Question

Chat functionality in Mendix

7

I'm interested in adding chat functionality to a Mendix application. I've been thinking about modeling a chat domain and using the microflow timer to refresh a ChatSession object with message updates. However, I can think of some drawbacks (e.g. performance). Has anyone implemented this? If yes, which design decisions did you take?

asked 2012-02-14

Jonathan van Alteren

3 answers

4

Chat should be based on push, not pull. You want snappy responses (that is, with a delay of < 1s). XMPP is your weapon of choice. For that, you need to set up an XMPP server which supports BOSH (http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0124.html). Then you need some custom widgets that communicate with the XMPP server. Difficult, but possible. Mendix would certainly be interested if you manage it though.

answered 2012-02-15

Jouke Waleson

4

In our application we have a chat function that is using pull, but the nice thing is that we have a response time currently set to 2 secs and all the functionality is Mendix, no java or other servers needed.

answered 2012-02-15

Erwin 't Hoen

Herbert Vuijk · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-16

I planned to work on a chat custom widget based on pull. To reduce response time (and to minimize the amount of request) we want to use long-running HTTP calls. So the request isn't replied from the server as long as there's no message for the caller. This reduces server load and clients gets their messages in milliseconds.. The planning is to make it available in the App store within a month (little bit depending on the resources ;)).