several preset color themes. The color theme can be changed by adding a JavaScript setting to the live chat HTML code.

LiveHelpSettings.theme = 'turquoise';

Various theme options are available: default , green , turquoise , blue , purple , pink and orange There is also advanced options for customizing the chat tab if these color themes don’t suit your website design or brand, see How can I customise the chat tab colors?.

Improved Initiate / Proactive Chat

The initiate chat or proactive chat feature has been improved to help build trust and improve converting browsing visitors into chatting customers. We highly recommend that you setup photos for your team members so that you build trust with your customers. Team photos can be easily managed using Gravatar

Updated Web App UI

The web app for your operators was updated within this release to improve the user experience when chatting. You can now easily switch between chats from any section without having to close panels. We also improved retina display support and the navigation menus were overhauled.

SMTP Support

Having trouble sending emails using the PHP in-built mail() function? You can now easily setup authenticated SMTP server settings for sending offline emails and chat transcripts. We recommend using an email API such as Mailgun or Mandrill as they offer great free plans.

Simply edit the /livehelp/include/database.php and add:

// Override Settings
$_SETTINGS = array();

// Recommended SMTP Providers
// mandrill.com or mailgun.com
$_SETTINGS['SMTPHOST'] = '';
$_SETTINGS['SMTPPORT'] = 587;
$_SETTINGS['SMTPUSERNAME'] = '';
$_SETTINGS['SMTPPASSWORD'] = '';
$_SETTINGS['SMTPSECURE'] = 'tls'; // Use 'tls' or 'ssl'

Further instructions for these SMTP settings are available in the support article Can I setup SMTP authentication for sending emails?

Updated Product Branding

Since our first release in 2003 we have been marketing our live chat software under the Live Help Messenger brand. We are excited to update the product branding to Chatstack and we have a new website at chatstack.com You can read more about these changes in our previous blog post.

New Customer Support Portal

We have updated our support portal so it is much easier to search and locate relevant self-help articles. The support portal features a site-wide search along with a new Q&A section.

If you would like to purchase our professional upgrade service, available for $59 then please contact us via. email or live chat.