The Most Common Questions

1. Where can I get a full feature list?
2. Can I change the templates to use a language other than English?
3. Are there plans to link to other servers? (eg ICQ, AIM etc)
4. Can I make DBabble run on port 80 together with existing web pages?
5. What are the differences between DBabble and DNews?
6. Can I customize the web browser interface?
7. Can I customize the Windows client interface?
8. Performance seems really bad when using with Netscape's Web Browser on Windows 2000
9. Does DBabble support encryption?
10. Can the Windows client be automatically configured to connect to my DBabble server?
11. Is the source code available for the server and/or Windows client.
12. What is the difference between using a Windows Server and a Windows WorkStation for your DBabble server?
13. How can I make the web browser interface go directly to a particular chat room when the user logs in?
14. I can connect to DBabble from my local network, but I can't connect from the internet.
15. I can't connect to the DBabble web pages and the DBabble error log contains lots of lines like "Can not listen on socket(port 8132) () The descriptor is not a socket"
16. How exactly does the "Members (Who receive messaes) can only see and communicate with other members" option in user groups work.
17. Any other questions? - Ask us at support-dbabble@netwinsite.com and we will be happy to answer them for you

1. Where can I get a full feature list? There is a list of some of the main features on the top DBabble page at index.html. There is a list that includes more of the minor features at features.htm
2. Can I change the templates to use a language other than English? You can, but the best way is to not change the web templates, but instead use DBabble's language translation feature which is available in DBabble versions 1.2b and later.
3. Are there plans to link to other servers? (eg ICQ, AIM etc) This feature was added but due to changes in the jabber protocol it is no longer functional, sorry.
4. Can I make DBabble run on port 80 together with existing web pages? No. DBabble takes full control of the port it listens on and no other programs or web pages can share it. However, if you don't have any existing web server on your DBabble server machine, then you can change the port setting to 80, and then users will be able to access your server using just the machine name. eg http://free.dbabble.com. However, some ISP's like to modify any http requests going through their system on port 80, and do things that can stop the windows client from working properly. For example removing the connection:keep-alive header. To get around this, set the port setting to "80", set the extra_ports setting to "8132", and set the win_host_port setting to your domain name followed by a space followed by 8132. For example "free.dbabble.com 8132". In this way, your server is referred to by default on port 80, but it also listens on port 8132, and the windows client downloads are automatically configured to connect to port 8132.
5. What are the differences between DBabble and DNews? DNews is actually an NNTP news-server which is able to host all, or a subset of the thousands of news-groups available world-wide, and give users access to the news-groups via news clients. It comes with DNewsWeb, which allows you do add a web interface to these newsgroups. DBabble on the other hand is intended for setting up a few local discussion groups (which can be optionally linked to external news-groups, and optionally available through news-clients), where you have to specifically set up each group you are wanting to be available. Dbabble is probably better for hosting non usenet groups or for ease of installation and use. DBabble also adds many features that DNews does not such as chat rooms and instant messaging, and a downloadable windows client. However, DBabble is recently released software (released during August 2000), so you may find DNews more reliable, although there are no known problems with the release version of DBabble.
6. Can I customize the web browser interface? Yes you can easily customize the interface for the web browser version by modifying the template pages in the tpl directory. See DBabble Templates for more information.
7. Can I customize the Windows client interface? Yes, you can change quite a few parts of the Windows Client interface. See Customizing the windows client for details.
8. Performance seems really bad when using with Netscape's Web Browser on Windows 2000. When running your own DBabble server on Windows 2000, and using Netscape's web browser on the same machine as the server is running to connect to it, you may find that you often get no reply for 10-20 seconds. This is because Netscape tries to use all of the CPU doing nothing while waiting for a reply to a web request, so the DBabble server does not get a chance to run. Either increase your process priority in the Control Panel-System-Advanced-Performance Options to background services, or increase the DBabble server priority setting.
9. Does DBabble support encryption? Yes. DBabble supports both SSL server to client encryption, and public key client to client encryption of instant messages. See DBabble encryption for details.
10. Can the Windows client be automatically configured to connect to my DBabble server? Yes, your DBabble server will automatically do this. When it runs, it automatically creates a version of the Windows client customized for your server and makes this available from a link on the web login page. If your users download and install this version, it will be automatically configured to connect to your server.
11. Is the source code available for the server and/or Windows client? Yes, we do sell source code licenses for both the DBabble server and Windows client. If you are interested in obtaining the source code see DBabble prices
12. What is the difference between using a Windows Server and a Windows WorkStation for your DBabble server? Windows WorkStations limit the number of incoming simultaneous new connections that any program running on it can simultaneously accept to 5. If more than this are made before the server gets around to processing them (which usually happens within a fraction of a second but may take up to a second if the server is busy) then the other connections will be rejected. Windows Servers have no limit on this. So if more than 5 clients make a request to the server within a second of each other, the connection may fail for some clients. Once a connection has been made, a program can keep as many connections open as it wants even on a WorkStation. As a guide line we suggest using a Windows Server rather than a Windows WorkStation if you expect to have more than about 50 simultaneous DBabble users.
13. How can I make the web browser interface go directly to a particular chat room when the user logs in? First find the group id of the chat room (it wil be listed on the chat room modify page). Then open the file tpl/login.htm in a text editor (e.g. notepad). Change the line:
    <input type="hidden" name="after_login_page" value=""> to:
    <input type="hidden" name="after_login_page" value="cmd=chat_list&gid=5"> where you replace the '5' with whatever the group id of the chat room you want to use is. After editing this file, do a DBabble reload command (dbabblesvr -reload)
14. I can connect to DBabble from my local network, but I can't connect from the internet.
    You probably have a firewall blocking incoming connections from the internet to port 8132. Make sure you allow this port in your firewall. For a complete list of other ports used by DBabble, see Ports used by DBabble.
15. I can't connect to the DBabble web pages and the DBabble error log contains lots of lines like "Can not listen on socket(port 8132) () The descriptor is not a socket"
    We see this problem occasionally on some Windows machines. We are not sure of the cause, but it seems to be related to something unusual in the operating system. Sometimes applying the latest Windows service pack will fix the problem, but sometimes that doesn't help.
    
    If you are using DBabble version 2.7p we have added a setting to work around this problem. Unfortunately this means you won't be able to use DBabble's external authentication option but other than that everything should still work. To get DBabble working on a machine with this problem, do the following:
    1. Install version 2.7p or later if you are not running that version already.
    2. In a command prompt, type
       

       net stop dbabblesvr
       

    3. Open c:\windows\dbabblesvr.ini in a text editor (for example notepad) and change the line that says:
       

       tcp_socket_dup true
       

       to
       

       tcp_socket_dup false
       

       and save and close the file.
    4. In a command prompt, type
       

       net start dbabblesvr
       

    5. Go to http://127.0.0.1:8132/admin in your web browser and DBabble should now be working
16. How exactly does the "Members (Who receive messaes) can only see and communicate with other members" option in user groups work.
    This option is used to restrict who the members of this user group can see and communicate with. All members of a group with this option on will only be able to see and communicate with other members of that group. If a user is a member of multiple user groups using this option then that user will be able to communicate with users in any of the groups they belong to. Note - administrator users can see and communicate with all users even if they belong to one or more of these user groups. For example:
    You have 2 user groups, "Group 1" and "Group 2", both of which have the "Members (Who receive messaes) can only see and communicate with other members" option on.
    "Group 1" contains users "A","B","C","D".
    "Group 2" contains users "C","D","E".
    Then
    User "A" will be able to see and communicate with users "B", "C" and "D"
    User "B" will be able to see and communicate with users "A", "C" and "D"
    User "C" will be able to see and communicate with users "A", "B", "D" and "E"
    User "D" will be able to see and communicate with users "A", "B", "C" and "E"
    User "E" will be able to see and communicate with users "C" and "D"
    
    Users can belong to any number of other user groups without the "Members (Who receive messaes) can only see and communicate with other members" option on and this won't have any effect on the above permissions.