support forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n\nExternal services<\/h3>\n\n
Akukita Chat connects to third-party translation APIs to translate chat messages. Each provider is opt-in and configured by you in Akukita Chat \u2192 Settings<\/strong>. No data is sent unless you enable a provider and a user posts a message.<\/p>\n\n1. MyMemory \/ Translated.net<\/strong> (default \u2014 no API key needed)\nOnly the text of each chat message is sent. No user identifiers, emails or WordPress data are transmitted.<\/p>\n\n\n- Service URL: https:\/\/mymemory.translated.net<\/li>\n
- Terms of Service: https:\/\/mymemory.translated.net\/terms-and-conditions<\/li>\n
- Privacy Policy: https:\/\/translated.com\/confidentiality<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
2. DeepL API<\/strong> (optional \u2014 requires API key)\nOnly message text is sent.<\/p>\n\n\n- Service URL: https:\/\/www.deepl.com<\/li>\n
- Terms of Service: https:\/\/www.deepl.com\/pro-license<\/li>\n
- Privacy Policy: https:\/\/www.deepl.com\/privacy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
3. OpenAI API<\/strong> (optional \u2014 requires API key)\nOnly message text is sent to the GPT model.<\/p>\n\n\n- Service URL: https:\/\/openai.com<\/li>\n
- Terms of Service: https:\/\/openai.com\/policies\/row-terms-of-use\/<\/li>\n
- Privacy Policy: https:\/\/openai.com\/policies\/row-privacy-policy\/<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
4. Deactivation feedback<\/strong> (optional \u2014 only when you submit it)\nWhen you deactivate the plugin, an optional form asks why. If \u2014 and only if \u2014 you fill it in and click \"Submit & deactivate\", the reason you select, any comment you type, and a reply email (only if you choose to provide one) are emailed to the plugin developer at akukita.es. Choosing \"Skip & deactivate\" sends nothing. No site URL beyond the standard email signature, and no other site or admin data, is collected.<\/p>\n\n\n- Developer: https:\/\/akukita.es<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Privacy<\/h3>\n\n
Akukita Chat stores all chat messages in your own WordPress database. The plugin uses wp_add_privacy_policy_content()<\/code> to automatically suggest privacy text for your site's policy page (visible in Settings \u2192 Privacy<\/strong>). You control the message retention period from the plugin settings.<\/p>\n\n\nFrom WordPress.org (recommended)<\/h4>\n\n\n- Go to Plugins \u2192 Add New<\/strong> in your WordPress admin.<\/li>\n
- Search for \"Akukita Chat\"<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
- Click Install Now<\/strong>, then Activate<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
- Go to Akukita Chat \u2192 Settings<\/strong> to configure your provider (the free one works out of the box).<\/li>\n
- Go to Akukita Chat \u2192 Rooms<\/strong> to create your first room.<\/li>\n
- Paste
[akukita_chat]<\/code> on any page or post.<\/li>\n- Make sure Settings \u2192 General \u2192 Anyone can register<\/strong> is enabled so visitors can join.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n
Manual installation<\/h4>\n\n\n- Download the ZIP from this page.<\/li>\n
- Upload it via Plugins \u2192 Add New \u2192 Upload Plugin<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
- Activate and follow steps 4-7 above.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n
\nDo I really need zero configuration?<\/h3><\/dt>\nYes. After activating the plugin, the free MyMemory provider is already selected. You only need to create a room and paste the shortcode. The default 5,000 words\/day quota is enough for small to medium communities.<\/p><\/dd>\n
How do I get the 50,000 words\/day free quota?<\/h3><\/dt>\nIn Akukita Chat \u2192 Settings<\/strong>, enter any email address in the MyMemory field. That's it \u2014 your quota goes from 5,000 to 50,000 words\/day at no cost.<\/p><\/dd>\nCan my users create their own rooms?<\/h3><\/dt>\nNo, by design. Only administrators create and manage rooms from the dashboard, which keeps the conversation structured and stops anyone spinning up junk rooms.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Do users need a WordPress account?<\/h3><\/dt>\nFor the public rooms, no. Turn on guest mode in Settings \u2192 Who can chat<\/strong> and visitors join with just a display name and a language.<\/p>\n\nDirect messages are the exception: a private conversation is stored against a real account, and a guest identity only lives as long as a browser cookie, so DMs are for registered users. Guests can still use the rooms, react to messages, and be moderated.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Is the caching plugin on my site going to break the chat?<\/h3><\/dt>\nNo. The chat page carries per-visitor data (who you are, your session token), so the plugin tells page caches not to store it and marks its own scripts as \"do not combine\". WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, WP-Optimize, Cache Enabler and Cloudflare are all handled. On top of that the chat asks the server who you are on every load, so even a cache that ignores those signals cannot serve you somebody else's session.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Which translation engine should I choose?<\/h3><\/dt>\nStart with MyMemory: it is free, needs no API key and is preselected. Bear in mind it is a translation memory<\/em> rather than a pure machine translator, so on short chat phrases its quality is uneven.<\/p>\n\nFor a real community, DeepL Free is a big step up and still costs nothing up to 500,000 characters a month. OpenAI GPT-4o-mini handles slang and informal writing best and costs a few cents a month at typical chat volumes.<\/p><\/dd>\n
What about chat history?<\/h3><\/dt>\nMessages are stored in your own WordPress database. You decide how many days of history to keep in Settings, and older messages are auto-purged daily. Nothing is ever sent to third parties except the text being translated to your chosen provider.<\/p><\/dd>\n
What if my translation provider goes down?<\/h3><\/dt>\nThe original (untranslated) message is shown. Users still see the conversation, just without translation during the outage. The chat itself keeps working at full speed.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Does it work with Multisite?<\/h3><\/dt>\nYes. Each site in the network has its own rooms, messages and settings.<\/p><\/dd>\n
What PHP version is required?<\/h3><\/dt>\nPHP 7.4 or higher. PHP 8.0 or higher is recommended for better performance.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Is the plugin compatible with WordPress 7.0?<\/h3><\/dt>\nYes, fully tested and compatible with WordPress 7.0.<\/p><\/dd>\n\n<\/dl>\n\n\n
1.5.4<\/h4>\n\n\n- Fixed: Sites with an active premium licence still saw the upgrade banner in Settings and the \"\u2b50 Premium\" sales page in the menu. Both were hidden based on whether a single feature \u2014 direct messages \u2014 was licensed, and since direct messages became part of the free plugin that check never matched again. They now key off whether the add-on is active at all.<\/li>\n
- Changed: The premium feature list no longer advertises direct messages, reactions, moderation or unread notifications, all of which are part of the free plugin.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.5.3<\/h4>\n\n\n- Improved: The free MyMemory provider is a translation memory<\/em>, so besides machine translation it returns segments previously contributed by people. On the short conversational text a chat produces those segments are frequently unrelated \u2014 \"i am fine and you?\" could come back as \"i love you\". The plugin now prefers MyMemory's machine-translated result over its human memory matches.<\/li>\n
- Improved: When MyMemory only offers a weak match, the message is left in its original language instead of being replaced with unrelated text. Untranslated is better than wrong.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.5.2<\/h4>\n\n\n- Fixed: Messages were often stored under the wrong language, so they were never translated for the people who needed it. The language recorded for a message was the sender's interface<\/em> language \u2014 what they prefer to read \u2014 rather than the language they actually typed in. Since the composer explicitly invites you to write in any language, a Spanish message from someone reading in English was tagged as English and shown untranslated to every English reader. The written language is now detected from the text itself, in both rooms and direct messages.<\/li>\n
- Fixed: The direct-message sidebar kept using whichever language was active when the page loaded, ignoring later changes to the language selector.<\/li>\n
- Improved: Language detection results are cached for a day, so the repetitive phrases typical of chat (\"hi\", \"hola\", \"ok\") no longer trigger an API call every time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.5.1<\/h4>\n\n\n- Fixed: Choosing \"Send direct message\" on a guest did nothing. A conversation is stored against real user accounts, and guests have no account, so the action can never succeed \u2014 it is no longer offered for guests, or to guests. Previously it appeared to be available and then failed silently.<\/li>\n
- Improved: Participant names that open a conversation now carry a permanent, subtle dotted underline plus a \ud83d\udcac hint on hover, so it is obvious they can be clicked without having to discover it by accident. On touch screens, where there is no hover, the hint stays visible.<\/li>\n
- Improved: Clickable names are keyboard-focusable with a visible focus ring.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.5.0<\/h4>\n\n
Direct messages are now free<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n- Added: Private one-to-one conversations between registered users, translated automatically just like the public rooms \u2014 each person reads and writes in their own language.<\/li>\n
- Added: Conversation list, user search, unread badges and a slide-out sidebar available from any page with the chat.<\/li>\n
- Added: New
[akukita_dm]<\/code> shortcode for a standalone direct-messages page.<\/li>\n- Added: Open a conversation by clicking a participant's name or avatar, or from the message context menu.<\/li>\n
- Note: Existing conversations are preserved. If this site previously used the premium add-on for direct messages, the tables are reused as-is and nothing is lost.<\/li>\n
- Note: Direct messages require a user account. Guests can use the public rooms, but a conversation needs a stable identity that outlives a browser cookie.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.4.0<\/h4>\n\n
Moderation is now free<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n- Added: Moderation panel under Akukita Chat \u2192 Moderation<\/strong>. Ban participants, mute them for a set time, and see who is currently blocked. Previously part of the premium add-on.<\/li>\n
- Added: Right-click (or long-press on touch devices) any message to ban, mute or delete straight from the chat.<\/li>\n
- Added: Moderation now covers guests as well. The premium version could only act on registered accounts, which left open guest chats with no way to stop an abusive visitor \u2014 the most common place spam actually arrives.<\/li>\n
- Added: Mutes can be lifted before they expire, and expired mutes are cleaned up automatically instead of lingering in the list.<\/li>\n
- Changed: The premium page now reflects a single premium product; the packs differ only in how many sites a licence covers, not in features.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.3.2<\/h4>\n\n\n- Fixed: A message you sent did not appear until you sent the next one. The de-duplication guard added in 1.3.1 was rejecting the sender's own local echo, because it runs while the send is in flight and the message is authored by you \u2014 exactly the combination the guard looks for. Local echoes are now exempt from it.<\/li>\n
- Fixed: Reacting to a message you had just sent did nothing, because its reaction bar still carried the temporary id assigned before the server replied.<\/li>\n
- Fixed: Reactions added by other people only appeared after reloading the page. The polling loop only requests messages newer than the last one seen, so reactions on messages already on screen were never refreshed. A single bulk request now keeps every visible message in sync on each poll.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.3.1<\/h4>\n\n\n- Fixed: Reactions could not be saved \u2014 the REST call was built with a double slash in the URL and the server answered \"no route matched\".<\/li>\n
- Fixed: On an empty room, the very first message was rendered twice for its sender. The polling loop could return the message before the send request resolved, so neither de-duplication check could recognise it yet. The client now ignores its own messages while a send is in flight and removes any leftover duplicate once the real message id is known.<\/li>\n
- Fixed: A freshly sent message briefly showed a different clock time than the same message after reloading, because the optimistic bubble was timestamped in UTC while the server returns site-local time.<\/li>\n
- Fixed: Clicking a participant's name did nothing when the premium add-on was not installed. The \"send a direct message\" affordance is now only rendered when direct messages are actually available.<\/li>\n
- Fixed: The admin screens still advertised message reactions as a premium feature after they became part of the free plugin in 1.3.0.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.3.0<\/h4>\n\n
Message reactions are now free<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n- Added: Emoji reactions on chat messages (\ud83d\udc4d \u2764\ufe0f \ud83d\ude02 \ud83d\ude2e \ud83d\ude22 \ud83d\udd25). Previously part of the premium add-on, now included in the free plugin for everyone.<\/li>\n
- Reactions work for guests too, not just registered users.<\/li>\n
- Reactions are delivered inside the message payload itself, so displaying them costs no extra HTTP requests \u2014 the chat stays just as fast with reactions enabled.<\/li>\n
- Reactions attached to a message are removed automatically when that message is deleted, and swept completely on uninstall.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.2.1<\/h4>\n\n
Robustness pass for cached & hardened environments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n- Added: New
\/wp-json\/akch\/v1\/whoami<\/code> REST endpoint that returns the visitor's fresh identity and nonces on every page load. The client-side JavaScript now calls it on boot and uses its values instead of the inline data \u2014 this defeats the whole class of bugs where a page-cache plugin (WP-Optimize, LiteSpeed, WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, Cache Enabler, Cloudflare) served HTML built for a previous visitor. Symptoms fixed: phantom guest gate for logged-in users, Cookie check failed (403)<\/code> on every REST call, and stale user identities across sessions.<\/li>\n- Added:
\/wp-json\/akch\/v1\/guest-name<\/code> REST endpoint as the primary path for saving a guest's display name. Some hosting stacks (Wordfence, iThemes Security, restrictive WAFs) block non-logged-in POSTs to admin-ajax.php<\/code> and return an HTML error page. The new REST route is treated as more legitimate by most WAFs.<\/li>\n- Added: If the REST route is blocked, the client transparently falls back to
admin-ajax.php<\/code>. Both paths share exactly the same validation code server-side.<\/li>\n- Added: The chat page now signals \"do not cache \/ do not minify\" to every major cache & optimization plugin in the ecosystem: WP-Optimize (page cache and<\/strong> its Minify module), LiteSpeed Cache, WP Rocket, Autoptimize, Cache Enabler, and Cloudflare \u2014 plus the standard
DONOTCACHEPAGE<\/code> and nocache_headers()<\/code> signals.<\/li>\n- Added: The plugin's own
<script><\/code> tags carry data-no-optimize<\/code>, data-no-minify<\/code>, data-no-defer<\/code> and data-cfasync=\"false\"<\/code> so no JS bundler combines chat.js into a shared bundle that would then be cached across visitors.<\/li>\n- Improved: When the server responds with HTML instead of JSON (blocked by a security plugin, a login redirect, or a 5xx error page), the guest gate now shows an actionable message: \"The server returned an unexpected response. This is often caused by a security plugin blocking guest requests. Please contact the site owner.\"<\/em><\/li>\n
- Improved: The
account<\/code> access mode now shows a clean, single-CTA modal when user registration is disabled on the site (previously the modal showed an inactive \"Log in\" tab-button that appeared to do nothing).<\/li>\n- Improved: More precise error messages surfaced from the server (e.g.
Guest chat is not enabled on this site<\/code>) instead of a generic Error<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n1.2.0<\/h4>\n\n
Headline features<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n- \ud83e\uddd9 New: Guided setup wizard.<\/strong> Activating the plugin now opens a one-screen wizard that asks for your translation engine and creates a ready-to-use chat page for you \u2014 first-run time is under a minute.<\/li>\n
- \ud83d\udc65 New: Open chat for guests, no account required.<\/strong> Switch \"Who can chat\" to Anyone<\/em> in Settings and visitors join the chat by entering just a display name and a language. Per-identity rate limiting, message length limits and a honeypot field protect open chats from spam, always on.<\/li>\n
- \ud83d\udcac New: Optional deactivation feedback.<\/strong> When you deactivate the plugin, an opt-in modal asks why. Skip it and nothing is sent. If you submit, only the reason and any text you type leave your site \u2014 no URL, no WP version, no other site data. Helps the plugin keep improving.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Improvements<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n- Message moderation: administrators can remove individual messages.<\/li>\n
- \"Settings\" link added to the row of the Plugins screen.<\/li>\n
- Clearer labels and an active-mode banner in Settings \u2192 Who can chat<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
- The registration \/ login modal now opens the WooCommerce \"My Account\" page automatically when WooCommerce is active. A new
akch_login_url<\/code> filter lets you point the button anywhere.<\/li>\n- Uninstall now removes every plugin option, transient and user meta entry cleanly, including the new 1.2.0 keys.<\/li>\n
- Pages that contain the chat shortcode are now marked as uncacheable for WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache and Cloudflare. Avoids one guest's session being served from cache to a different visitor.<\/li>\n
- All chat input fields (textarea, language picker, registration inputs) now use a white background with dark text and explicit placeholder colours, for consistent readability across OS themes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Bug fixes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n- The first message sent in an empty room could appear twice on the sender's screen due to a race between the optimistic render and the polling loop. Fixed with a sender-side ID set and a corrected ordering of state updates.<\/li>\n
- The \"Log in\" tab in the registration modal did not respond to clicks because the JS bound to an outdated element id. Fixed.<\/li>\n
- The guest name gate did not initialise on guest-mode pages because the bootstrap only ran for users with positive IDs. It now runs whenever the chat widget is rendered.<\/li>\n
- Server-side error messages were being swallowed by the front-end API helper. Errors now surface as toasts and, if the server reports a missing name, the name gate reappears automatically with the typed text preserved.<\/li>\n
- The guest gate now also renders correctly inside themes that aggressively rewrite shortcode output (e.g. Divi), thanks to a fixed-position fallback overlay that attaches directly to
<body><\/code> with a maximum z-index.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n1.1.2<\/h4>\n\n\n- Fixed: Messages now sync correctly in real time when using the single-room shortcode [akukita_chat_room].<\/li>\n
- Improved: Refined plugin tags for better discoverability in the plugin directory.<\/li>\n
- Improved: New screenshots showcasing live multilingual chat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.1.1<\/h4>\n\n\n- Improved: Review prompt now appears after 3 days of use (previously 14) for faster user feedback.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.1.0<\/h4>\n\n\n- Added: Friendly review prompt in admin (appears after 3 days of use, fully dismissible).<\/li>\n
- Improved: Better integration with the WordPress.org support workflow \u2014 unhappy users are directed to the support forum instead of leaving rushed reviews.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.0.9<\/h4>\n\n\n- Confirmed compatibility with WordPress 7.0.<\/li>\n
- Improved plugin documentation and on-screen help.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
1.0.8<\/h4>\n\n