ChatJS

A realtime platform and UI framework independent JavaScript chat engine.

There are lots and lots of realtime chat solutions. However, all these solutions have some sort of tie-in to a realtime platform (e.g. Socket.IO), a front-end framework (e.g. jQuery) or both. The purpose of ChatJS is to offer a core chat engine that provides all the functionality needed for chat and extension points to plug in any realtime framework and any UI framework.

Example

<script src="chatjs.js"></script>
<script src="your-realtime-platform-adapter.js"></script>
<script>
// Create the current user
var user = new chatjs.ChatUser( 'some-user-id' );

// Create a platform adapter for your chose realtime platform
// Obviously, you'll need to write the implementation that fulfils
// the require adapter contract.
var adapter = new YourRealtimePlatformAdapter();

// Create the chat engine
var chatEngine = new chatjs.Chat( user, adapter );

// Register to receive new message events
chat.on( 'new-message', function( message ) {
  // Add to UI or UI model
} );

// Send a message
var message = chatjs.ChatMessage( user.id, 'some text' );
chat.send( message );
</script>

Realtime Platform Integration

This section is a work in progress

Realtime frameworks are plugged in by fulfilling a PlatformAdapter contract and by interacting with a set of core objects.

The core chat objects include:

• ChatRoom
• ChatUser
• ChatMessage

Existing Realtime Platform Integrations

You can find existing integrations in the src/platforms directory.

Presently there is only a Pusher adapter and associated example.

UI Framework Integration

This section is a work in progress

As with the realtime framework the UI framework should interact with a set of core objects and receive information from those core object when building an manipulating the UI.

Existing UI Framework Integration

UI framework integration examples should be in src/ui-frameworks.

There are presently no UI framework examples

Todo

Planned

• User join and leave
• Support for multiple chat rooms
• Get list of rooms from the chat engine
• Get list of messages from a chat room
• Set user status e.g. away, busy, online, offline
• Add JSDoc for core object APIs

Under Consideration

• Private message another user