Settings :

Your OxyShout shoutbox is setup, but you will want to change a few options to suit your needs. Click the options button in the admin area. You will be presented with a few options which you can change.

Theme :

Select the theme OxyShout uses, this is by default set to OxyShout, I'll show you how to make themes in a minute.

Posts to display :

This is the number of posts displayed in the shoutbox at one time.

Site title :

The title appears in the users's browser title bar.

Admin name :

The name you want to be displayed when you post using your secret name.

Secret name :

This is the name you use when you want to post as yourself, it stops people posing as you in the shoutbox.

Contact information :

Select e-mail or URL, it just changes what information OxyShout asks for from users.

Smileys:

On / Off, if you don't like smileys turn them off, you smiley hater ! :D

Bad Words :

On / Off, if you want a shoutbox full of expletives, turn it off.

Character Limit : The maximum amount of characters a message may contain.
Word Wrap : The maximum width of a line in a message before it goes onto a new line.

Password :

I recommend changing this from 'setup' to something else, for obvious reasons.

Click save when you're done.

Now I'll talk you through each section of the admin.

Posts :

Clicking posts lets you view the posts guests have left in your shoutbox, 20 at a time, clicking next and previous will show you more posts. You can edit or delete messages by clicking the appropriate link next to each post, it also has the option to view the post, which opens the post in a new window. A very useful feature, if your shoutbox is being abused is IP logging, especially when used in conjunction with the ban feature.

Smileys :

The smileys admin panel is only available if you have smileys enabled in your options, it lets you add, edit and delete smileys from each theme. When adding smileys, you enter the code you want it to use, e.g. ":D" , the image and which theme it is for, this allows you to have a different set of smileys for each theme, which is very useful. It comes preloaded with a selection of smileys for the default theme.

Bad Words :

The bad words admin panel is only available if you have bad words enabled in your options, it lets you add, edit and delete bad words. This is useful, because it lets you make your site more friendly to young people who might be offended by rude language which is often put in shoutboxes. When adding, you enter the bad word, and the word you want to show instead, even if its just ****. You will probably have to update the list regularly as some users will try to get round it.

Bans :

Adding an IP address into the ban list will stop anyone from that IP viewing the shoutbox, this is the last resort against annoying users. If users are being annoying, try asking them to stop before banning them, as this should be your very last resort, as it will often causes users to get extremely annoyed at you, and may increase their activities.

Now that its all setup, if you don't like the default OxyShout theme (tsk tsk), I'll show you how to make your own themes and templates.

Having set all this up, you'll probably want to display your shoutbox, the best way to do this is using an inline frame (IFRAME).

IFRAME :

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  browser doesn't support IFRAMES</iframe>

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