Real-time multi-channel chat application. Project built with Express, Backbone and DNode, and of course, Node.
Data is persisted with MongoDB through Mongoose, using Redis for pub/sub messaging. Backbone 'sync' method has been overriden using backbone-dnode , providing a seamless interface between the client and server using Backbone models for the client, and backing them up with Mongoose schema's. Although Backbone can be used on both the client and server, I find it benefitial to use seperate packages for each.
Documentation can be found at http://sorensen.github.com/aebleskiver , as well as the annotated source code.
Brief aside on how to install the project, this will soon be put into a full installation guide, but until then, you know the drill.
- Install node.js
- Install NPM
- Install all project dependancies below with NPM
Starting the application will require MongoDB to be running in the background,
start the app by either running server.js which is the Clustered version,
or just app.js for the single process.
mongod --dbpath=./mongodb/data/aebleskiver --logpath./aebleskiver/logs/mongodb.log --logappend
node server.js
These packages can all be installed via 'npm'
express 2.4.3
mime 1.2.2
qs 0.2.0
connect 1.6.0
dnode 0.7.3
traverse 0.3.9
dnode-protocol 0.0.10
lazy 1.0.6
socket.io 0.6.18
browserify 1.1.4
backbone 0.5.1
underscore 1.1.7
jade 0.13.0
mongoose 1.7.3
hooks 0.1.9
colors 0.5.0
mongodb 0.9.6-7
bcrypt 0.2.3
nodeunit 0.5.3
redis 0.6.6
mongodb 1.0.0rc2
mongodb 0.9.6-7
connect 1.5.1
node-gravatar 1.0.0
node-uuid 1.2.0
cluster 0.6.4
log 1.2.0
cluster-live 0.0.3
jade 0.9.3
socket.io 0.6.18
stylus 0.9.2
backbone-dnode
You can optionally install (Docco)[https://github.com/jashkenas/docco] if you decide to contribute to the project and want to update the docs. Even if that means formatting the comments to make the docs look better.
The normal installation for Docco can be found from the repo. I had some troubles installing and decided to list my steps for installing on a CentOS machine. The main difference being that Pygments had to be installed via easy_install, and the additional params on installing docco
wget http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py
sudo python ez_setup.py
sudo easy_install Pygments
npm install coffee-script
sudo -E npm install -g docco
After Docco has been installed, you can generate new HTML files for any updates, using the CLI interface, the following will create docs for every javascript file.
docco app.js server.js lib/*.js public/*.js public/models/*.js public/views/*.js public/routers/*.js public/rpc/*.js
- Multiple channel support
- User registration support
- Public profiles
- Chat wall
- Friends and favorites
- Personal messages
- Gravatar support
- Pub/Sub enabled
- Private channels
- Channel admin controls
- Theme switcher
Well now, thats a good question! If you are a developer wanting to help out, take a look at the 'todos.md' file, or look at the 'In Development' section above. I would love to see this flourish to be a community based application that we can all use.
If you are a designer, or a UI/UX guy, you can help shape the look and feel of this project, as I have been designing through code for this entire project. I will have theme support settings added soon, so feel free to create additional themes, I currently have a default 'style.css' and one alternate wood based theme, 'wooden.css'. I have more or less taken a Zen Garden approach to create the theming options.
This has been a weekend project for me to play around with the underlying technologies, but has grown beyond my initial plans and expectations. Feel free to use this project however you see fit, I do ask, however, that if you make changes that can benefit the community, to make a pull request with your updates. Cheers!
(The MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Beau Sorensen mail@beausorensen.com
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.