Arena – Group Chat for Real-Time Engagement vs Init Chat Engine – Real-Time, Community, Extensible

Arena Group Chat is the ultimate tool for driving user engagement in real-time. Whether hosting live events or maintaining ongoing community interactions, Group Chat helps transform your audience from passive viewers into active participants. It seamlessly integrates with your website, offering advanced customization and analytics to enhance engagement and business growth. Key Features of Arena Group Chat: – Real-time group messaging for events and communities – Polls, Q&As, and interactive features for enhanced user participation – Customizable layouts to match your brand’s identity – Responsive design optimized for both desktop and mobile – Easy to integrate with a free Arena account – GDPR compliance with a focus on privacy and first-party data collection – Powerful analytics to track engagement and impact – Integration with Arena’s other products like Live Blog and Arena Community – Scalable to support major events with millions of users Group Chat helps to keep your audience engaged by offering dynamic, interactive experiences that encourage participation and increase time spent on your site. Third-Party Services This plugin utilizes the Arena.im API (https://api.arena.im/v3) to provide chat functionality. The plugin communicates with Arena.im servers for the following purposes: Authentication (/oauth/tokens) Retrieving organization information (/organizations) Fetching site details (/organizations/{organization_id}/sites) Managing chat instances (/sites/{site_id}/chats) Data Transmission When you use this plugin, it sends requests to the Arena.im API. This may include: – Authentication tokens – Organization and site IDs – Chat-related data No personal user data is sent to Arena.im servers unless explicitly input by users in chat messages. More Information For more information about Arena.im and their services, please visit their website: https://arena.im By using this plugin, you agree to Arena.im’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy: – Terms of Service: https://arena.im/terms-of-service/ – Privacy Policy: https://arena.im/privacy-policy/ It is your responsibility to ensure that your use of this plugin and the Arena.im service complies with all applicable laws and regulations, including data protection laws in your jurisdiction. Arena Group Chat – Support For additional setup and usage guidance, visit Arena’s Help Center. Website Find more details at Arena.im. Contact Us Need help? Chat with us at app.arena.im, and our team will respond within hours.

Init Chat Engine is a clean and minimal frontend chatbox plugin, designed for homepage or site-wide communication with comprehensive administrative controls. This plugin is the core user system behind the Init Plugin Suite – optimized for frontend-first interaction, extensibility, and real-time gamification. GitHub repository: https://github.com/brokensmile2103/init-chat-engine Key Features: Frontend Experience: – Built with 100% REST API and Vanilla JS – No jQuery, no bloat – blazing fast – Fully embeddable via [init_chatbox] shortcode – Guest messaging support (optional) – Smart polling system (adaptive 3.5–10s based on activity, up to 20s when the chatbox is scrolled out of view) – Browser notifications when new messages arrive – Scroll-up to load history, scroll-down to auto-scroll – Optimistic sending & “new message” jump button – Clean UI with customizable themes – Template override supported (chatbox.php) Administrative Control: – Complete Settings Panel – Basic, Security, and Advanced configurations – Message Management – Search, view, delete messages with pagination – User Moderation – Ban/unban users by IP or user ID with expiration – Rate Limiting – Prevent spam with configurable message limits – Word Filtering – Block messages containing prohibited words – Statistics Dashboard – View chat activity, user engagement, and trends – Cleanup Tools – Automatic and manual cleanup of old messages – Custom CSS Support – Full styling customization options Security & Moderation: – IP-based and user-based banning system – Configurable rate limiting (messages per minute) – Word filtering with custom blocked word lists – Message moderation queue (optional) – Automatic cleanup of old messages and expired bans – Admin override capabilities Multilingual Ready: – Translation-ready with full .pot file included – Vietnamese translation included – Easy to translate to any language Perfect for community-based sites, forums, fanpages, manga readers, SaaS dashboards, customer support, or any interactive chat widget. Shortcode Attributes Shortcode [init_chatbox] supports the following attributes: height – Set chat height (e.g., height="400px") width – Set chat width (e.g., width="100%") theme – Apply custom theme (e.g., theme="dark") show_avatars – Override avatar setting (true/false) show_timestamps – Override timestamp setting (true/false) title – Add custom chat title class – Add custom CSS classes id – Set custom container ID Example: [init_chatbox height="500px" title="Community Chat" theme="modern"] Filters for Developers This plugin provides filters and actions to allow developers to extend word filtering, message processing, and chat behavior without modifying core files. init_plugin_suite_chat_engine_word_filter_strategy Modify word filtering strategy (substring, word, regex). Applies to: Message validation Params: string $strategy, array $settings, string $message init_plugin_suite_chat_engine_blocked_words Modify the blocked-words list before validation. Applies to: Message validation Params: array $blocked_words, array $settings, string $message init_plugin_suite_chat_engine_bypass_filter Bypass filtering under custom conditions (VIP, internal users, etc.). Applies to: Message validation Params: bool $bypass, string $message, WP_User|null $user, array $settings init_plugin_suite_chat_engine_word_block_hit (action) Triggered when a word filter rule blocks a message. Applies to: Message validation Params: string $blocked_word, string $message, string $strategy init_plugin_suite_chat_engine_enrich_message_row Extend chat message data (add flags, metadata, user info, etc.). Applies to: Backend DB → JSON output Params: array $message_row, WP_User|null $user License This plugin is licensed under the GPLv2 or later. You are free to use, modify, and distribute it under the same license.