I have created a chat message functionality. The message stores the userid of sender and receiver. How can I get other details of the user just based on the userid?
Is creating a Meteor method the best way or I have to create publish/subscribe pattern for it.
I want to avoid sending all users data to client side.
I tried creating a meteor method but I don't think its the best approach.
Meteor.methods({
getUserInfoById: function (usrId) {
//console.log("BEGIN");
//console.log(usrId);
var user = Meteor.users.findOne(usrId);
//console.log(user);
//console.log("END");
return user;
}
});
Create a publisher (and also a subscriber) for the data about other users that you want a given user to see. You can restrict the fields returned using the {fields: ...} qualifier in the query.
This is a very common pattern. Using a method for this is an anti-pattern due to the extra round-trip delay for something you're likely to show quite often, i.e. another user's username or avatar.
I am building a simple support chat for my website using Ajax. I would like to check if the user that I am currently chatting with left the browser.
At the moment I have build in that feature by setting interval function at customer side that creates the file with name: userId.txt
In the admin area I have created an interval function that checks if userId.txt exists. If it exists, it deletes it. If the file is not recreated by the custom interval function - next time the admin function will find out that file is not there it mark customer with this userId as inactive.
Abstract representation:
customer -> interval Ajax function -> php [if no file - create a new file]
admin -> interval Ajax function -> php [if file exists - delete the file] -> return state to Ajax function and do something
I was wondering if there is any better way to implement this feature that you can think of?
My solution is to use the jquery ready and beforeunload methods to trigger an ajax post request that will notify when the user arrives and leaves.
This solution is "light" because it only logs twice per user.
support.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
//log user that just arrived - Page loaded
$(document).ready(function() {
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: 'log.php',
async:false,
data: {userlog:"userid arrived"}
});
});
//log user that is about to leave - window/tab will be closed.
$(window).bind('beforeunload', function(){
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: 'log.php',
async:false,
data: {userlog:"userid left"}
});
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Your support html code...</h2>
</body>
</html>
log.php
<?php
//code this script in a way that you get notified in real time
//in this case, I just log to a txt file
$userLog = $_POST['userlog'];
file_put_contents("userlog.txt", $userLog."\n", FILE_APPEND );
//userid arrived
//userid left
Notes:
1 - Tested on Chrome, FF and Opera. I don't have a mac so I couldn't test it on Safari but it should work too.
2 - I've tried the unload method but it wasn't as reliable as beforeunload.
3 - Setting async to false on the ajax request means that the statement you are calling has to complete before the next statement, this ensures that you'll get notified before the window/tab is closed.
#Gonzalon makes a good point but using a normal DB table or the filesystem for constantly updating user movement would be exhaustive to most hard disks. This would be a good reason for using shared memory functions in PHP.
You have to differentiate a bit between the original question "How do i check in real-time, if a user is logged in?" and "How can i make sure, if a user is still on the other side (in my chat)?".
For a "login system" i would suggest to work with PHP sessions.
For the "is user still there" question, i would suggest to update one field of the active session named LAST_ACTIVITY. It is necessary to write a timestamp with the last contact with the client into a store (database) and test whether that is older than X seconds.
I'm suggesting sessions, because you have not mentioned them in your question and it looks like you are creating the userID.txt file manually on each Ajax request, right? Thats not needed, unless working cookie and session-less is a development requirement.
Now, for the PHP sessions i would simply change the session handler (backend) to whatever scales for you and what makes requesting information easy.
By default PHP uses the session temp folder to create session files,
but you might change it, so that the underlying session handler becomes a mariadb database or memcache or rediska.
When the users sessions are stored into a database you can query them: "How many users are now logged in?", "Who is where?".
The answer for "How can I check in real time if a user is logged in?" is, when the user session is created and the user is successfully authenticated.
For real-time chat application there are a lot of technologies out there, from "php comet", "html5 eventsource" + "websockets" / "long polling" to "message queues", like RabbitMq/ActiveMq with publish/subscribe to specific channels.
If this is a simple or restricted environment, maybe a VPS, then you can still stick to your solution of intervalic Ajax requests. Each request might then update $_SESSION['LAST_ACTIVITY'] with a server-side timestamp. Referencing: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1270960/1163786
A modification to this idea would be to stop doing Ajax requests, when the mouse movement stops. If the user doesn't move the mouse on your page for say 10 minutes, you would stop updating the LAST_ACTIVITY timestamp. This would fix the problem of showing users who are idle as being online.
Another modification is to reduce the size of the "iam still here" REQUEST to the server by using small GET or HEADER requests. A short HEADER "ping" is often enough, instead of sending long messages or JSON via POST.
You might find a complete "How to create an Ajax Web Chat with PHP, jQuery" over here. They use a timeout of 15 seconds for the chat.
Part 1 http://tutorialzine.com/2010/10/ajax-web-chat-php-mysql/
Part 2 http://tutorialzine.com/2010/10/ajax-web-chat-css-jquery/
You can do it this way, but it'll be slow, inefficient, and probably highly insecure. Using a database would be a noticeable improvement, but even that wouldn't be particularly scalable, depending on how "real-time" you want this to be and how many conversations you want it to be able to handle simultaneously.
You'd be much better off using a NoSQL solution such as Redis for any actions that you'll need to run frequently (ie: "is user online" checks, storing short-term conversation updates, and checking for conversation updates at short intervals).
Then you'd use the database for more long-term tasks like storing user information and saving active conversations at regular intervals (maybe once per minute, for example).
Why Ajax and not Websockets? Surely a websocket would give you a considerably faster chat system, wouldn't require generating and checking a text file, would not involve a database lookup and you can tell instantly if the connection is dropped.
I would install the https://github.com/nrk/predis library. So at the time the user authenticates, It publishes a message to Redis server.
Then you can set-up a little node server on the back-end - something simple like:
var server = require('http').Server();
var io = require('socket.io')(server);
var Redis = require('ioredis');
var redis = new Redis();
var authenticatedUsers = [];
// Subscribe to the authenticatedUsers channel in Redis
redis.subscribe('authenticatedUsers');
// Logic for what to do when a message is received from Redis
redis.on('message', function(channel, message) {
authenticatedUsers.push(message);
io.emit('userAuthenticated', message);
});
// What happens when a client connects
io.on('connection', function(socket) {
console.log('connection', socket.id);
socket.on('disconnect', function(a) {
console.log('user disconnected', a);
});
});
server.listen(3000);
Far from complete, but something to get you started.
Alternatively, take a look at Firebase. https://www.firebase.com/ if you dont want to bother with the server-side
I would suggest using in built HTML5 session storage for this purpose. This is supported by all modern browsers so we will not face issues for the same.
This will help us to be efficient and quick to recognize if user is online. Whenever user moves mouse or presses keys update session storage with date and time. Check it periodically to see if it is empty or null and decide user left the site.
Depending on your resources you may opt for websockets or the previous method called long pool request. Both ensure a bidirectional communication between the server and the client. But they may be expensive on resources.
Here is an good tutorial on the websocket:
http://www.binarytides.com/websockets-php-tutorial/
I would use a callback that you (admin) can trigger. I use this technique in web app and mobile apps to (All this is set on the user side from the server):
Send a message to user (like: "behave or I ban you").
Update user status/location. (for events to know when attendants is arriving)
Terminate user connections (e.g. force log out if maintenance).
Set user report time (e.g. how often should the user report back)
The callback for the web app is usually in JavaScript, and you define when and how you want the user to call home. Think of it as a service channel.
Instead of creating and deleting files you can do the same thing with cookie benefits of using cookie are
You do not need to hit ajax request to create a file on server as cookies are accessible by javascript/jquery.
Cookies have an option to set the time interval so would automatically delete themselves after a time, so you will not need php script to delete that.
Cookies are accessible by php, so when ever you need to check if user is still active or not, you can simply check if the cookie exist
If it were aspnet I would say signalR... but for php perhaps you could look into Rachet it might help with a lot of what you are trying to accomplish as the messages could be pushed to the clients instead of client polling.
Imo, there is no need for setting up solutions with bidirectional communications. You only want to know if a user is still logged in or attached to the system. If I understand you right, you only need a communication from server to client. So you can try SSE (server sent events) for that. The link gives you an idea, how to implement this with PHP.
The idea is simple. The server knows if user is attached or not. He could send something like "hey, user xyz is still logged in" or "hey, user xzy seems not to be logged in any more" and the client only listens to that messages and can react to the messages (e.g. via JavaScript).
The advantage is: SSE is really good for realtime applications, because the server only has to send data and the client has only to listen, see also the specification for this.
If you really need bidirectional communications or can't go with the two dependencies mentioned in the specs, it's not the best decision to use SSE, of course.
Here is a late Update with a nice chat example (written in Java). Probably it's also good to get an idea how to implement this in PHP.
I am using SignalR for notifications in my web site but i couldn't find a way to send notifications according to the page/content.
Let me explain in details.
Assume that, there is a page for showing a record from database (for example a blog post).
So there is only one page for showing posts as it should be.
And every post has a like counter which i want to update via signalr notifications, if another user clicks like button. Until here, it is very easy to accomplish.
This page contains a javascript code block like below
var notify = $.connection.notificationHub;
notify.client.updatePostLikeCount = function (likeCount) {
$("#likeCount").text(likeCount);
};
And this function triggered from server-side like below (it is in another class instead of Hub class)
var context = GlobalHost.ConnectionManager.GetHubContext<NotificationHub>();
context.Clients.User(user.Id).updatePostLikeCount(likeCount);
But a user might open more than one post; so if a notification is sent from server-side all opened tabs receive this notification and update its counter.
I looked for .Caller method but it is not available in IHubContext interface which GetHubContext() returns and couldn't find another way.
To summarize, i want to send notifications to users who had opened the post which user liked.
EDIT: After sending question i got an idea. Continue sending notification as being and filtering according to the content at client side. It is not very good but i think it will work with charms.
I am currently playing with Faye.js. Upon subscription to a channel I want that specific client to receive an object that would be irrelevant to anybody already in the channel.
How can this be achieved?
More detail:
The object is an array of the last 20 chat comments in the room. Anybody already in the room would have received this object already or been a part of the chats and so it is not required for these to receive it.
Thank you in advance.
The only way I've come across is to generate a client-side GUID. When the client connects, it announces itself to the others through a 'public' channel, you can then use the GUID to send messages directly to this client.
For example, take the piece of code from the answer of this previous question to generate something that looks like a UUID.
You can then do something on the client-side like this:
var guid = guidGenerator();
client.subscribe('/privChannel_' + guid, onPrivateMessage);
client.subscribe('/pubChannel', onPublicMessage);
client.publish('/announce', { 'myId': guid });
function onPrivateMessage() {
// do something
};
function onPublicMessage() {
// do something
};
Your server should always subscribe to the '/announce' channel, and when any message is posted in that channel it should store that id so that it can identify that particular client. Then, the server can use this id to publish to a channel only this client should be subscribed to.
Note however that this is not a good idea for sensitive data. Other clients could also subscribe to '/announce' and farm the guids for malicious purposes.
Is it possible to send data using socket.io-node just to chosen group of users? For example, how could I implement chat with different rooms? I dont want .broadcast() to send data to all logged in users.
Normally you should have for each room a list of connected user and those user all have a client object that you should have stored somewhere. So when you want to send a message to a specific room, you just have to iterate over the connected user of that room and access their client object and send the data.
In short, it is possible you just have to send your data to each of the users in the group one-by-one.
socket.io has a grouping functionality built in
On the socket object for a single connection, like you get passed when a new user connects, you can call .join('roomName') where roomName is any string you want to use to identify the "room", you could use a room name like "profile/14" to create a channel for updates to user #14's profile.
Then on the main io object do something like:
io.sockets.in('profile/14').emit('newComment', {message:'hello'});
The message will go out to all connections that have .join()'d the given room.
Typically I'll have my client emit a "hello" event onConnect that identifies what content the client is interested in subscribing to, and then on the server side my handler for the "hello" event handles .join()'ing the client into whatever rooms are needed