How to Create a Chat Website
Online chat, VoIP, Voice chat and Video chat are some of the terms, which prove that technology has left no stone unturned to reduce the distance between people. An internet chat website involves synchronous conferencing (sometimes asynchronous conferencing as well). The chat website, or if we call it a chat room, can involve real-time online chat, online forums, instant messaging and graphical social environments. Various chat rooms provide various facilities such as text-based chat, voice chat and even video chat.
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Instructions
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Instructions
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Log in to the web host account (something like godaddy.com or znetindia.com). Go to the location of free application (it’ll be in the application folder/link of the web host account). Install the chat script by instructing the web host. You may need to change the layout of the web page to house in the chat box; this can be done by re-coding the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code or by choosing a template that has a chat box in it.
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Install a server-side language such as Active Server Pages (ASP) or Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP). These are coding languages that are used for creating websites and web-based programs. You can do it by enabling or buying such a web hosting plan that supports and offers these coding languages. If you are using your own PC to host the web site, then the operating system you are using must have PHP and ASP support. Most of the Windows server operating systems have them. Or else, you can download and install them from the websites distributing PHP and ASP executables. These sites too provide detailed installation and troubleshooting guides.
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Create a database like MySql by using your web host’s account panel. In it will be listed as "databases." You can click on that link and follow the necessary steps to create a database. Then you’ll have to connect the database to your website. Keep in mind that the database table should have fields to store your nickname, time and message (for this, you may need to have basic knowledge of making and using databases). Now a user interface has to be created (this can be done by choosing a template if the web host offers templates or else you will have to make one using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This would require two or more text boxes (for the creation of text boxes, use a programming language like HTML).One of them could be for entering the chat message and another for displaying chat log, etc.
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Use AJAX techniques and Javascript techniques for creating client-side scripts. Since chat sites are based on a server-client model, you will need scripts to handle the client and server requests. Some computer programs on the web are executed on a web server and some programs are executed by the web browser of the user. The former is called as server-side execution of a computer program whereas the latter is called as the client-side execution. Client-side scripts are written on client-side JavaScript language and VBScript language. Some knowledge of scripting is needed for writing these, but many such scripts are already available for copy and pasting from code sharing sites. Also, remember that the script ought to be able to transfer chat messages that you want to send to server through AJAX. Plus, the script must check the server for new messages at regular intervals and keep adding the messages to chat window. The script should specify the time also when the last message was received.
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Create the server-side script. It should add to your database table the incoming messages with the person’s nickname that sent it with the time stamped on it. It should also return new messages after the specified time in the AJAX request, which has been mentioned before.
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Tips & Warnings
Using a paid web host would minimize the work, as they already have a chat room script installed in it.
If you can predict that the chat room will attract a lot of e-traffic, consider going for a web host that can efficiently handle the bandwidth without bogging down the server.
It is better to use an AJAX library, as it is easily available to download.
To save disk space, you should always clear the database once you are done with the chat.
