WsChatter is a WebSocket-based gem for Ruby on Rails which lets you easily add a chat functionality to your application. WsChatter requires Warden for authentication. The simplest way to use Warden in your application is to install devise and create a User model, which automatically gets used by WsChatter.

Run @rails generate ws_chatter:install@ to create the initializer, migration adding status column to the user model and migration creating the message model. Three options are available:

--scope SCOPE changes the warden scope and the user model that the authentication is performed on. Default: user

--status-column STATUS_COLUMN changes the name of the column on the user model where the boolean value representing whether the user is online is stored. Default: online

--messages MESSAGES name of the model in which the messages are stored. Default: message

Run rake db:migrate after running the generator.

On the client side, you connect to the chat backend with the following code:

var onmessage = function(id, message, time) {
  // insert code here...
}

var onconnection = function(id, message, time) {
  // insert code here...
}

var chatter = new WsChatter(onmessage, onconnection)

Where onmessage() is a handler which gets called after receiving a new message and receives the id of the user sending the message, the message body and the time of creation. onconnection() gets called when a connection with another user on the server gets created/destroyed to inform the user of the change of status.

You can use the following functions during the run of the application:

chatter.send(user_id, message)

chatter.read(user_id)

chatter.close()

chatter.send() sends the message to the user with a given id, chatter.read() marks all the messages from a given user as read, and chatter.close() closes the connection.

MIT License.