Hello Eric! I am thrilled to interview you as you are the developer of one of the most popular open source live help system - CSLH. Please tell us how you got started with the project.

I have been programming since 1996 but only started with php in March of 2000 (before that I was a Perl progammer). I started programming Crafty Syntax Live Help in December of 2002 .

I was browsing a website and was impressed when a chat window from Human Click came up and asked me if I wanted to chat. I Loved the idea of live chat but I did not have $100 per month to pay for Live Help. I started to program my own Live Help program and placed it on my website for my own personal use...

A few months later I thought that maybe other people might enjoy using my program so I requested an account from sourceforge.net sometime in March 2003 .. Strangely Sourceforge.net rejected my first request even when I specifically said it was going to be GPL and Open source.

To my knowledge, at that time no one had an open source live help application (please correct me if I am wrong) so maybe they took it the wrong way..On my second request for an account where I made sure I
emphasized that the program was open source, FREE, GPL etc sourceforge accepted my account request and I posted the first version of the program in April of 2003.
The program is now over 2 years old but still has a LONG way to go.

2. The new version 2.9.8 has significant improvements.What are the major developments users can look for in the near future?

One of the things about version 2.9.8 that not a lot of people know about is it has the ability to monitor users by username from other applications.. For example, if you are using Invision Board you can see and chat with users by their logged in username rather then just seeing an ip address and starting a chat.

I am now working very hard at finishing version 3.1.0 of CSLH. Version 3.1.0 has become a very major undertaking as it is a re-write of the core of CSLH to replace the need for flush(), use a template system, allow a Windows Application  and be more modular to allow other programs to be integrated into CSLH. The template system to allow "skins" to be created for both the admin and visitor side of the program, The modular structure will allow users to add their own applications into CSLH such as a support ticket program and
the windows application will allow users to not need a web browser. There are also a few other features that I am planning to add that I will not mention here because none of the other Live Help applications have the feature and I want to program it before they do. So I have a LOT of work to do.

3. Your word to people violating CSLH License agreement.

Over the past 2 years there have been a lot of people taking CSLH and making it their own program and trying to sell it.. I am still not sure how to deal with these people.. However, most of them fail because Crafty Syntax Live Help has become so popular that their user base discovers that the program is actually Crafty Syntax and not whatever
they say it is. Plus CSLH is being updated almost monthly and they can not keep up with the updates or they can not handle the support requests. The best is when users on their form tell them off for using my program.

4.What kind of support you need from users to keep up with the development of CSLH?

Right now 2 things.

1) I need Documentation and people to help support requests at http://cslh.com/bb/ I tried to make the program as user friendly and intuitive as possible but need help in helping others understand and use the program.

2) I also need help in making modules for other applications to use CSLH. As I said before CSLH can very easily sometimes in only 2 lines of code be included in other applications and have CSLH know the logged in users by username but I need to either program these modules for the other applications or have people send me them..  Directions on monitoring by username are in CSLH under the advanced HTML generation settings.. All that is needed is to know the php variable from the other application that contains the username and feed that into CSLH. 

5. Your word to the live support industry!

I actually consider myself more of the open source industry then the Live Help industry.. My goal in programming it to create a program that is very modular, extendable, secure and easy to use. I still have a long way to go on this but in time I think i will make it. The only other Live Help application that is similar in goals to mine is Help Center Live.. Which
actually has a good head start on me in programming a modular, extendable version of Live Help... but I am programming hard and closing the gap on him.. Maybe if I hurry I can get my modular release out before he does..

Thanks a lot Eric for your time and we wish you best of success in CSLH and hope to see it get better and better!