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rails/metal chat plugin with a memcached backend

aspgems.com

MIT license

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Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 2 Commits
app		app
lib		lib
locale		locale
public/aspchat		public/aspchat
tasks		tasks
test		test
MIT-LICENSE		MIT-LICENSE
README		README
Rakefile		Rakefile
init.rb		init.rb
install.rb		install.rb
uninstall.rb		uninstall.rb

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This is a rails chat plugin with a memcached backend (but decoupled, so you could write your own backend with redis, a db, or as you please). Conversations are non persistent and at the moment it supports only private chats. Most of the code for managing chat rooms is in place already, but some work would be needed for that (most notably the UI).
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Status of this plugin:

the plugin is working in one of our sites in production. However, we are not sure it's mature enough for living in the wild without a little love and understanding

right now it lacks testing and the documentation is obscure (just some comments in the code and this readme)

however we are releasing the plugin to the open source community already because we know it could be of use already for some people, so you are warned.. use it at your own risk!


Aspchat
=======

1. In order to install this plugin, you must execute the following task
  rake aspchat:install
  
2. If you are using memcached already, maybe the CACHE constant will be set. Otherwise, you need to configure the CACHE 
constant during the initialization process like  this (host/port namespace are irrelevant for the chat)

	CACHE = ::MemCache.new 'localhost:11211', :namespace => 'asp_chat_dev'   



3. Now you must enable the chat by including the head section and the chat inline bar like this

-----
<head>
	<%= javascript_include_tag :defaults %>
	<%=render :partial=>'aspchat/aspchat_head'%>
</head>
<body>
	<%if RAILS_ENV=='development' #this condition is so you don't poll very often in development mode, slowing down everything %>  
		<%=javascript_tag "Aspchat.polling_interval=60;" %>
		<%=javascript_tag "Aspchat.polling_list_interval=90;" %>
	<%end -%>
	<%=render :partial=>'aspchat/aspchat_inline'%>
</body>
-----
The chat library depends on prototype. Make sure you included it.
Make *really* sure you are running an up-to-date prototype.js (hint: not the one bundled with rails). If not, things will not work fine on IE8.

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The chat component expects a :user_id and a :nickname param to be available in the session. Else, nothing will work (symptoms will be a 500 error when the polling is done)

If you are using AUthenticatedSystem, you can easily add the session id on signup/login by including this code in your ApplicationController

protected  
  def current_user_with_aspchat=(new_user)
      set_current_user(new_user)
      session[:nickname] = @current_user ? @current_user.login : nil  #you might want to change the "login" field by any other in your model. Make sure is unique!
      @current_user
  end  
  alias_method (:set_current_user, :current_user=)
  alias_method (:current_user=, :current_user_with_aspchat=)


---------------
If you want to override the user list functionality (to filter user's friends, for example) the
easiest way is to override the "aspchat_polling_users" method of the AspchatHelper. This method
is used by the chat to retrieve the list of users, so by changing it here it will be transparent

You can do it by modifying your ApplicationHelper like in this example

module ApplicationHelper
  include AspchatHelper
    
  #returns a hash in which the user_id is the key containing another hash like
  #   1=>{:nickname=>"admin"}, 9=>{:nickname=>"user"}}
  # this example method will display only users with id lower than 10   
  def aspchat_polling_users_with_permissions
    users=aspchat_polling_users_without_permissions
    users.delete_if {|user_id, user_object| user_id > 10  }  
    users
  end  
  alias_method_chain :aspchat_polling_users, :permissions
  
end

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Copyright (c) 2009 [[email protected]], released under the MIT license