chitchat—Real-time chatting for the web

Currently we use SockJS as a transport, but I would like to extend this project to allow any system to be plugged in.

Server

Setup

Install the library through NPM, dyuh!

npm install chitchat

Example

var http = require('http'),
    sockjs = require('sockjs'),
    chitchat = require('chitchat');

/* Instantiate your chitchat server */
var chat = chitchat.createServer();

/* Setup authorize function */
chat.handleAuthorize(function (data, good, bad) {
    signobj.valid(data.access_token).then(function (data) {
        good(data.username, {meta_data...});
    }).fail(function (err) {
        bad({invalid: true});
    });
});

/* Handle message function */
chat.handleMessage(function (data, good, bad) {
});

/* Hook into your HTTP server */
var server = http.createServer();
chat.installHandlers(server, {prefix: '/chat'});
server.listen(9999, '0.0.0.0');

var chat = chitchat.createServer()

Create a new chat server.

chat.handleAuthorize(fn(data, goodFn, badFn))

Handle authorization

data

Data to validate from the front end.

goodFn({String} identifier, {Object} [meta_data])

We authorized the user, you must set an identifier for this user. You may also send some meta data to the front end for the user, perhaps a list of online users!

badFn({Object} [meta_data])

Could not authorize the user, you can pass meta data along to the front end to tell the user why.

---

chat.handleMessage(fn(data, goodFn, badFn))

Handle message sending

chat.message({Object} user, {Object} message)

Send a custom message to a user.

Client

Hook this into your front end chat UI!

chitchat.connect({...})

chitchat.disconnect()

var state = chitchat.state()

States:

• connected
• disconnected
• reconnecting

You may also get a boolean value of each of these states with the following methods.

var cond = chitchat.isConnected()

var cond = chitchat.isDisconnected()

var cond = chitchat.isReconnecting()

chitchat.send({message: 'rwar'})

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Events

chitchat.on('connect', fn())

Connected to the chat server

chitchat.on('disconnect', fn())

Disconnected from the chat server

chitchat.on('reconnect', fn())

Reconnecting to the chat server, with the reason why we disconnected.

chitchat.on('messages', fn(messages))

Received a list of chat messages!