Exodus for Delphi Forums

Another way to participate in Delphi Forums chats and instant message with your friends

We are pleased to introduce you to Jabber, which we've fully integrated into our Delphi Forums and Chats.   

Jabber is an open source protocol, and our aim will be to have Delphi's services work with any client that adheres to that protocol.    However, different people interpret "standards" differently, so we have chosen to work with Exodus as the only client we support in the initial rollout.  Exodus is one of the leading "open source" Jabber clients.  It has no Delphi-specific code in it, though we have built the distribution files so that it is "branded" for Delphi, which basically means we preload it with Delphi server names to make it easier for you to get started.

We have implemented the Jabber protocol natively on our chat server, so that when you connect, you are in the same chat rooms as users who are using our PChat2 java client, and you have all the forum-based privileges associated with your username (so, if you're a host, you can change the room topic, kick people out, ban them, etc.)

Your "friends" list that you might be maintaining in the Delphi Forums profile system is automatically available to you when you use Exodus for Delphi.    Contacts that you add to or remove from the friends list (also known as your "Roster") in Exodus will be reflected in the web version of the profiles.

Please visit the Jabber Forum to get answers, help, and additional information, as well as to give us your feedback and make suggestions for improvement for the future.

Users who want to understand more about Jabber and Exodus can go to www.jabber.org and http://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/clients/

You must be a paid member in good standing in order to connect to our chat server using Exodus for Delphi.

Downloading & Installing Exodus

These downloads are for Windows users only.

Downloads (You only need one of these:  setup.zip contains only one file -- setup.exe, for convenience of those who can't or won't download .exe files.)

• setup.exe
• setup.zip

Setting up Exodus for your Member Name

Once you've downloaded, installed, and started Exodus for Delphi, enter your Delphi membername and password in your default profile.   Your Jabber ID ("JID") will be of the form "membername@delphiforums.com"

You can store several accounts or "Profiles" in Exodus.   For each profile, click "details" to ensure the correct settings:

• Under the "Profile" tab (after clicking the "details" button), your username should be your Delphi Forums Membername and the server should be "delphiforums.com".   Enter your password, and if you like check the "save password" box.  The Jabber resource can be anything you like, but can contain no spaces.   It's used by the server to distinguish between multiple connections from the same user.
• Under the "connection" tab, the connection type should be "normal", the host should be "chat.delphiforums.com," and the port should be 5222 (which is the standard Jabber port.)   Do not check the "Use SSL" box (we do not support it.)   You can set the priority if you like;  the server uses it to decide which of multiple connections for a user to use when sending a message.   If you are behind a firewall that does not permit you to make a connection to port 5222, you can use port 23.
you've downloaded earlier versions of this or other Exodus clients, please be sure you uninstall, then reinstall this version.

Finding & Participating in Chats

You can find the chat rooms in the Exodus client by selecting "Jabber Browser" from the Tools menu.   In the Jabber Browser, click "All Active Listed Chats" or "Chats in my favorite forums."  You should see one or more active rooms.   If you click on the room you'll see the participants.   Clicking on a participant at this point is a dead end, but to enter the room click "Join a conference" in the left-hand panel, or right click on the room name, and choose "Join Conference."   Voila!

You will also see "Bookmarks" on your main Roster panel.   These are currently active chat rooms that are in any of your favorite forums you have listed on your regular My Forums page.   Just click on them to join.   You can add bookmarks by going to Tools > Add Bookmark.

Getting More Help

Please use the Jabber Forum http://forums.delphiforums.com/jabber/start for more help, posting comments, questions or problems.