In the past few months we have been developing a Live Help iPhone application to enable mobile device support.  The Live Help iPhone application (v1.0) will allow you to view the currently browsing visitors on your web site, accept chat requests (iPhone 3.0 PUSH alerts supported), chat with visitors (using tagged responses during a chat session), view chat history and edit accounts while you are away from your desktop PC.

The iPhone application requires an iPhone (iPod Touch not supported) and the iPhone OS 3.0.  Currently we are waiting for Apple to approve the application for sale within the iTunes App Store.   The Live Help iPhone application will go on sale within the iPhone App Store at an introductory price of US$14.99 (approx. 11,99€, £8.99 and AU$17.99).  Shown below are some screenshots of the upcoming iPhone release.

If you plan on purchasing the Live Help iPhone application then you will need to upgrade to v3.80 of the Live Help Server Software.  The v3.80 Live Help Server Software will be required to login to the upcoming iPhone application.   Below are instructions to upgrade your Live Help installation to v3.80.  Note:  You must be running at least v3.30 to use the upgrade option.

	Backup your current /livehelp directory
	Upload the v3.80 /livehelp directory excluding the /livehelp/include/database.php file
	Sign-in to the Live Help Messenger Windows application
	When you sign-in, an automatic transparent upgrade will occur
	Sign-out of the Live Help Messenger Windows application
	Delete the /livehelp/install/ directory
	Upgrade completed

Feel free to email or chat via. Live Help if you have any trouble upgrading or re-installing the Live Help Server Software. Download access for the latest Live Help Server Software is available within the customer area.

Update: Apple has approved the application for sale within the App Store and you can now order the Live Help iPhone application at http://itunes.com/apps/livehelp/

The Live Help Messenger Desktop Beta Refresh is now available and will be sent via. email to customers over the new few days and weekend.  If you wish to receive the beta refresh release you will need to place another request via. email and the release will be sent to you ASAP.  See below for Live Help Skype callback support:

In addition to this we have improved the Chat Window within the beta release, as shown below.  You can now easily view the site visitor details for each chatting visitor.

We thank you for your patience while these emails are sent out.  Please provide as much beta feedback as possible, even if you think the issue has already been reported.  This will assist with the final release and launch – thank you for beta testing!

Also, checkout our recently launched Live Help Hosted Service.  If you don’t have PHP and MySQL available on your web server or require managed Live Help then our Live Help Hosted Solution is for you. Our managed Live Help service is ideal for customers that do not wish to spend time installing and maintaining a Live Help solution.

The Live Help Messenger Desktop v3.0 Beta will be made available later today (Nov. 1)  Initially the beta release will only be available via. email - feel free send us an email (with your customer details) and the release will sent out to you via. email.

The Skype integration callback feature will not be made available until the Beta 2 Refresh in two weeks (depending on feedback and bug reports).  You will however be able to test our VoIP callback feature using a VoIP Server (e.g. Asterisk / FreePBX) and your SIP 2.0 compatible devices.

 We would like to thank all our customers for supporting our Live Help software.

It has been quite awhile since our last company blog post, we do however have some good news to share. The Live Help Messenger Desktop v3.0 Beta release will be made available on November 1st 2007. We do apologise for the delay in the beta release, however we do now have a firm release date available. For those that have been anticipating the beta release we have further information regarding new features below.

The above screenshot illustrates the new account management interface within the Live Help Messenger Desktop application. Operators are sorted by their current status, i.e. Online, Offline, Be Right Back and Away. New features include the ability to search operator details and allow Full Administrators to change another operator’s status mode.

Live Help Messenger Desktop 3.0 Beta Features

A summary of the new features for the upcoming Live Help Messenger v3.0 Beta release is detailed below. The v3.0 is a major step forward in our Live Help Messenger road map and will also allow us to extend the reporting / statistical features within further releases beyond v3.0.

The following list details the major new features within the Live Help Messenger Desktop v3.0 Beta.  These features are not quite the full feature list that we had planned for the 3.0 release and several major features have been moved to following releases.

	New Improved Interface
	Tabbed Chat Windows
	Spell Checking
	Telephone Callback
	SIP 2.0 Compliant VoIP Hardware Support
	Skype Integration
	RSS Support
	Improved Popup Alerts
	Operator Inline Image Support
	Improved Popup Alerts
	Search Features (Accounts & Site Visitors)
	Google™ Analytics Campaign Detection
	Improved Windows Vista™ Support

Requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (included within Windows Vista) will be required on Windows XP machines. The beta release will only be made available to existing customers.  Earlier releases of Windows such as Windows 98 and 2000 will not be supported.

We have also been working on our first localisation project with Live Help. We are currently localising our Live Help product web site into Japanese – followed by Japanese Live Help language pack files and release. Feel free to browse the web site at http://livehelp.stardevelop.jp Please note: Japanese translation is still in progress so please excuse any minor errors.

The next major release of the Live Help Messenger Desktop application (version 3.0) is approaching beta release.  The interface of the desktop application has been re-designed to incorporate new features such as a VoIP / Skype call back service, RSS 2.0 feeds for subscribing to third party support / ticketing feeds.

Initially the VoIP call back feature will only support SIP 2.0-compatible devices, testing has also been completed using Asterisk (FreePBX) SIP extensions.  Additionally, we will be supporting Skype for those customers that have not yet implemented VoIP / SIP 2.0-compatible hardware within their business.  The user interface for the VoIP call back feature is shown below and easily allows for click-to-dial:

Feel free to comment and provide us with feedback regarding these features.  We value and appreciate feedback from our customers when developing new releases.  Thank you for reading!

The next release of the Live Help Messenger desktop application (version 3.0) is currently still under development – sorry we don’t have any release dates available yet. In addition to new features (we will be discussing these within future blog posts), we have been improving the overall user experience. This upcoming release will feature a new interface and specifically targets Windows Vista and Windows XP machines. Below are some development screenshots of the new interface.

The new popup alert allows you to view visitor details and accept chat requests without opening the Live Help window.

We have also improved the user experience between the main Live Help window and the Currently Browsing Visitor window, as shown above the site visitor details are displayed within a single window. This improves the overall experience by reducing the need to switch windows. You will also notice the support for the new Windows Vista Aero ‘glass’ effects.