I need to get a chat service working. the “content” of my site consists of two things – News and User Stories/Experiences. They want the news to read what has happened to others and they need each other to share stories that are highly personal and painful to discuss. People don’t come to my site to see pics of interesting things, they come to get answers. So chat is where it is at.
I have Drupalchat installed on my sandbox and it worked well right away. Just config the permissions to authenticated and everyone can chat. And there is Public chat too. You can go offline but you still show up, just as offline. and you can still receive messages when you are in that state. but it works well for what it is. I’m looking further. If a user can opt in or out on their own then it is cool. there are some integration features that can be used.
Setting up a Node.js server for high scalability. This is important so I am pasting the next section right from Drupal.org.
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If you use node.js as backend in this module, then it will be highly scalable. There are two ways to use this backend:
- First way is to setup your own node.js server and install Nodejs Integration module. This is currently under development.
- If you don’t want to or can’t setup your own node.js server, then you can checkout our ready to use node.js server. If you opt for this method, then there is no need to install any additional software/package on your web server. To do so, please visit and register at http://drupalchat7.botskool.co.in. Currently, we are in the process of upgrading our node.js servers and we will go live in the end of June.
If you use normal AJAX or long polling technique, then this chat module will completely integrate itself with Drupal without requiring installation of any additional software or package on the web server. It will utilize the resources of the same server on which the Drupal site is hosted and use AJAX or long polling method for updating chat messages. These techniques aren’t scalable.
Meaning it will kill your server with a lot of users. How many I am not sure but from the posts that I have seen it appears that performance can be a big problem.
This company, IFlyChat, will provide you with an outsourced method of scaling drupalchat. I was able to chat with the developer right away and get answers. Very nice service. They have a free version that supports 10 users. You configure it with configured keys much like mollom.
landie.tech 