gossip

A minimal chat app over Go web-sockets.

0. Goals
1. Using
2. Building
3. Testing and Hacking
4. Notable Make Commands

Goals

1. Reduce heartbeat rate if window not visible.
2. "Hide screen" when window visible for too long (AFK protection).
3. Cleaner input area.
4. Regularly replace timestamp with relative timestamps (about 3 minutes, 2 days, etc).
5. All navigation done through simple nav bar.
   • rooms/options are 'bootstrap breadcrumbs' that drop down or something
     • {Gossip} / {organization | group} / {room | whisper}
   • people in users list are links to start PM session
     • {meta-key}+click may @mention someone in the current channel
6. IRC-style commands
7. Off-The-Record
8. All the good and thought out encryption I can muster.
9. Only keep last X messages -- scrolling loads more.
10. Quickselect -- potentially on holding of a meta key;
    • Use something like this
    • Link to most recent and/or popular:
      1. People/ private rooms
      2. Rooms
      3. Groups
11. Search

Using

TODO: Mongo documentation

From Source

First, read the building section. It will illustrate how to:

1. Install Dependencies
2. Build the Binary and Client

Then decide whether you want to:

1. Run Locally
2. Run In a Virtual Machine

From Binaries

Coming soon lol ...

Running

Now that we've got everything built/installed let's run the thing.

Locally

To run the server on the machine you built/downloaded on:

make run

This also requires a Mongo database be running on the system.

Assuming no changes were made to the Vagrantfile the application will be accessible at:

http://192.168.20.20

EC2

Coming soon... done in Vagrant.

Building

Much of the building and installation is done via make. There are a few prereqs.

Prerequisites

The following are requisites only for building. They are hard dependencies for it, however.

1. The primary development language is Go
2. Development of the reference client aided by node

All secondary libraries, utilities, and actions are installed by the make commands.

make deps

Do note that the node requirement may be expanded or completely removed. I am open to suggestions or pull requests on this matter.

For a list of what dependencies are used:

1. Go: /deps.json
2. node: /package.json

Steps

If all hard dependencies met, a simple make install will do. For sanity's sake, I'll describe the whole process. It is two parts.

Dependencies

1. Install go:
   • Debian/Ubuntu/etc: apt-get install golang
   • MacOSX:
     • brew: brew install go
     • without brew: follow the go site instructions
2. Install node:
   • Debian/Ubuntu/etc: apt-get install nodejs
   • MacOSX:
     • brew: brew install node
     • without brew: follow the node site instructions

Building Application

Now, to build the binary and client, simply run:

1. make
2. make install
   • binary installation directory set by $PREFIX
     • inline: PREFIX=/my/install/dir make install

The default make target will pull secondary dependencies, compile the binary, and generate distribution client code.

Intuitively, make install installs the binary into a globally executable location and the client into a servable directory.

Testing & Hacking

In the root directory you will find a Vagrantfile and an ansible/ directory.

Vagrant provides easy creation of machine environments using a variety of providers but most natable Virtualbox and EC2.

Ansible is a tool that allows easy provisioning of machines generated by Vagrant or some other means. Simply point it a single or set of boxes and let her rip.

Local

To start a local environment make sure you have Vagrant and Virtualbox installed.

Once this is done, simply run:

make local

Remote

Still working on this ...

Notable Make Commands

This list does not contain all the commands. It is meant to highlight the important ones.

default -- happens on a bare make

• Does a "sum-total" build of the server binary and client.
• It does not attempt to install it, however.

deps

• Install all secondary dependencies for go and node

binary

• Only build the server -- go portion of the codebase

client

• Build the reference client into the ouput directory

clean

• Remove intermediate files and built directory

install

• Debian-focused, though should work on most *nices or BSDs
  • verified on Ubuntu 14.04 and MacOSX 10.9
• Install the binary to the $PREFIX directory
  • if none supplied, /usr/local/bin is used
• Install the client to /srv/gossip
  • this will be made variable soon

local

• Build a local test environment using Vagrant and [Ansible] (http://ansible.com).

run

• Run the server on the machine issuing the command
• Will build the system first

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Issues & Feedback

If you encounter problems with gossip, please feel free to raise an issue.

Contributing

Fork this repository and make a pull request!

License

gossip is released under the MIT license.