The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I need to implement a chat room on a website.

I have done this before with a basic IRC server. I set it up, set the controls, and administrated it with firewalls in place and the whole nine yards.

They don't want to use an IRC server. They want an alternative. PHP?

If anyone can point me in the right direction or can help me in any way with this I would greatly appreciate it.

Details?

none, they don't even know what existing server (Machine wise) they are going to put this on yet. I'm always suggesting a seperate server from the web server...but they also want an SQL server and that sorta has to be on a seperate server...for the future...or else they'll shoot themselves in the foot when the database grows and is referenced from other sources. BLAH BLAH BLAH

really...I can figure most of this out if someone has any suggestions leading me that far

Anything other than a Java client on a Web site, if you can't use IRC, is going to be a nightmare for people to use.

Some kind of Java chat would seem your best bet. Or maybe, I doubt it, but maybe there's a Flash chat app out there.

The client should know that you can implement an IRC server without actually requiring people to use an IRC client. It merely serves as the engine for chats. You can restrict the server to allow one channel, and require people to connect using your Web application, and they need never know they're using IRC although they could probably use the / commands if they knew how.

JB

http://www.ceruleanstudios.com

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/C ... Chat.shtml

http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php

this ambient radio station that i like, at http://stillstream.com/chat.php uses a chat that's irc-based (like jb's suggestion) and it works really pretty well. not sure what the software is, though. however, you can connect to it via their java applet or irc. oh, i guess it's called "starchat".
-bill

If you want to get really fancy:

http://www.jivesoftware.org/wildfire/ - open source Java Jabber server, really really good, extremely easy to set up
http://jwchat.sourceforge.net/ - open source JavaScript Jabber client, also very very good, also easy to set up

JWChat also comes with a web app you can easily deploy to Tomcat (http://tomcat.apache.org/) that acts as a gateway between JWChat and Wildfire.

jb wrote:The client should know that you can implement an IRC server without actually requiring people to use an IRC client. It merely serves as the engine for chats. You can restrict the server to allow one channel, and require people to connect using your Web application,
JB

Yeah, this is exactly what I know how to do. You can even restrict the web application into having no useful commands even. This is really what I'd like to do. I'm just going up against somebody who doesn't want to do this and has been on this project longer. He's convinced there is a better way. (I'm not) So we are looking into alternatives.

yeah, that's lame, 'cause the IRC thing is a snap, basically. A SNAP.

People don't really chat online, do they?

I find the java ones are pretty awkward, but effective. Awkward in that they don't behave like regular window sessions (in mac or WIN) but they behave the same on either platform (and now the linux desktop people should be raising their voices). Things like scrolling with the arrows and tab activities are often missing.

roymond wrote:People don't really chat online, do they?

I find the java ones are pretty awkward, but effective. Awkward in that they don't behave like regular window sessions (in mac or WIN) but they behave the same on either platform (and now the linux desktop people should be raising their voices). Things like scrolling with the arrows and tab activities are often missing.

Now, I may be a bit outdated...but the last time I tried a java chat...it got pretty bogged down and crashed alot when the amount of users started to get kinda high...I mean like ..more than 20 high. But, maybe they have gotten better...

I have implemented a totally php based chat in the past for a specific purpose in the paste. I will try to dig it up for you.

SPUD