What are your thoughts on incorporating a web-based "chat widget" on a website?
Currently, I am using the following setup:
- OpenFire (latest Beta)
- Tigase Messenger XMPP library / webclient
- htttp://messenger.tigase.org/
The Tigase Messenger was customized using the Google Web Toolkit to meet my requirements. It required a significant amount of modification, but it is functioning adequately.
Essential features I require:
- Group chat tabs
- Group chat roster
- Double-click a group chat participant to start a point-to-point chat
- (Nice to have) Highlighting and sound notification for incoming messages
Here are some screenshots for reference:
https://i.sstatic.net/S9vgL.jpg
However, there are some issues I am facing:
Firstly, the chat widget loads very slowly, possibly due to the heavy javascript and GWT usage. Secondly, working with GWT can be cumbersome, especially since the rest of the web app is developed in ASP .NET 4.0 on IIS7. It would be more convenient for me to work in a single IDE and language instead of switching between Visual Studio 2010 and Eclipse (Java).
Exploring alternatives, I came across agsXMPP (htttp://www.ag-software.de/agsxmpp-sdk/), which seems to be an ASP .NET library.
I would appreciate any guidance from you on how you would approach developing a relatively simple XMPP-based chat system supporting group chat and point-to-point communication, using ASP .NET.
Any advice, links, or personal experiences would be highly valued.
Thank you!
-Josh