[CasiOo]

I have been studying qwebirc trying to figure out how they manage to do their client-server messages.

Do they use ajax to send messages back and forth?
I have tried to find the source code where they do the ajax calls in the javascript, but I can't really find out how they do it.

If I understand AJAX correct, then the client has to send request to the server which then returns a response, and the server cant send requests to the client.
Isn't this very inefficient since the client always have to ask if the server has got any new messages?

I want to make a webchat myself that works in the browser, and that is why I want to know how qwebirc is working

[Dormilich]

CasiOo, on 05 October 2012 - 05:13 PM, said:

If I understand AJAX correct, then the client has to send request to the server which then returns a response, and the server cant send requests to the client.
Isn't this very inefficient since the client always have to ask if the server has got any new messages?

If you want to make a chat system - yes. but AJAX was never meant to be for a chat application in the first place.

CasiOo, on 05 October 2012 - 05:13 PM, said:

I want to make a webchat myself that works in the browser, and that is why I want to know how qwebirc is working

I din’t look into qwebirc too much, maybe they used sockets. (and since WebSockets are available in modern browsers).

for a chat application look into node.js and socket.io.

[CasiOo]

More information on the node.js and socket.io part will be great

What would you say is the main differences between socket.oi and node.js?

I would like to use just WebSocket, but apparently not many browsers support it yet. But both node and socket.oi support websocket through flash?
Is socket.io a library on top of node.js?

I should also note that I want to write my server in c# or java, but node.js and socket.io seems to be having their own server thingy?

[Dormilich]

though it’s not immediately obvious (except for the npm install socket.io part (npm = node package manager)) socket.io is a node.js module. more information you will find in their documentation.

and yes, node.js needs to be installed on the server (which is, say, less than common). but it’s the perfect environment for a chat application.

Quote

But both node and socket.oi support websocket through flash?

node.js is just the server environment (but it does provides the server bindings for sockets). socket.io deals with the WebSockets, and if they are not supported natively, it uses one of the other possibilities: http://socket.io/#browser-support