Instant "In Site" messenger in php?

[Anon]

Howdy,

People have been asking me if i could build a php based "in site" messenger that would allow members of the site to message other members that are currently logged-in in real time. I thought this would be the best place to get some discussion on the best way to go about such a project that would of course be open source.

Before I start, some ground rules. The messenger should hold messages for people who are not logged in untill the next time they do login. the interface should not hammer the site by forced reload or use frames. A list of members that are currently logged on would also be a nice touch.

At first thought, using php's session information may be a good way of telling how is currently logged in. By timestamping a session you could easily see who has accessed a page in the last x minutes.

If you have any ideas, post them on this thread, if there is enough interest, I would be glad to start the project at sourceforge with anyone else interested in helping me.

thanks.. Dave

[[deleted]]

You would not use sessions to find out who'se online.
In order to identify a user, he/she has to log on, so you can store his/her identity in a database.
When they log out, you change the info to "loggedout"

You will probably need a database anyway, because that is the easiest way to store messages and retreive messages for any person/date/time/read/unread etc.

If you don't want to use a forced refresh, then you can only display new messages when the user hits reload or clicks a link.

For "true instant messaging" you'd probably need to use
a java app, which can connect to your server permanently so the server can push messages to it.

[Anon]

Definatly would use a mysql database, however, the need to know who is currently browsing the site would need to be done and a time base hit method. Not on a login, logout.

I am going to experiment cylcling through session information to find out wether or not I could start a messenger session for logged in users, I would then update the session with a time stamp every time the user requests a page. sessions less then say 10? minutes old would then qaulify as online users.

I would not use java. One technology that may be worth throwing into the mix is macromedia's flash. I could develop a template file and use php turbine to dynamically create the flash output while the flash movie itself could periodically grab a users messages without the need to reload. This method would also allow for a kick ass interface design.

you interested?

[[deleted]]

The point is, you need to know who's logged in and who's logged out.
The fact that somebody did not click a link on your site for 10 minutes is irrelevant, especially if you use a flash file to read the message data.

If someone spends 10 minutes reading messages he's considered to be offline?

Flash could do it, but that's just moving the "automatic reload" to an "automatic information gathering"

You can't get around repeatedly accessing your site.

I'm sure flash would give a kick-ass design, but
wouldn't a simple auto-reloading frame be much easier to implement?

btw, I'm definately not interested.

[Anon]

I'm definitely interested. That sounds challenging, especially programming PHP with MySQL. Hmm, I'm wondering if you are accepting help from other PHP Developers, because I'm intrested in helping you out. 🙂
e-mail me at [e-mail] (take out _NOSPAM) ... 🙂

Phil

[Anon]

the difference is that a request to the server via the flash movie is a much more elegant approach, and the fact that you would not have to worry about the caching issues with certain browsers or the annoying clicking sound in EI is a reason all by itself. also, state is much easier to maintain in a flash movie, for example sending out messages would be WAY easier because of the need to reload the form is a HUGE waste of resources. besides, I HATE frames.

[Anon]

Ok, I guess we could start by putting together a requirement spec. my email address is [e-mail]. Once we know what we need it to do we could design the database.

[[deleted]]

You can get around the caching problem and around the annoying clicking sound (which is just one of the many things that make IE the most annoying browser on the planet)

How would you make the flash movie more elegant?
You still have to access a PHP script on the server side, that means an HTTP request. Or are you planning to build some sort of messaging server and re-invent AOL's instant messenger? :-)

BTW: I hate frames too, but sometimes they give the a very simple and elegant solution to a problem.

PS I'm not trying to stirr up trouble, just trying to find out why flash would be better than normal HTTP. (besides the fact that you are forcing visitors to have an up-to-date browser or to install a flash plugin)

[Anon]

Erm, I actually built one of these things and lost it 🙁 - I used SERVER-PUSH rather than a constant reload, there was a small frame (or iframe) which was fed by a server push method. This is therefore automatically a lot faster and more efficient than a constant reload.

I use this principle for my web chat system under development at http://www.madross.co.uk/chat - that site shows how quick the connection can be 🙂

As for my old phpim, it's a shame i lost it but i'd be more than happy to work with you in developing a new one.. email me at [e-mail] 🙂

[martijnbolt]

i've written a messenger yesterday

see http://www.phpbuilder.com/snippet/detail.php?type=snippet&id=288

for details

martijn

[Anon]

can´t find it!
please resubmit,

thanks,

florian

[Anon]

oops

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/9854.html

[php_phan]

I'm intrested in putting one together with you guys, [e-mail], let me know how can I help...

[martijnbolt]

Hi,

Nice to hear that
I have written a version that is fairly simple. You can find it at :

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/9854.html

It has no style elements or whatever (on purpose) and can only show all users that are currently signed in. The first (next) feature should be something like a selection of friends every user could choose to see. not alla other users.

for a newer version contact me.

martijn

[Anon]

Sorry to bring back a seemingly dead thread but my work in various web-based IM systems, although stopped for a while. Has now all been collated in WebMessenger, basically a PHP/JS clone of Windows Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger).

We will offer it as a service, and as a rebrandable thing to integrate into users websites even if they dont have PHP support. However the project will also remain OPEN SOURCE.

There is no source there yet - just a discussion of how we solved the problem we've encountered so far...

The normal site is down due to my main web server (http://www.madross.co.uk/) being under high demand at the moment.

So i've put up all the technical blurb we've written at http://tesla.madross.d2g.com/wm/

[Anon]

I was right on the mark, when I found your thread on this on phpbuilder.com. What’s the outcome so far? Care to enlighten me? I could help out with this effort, so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I actually already have a prototype that works, but it requires an invisible framed page that refreshes. The downside is there is no way to scroll back up to see past messages for that session. I’m thinking about using sockets and XML in Flash and using ActionScript/HTTP to trigger the refreshes and pulls from mysql using php. However, in the event that there is need for a group chat the system would have to support client – server threading not just p2p with the socket connection between the two logged on users. As far as tracking the users, sessions would be useful, but a loginsession table would be preferred. My reason for saying this is, when the user logs in, a row is dropped into the DB and each time a new page is requested, the last_activity field would be autoupdated with the current time as well as the last template (cool way to track users location on the site at anytime). As far as inactivity goes, if they are idle for 10 minutes or more, the system automatically drops a logout into the loginsession table (this would be the case as well if the user hit the logout button).

[Anon]

i hate to tell you this but yes seesions would be the best way to do this. create a page that starts your session and then in the database create some type of session ID that would then corresponde to that person user name. then you query that session ID to see "who's online". you could then write something to control the time the sessions stay active or what ever else you wanted to do. sessions are not hard and are best way to do this.

see php sessions in any book or php site to learn more.

jay

[[deleted]]

You do realize that this thread is 8 months old? :-)

"i hate to tell you this but yes seesions would be the best way to do this."

No they are not. :-)

"create a page that starts your session and then in the database create some type of session ID that would then corresponde to that person user name."

Compare that with what I suggested:

"In order to identify a user, he/she has to log on, so you can store his/her identity in a database"

The user must already exist in the database before he can log on. That means he has a userid. You would store that userid in the database to see if he is online.

" then you query that session ID to see "who's online"."

How exactly?
Would you do a 'select *' to get all the session_id's of the loggedin people, and then open all their sessions one by one to get their names?

If you just store the user's id, you can do a simple join between the 'logon' table and the 'userdata' table and save yourself a ton of work.

" you could then write something to control the time the sessions stay active or what ever else you wanted to do."

You can simply do a query to delete all the logon records that are older than x minutes.
That is a very small query so you can run it on every page-view.

"sessions are not hard and are best way to do this."

they are indeed not hard, but they are useless for this particular application.