I downloaded this and found that it was about 80% of what I need. Being a proficient coder, I went into the code to see about customizing it for my site.

I'm sure I had a heart attack.

The author has run the code through some kind of hideous obfuscator, making the source code COMPLETELY UNUSABLE. Customization is patently impossible.

What POSSIBLE MOTIVATION is there to release a GPL non-commercial package and make it so completely useless to customization?

I am *VERY* tempted to spend the time it would take to clean it up and turn it into real code and simply release it for free just out of spite for such a malicious act. It's GPL, so this is 100% legal and ethical.

I'm honestly dumbstruck at this. I invite the author to defend what he has done here.

Three problems with this component.

First, it posts back to the front page, meaning it can't live on any page other than the front. This is a major issue.

Second, it requires a postback instead of using AJAX. These days, using a postback, causing the shoutbox to reset each time, and then start the delay before scrolling is rather non-optimum.

Third, it has no support for CB avatars, which would be a fantastic feature.

The first I consider a bug. The second I consider very important. The third is a feature request.