Jabber

(Note: This proposal has been submitted)

// Idea Summary

The idea is to improve, and implement a feature-rich XMPP API (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) in Drupal 6. Such an API will allow communication between Drupal and other XMPP clients. This will give an alternative on how Drupal systems can notify users of changes/updates. Users might also remotely interact with Drupal, using IM. A generic API will also benefit the Drupal universe as other modules can hook into XMPP when needed.

Guess I overestimated a bit the amount of time needed to make the necessary changes to the subscriptions module. A live demonstration is now up and running on my development site. Please create a new account and follow the instructions posted here to see IM notifications in action.

This Friday I posted the third release of my library, which followed two days of public testing via the demo page. Unfortunately, very few people ran the demo and all of them were using gmail accounts, so really I didn't get any new information from that. Oh well... Today I updated the Drupal module to work with the latest library revision, documented the API, and created the server admin interface. After some testing tomorrow I'll commit all of this to Drupal CVS and make the first official release for my module. Following that, I expect to finish my patch for the subscriptions module either Thursday or Friday, which will give me two days to wrap up any loose ends before SoC final deadline.

-Max

In the next one or two days I'll release the last version (before SoC end) of my XMPP library, and before that I'd like to have a few people test message delivery to their jabber accounts. This test does not involve Drupal just yet, but it perfectly mimics what my Drupal module will be doing once I update it to work with the latest library revision. As I posted on my development site, this demo would be most useful if people ran it against servers other than Google Talk or Openfire.

This week was dedicated for the most part to the server implementation. As of today, my XMPP client is essentially finished and the server just needs a few more hours of work. Today I started writing the implementation of server dialback and router extensions, which are the last two pieces needed for a working server. My hope is wrap up the library in the next three days, followed by a day or two for testing and, of course, writing examples and documentation.

I forgot to post an update to this group last week, didn't I? My apologizes, but actually there wasn't a lot of new things to report. You can read the post on my site regarding all the "fun" I had that week. This week, as I'm moving closer and closer to the server implementation, I made a proposal to change the way the server communicates with the client.

Since making the first release of the module last week I was finally able to get some feedback on the project, so thanks to everyone who wrote and IMed me :) This week, unfortunately, I ran into a few problems implementing publish-subscribe functionality due to the fact that clients aren't reacting to event notifications. If you want to know more, I posted all the details here.

This week I'm making the first release of the XMPP Drupal module. It basically wraps the functionality of the latest library version, giving you an interface to configure the client and send test messages. I would love to get some feedback both on the user interface and the actual functionality, since so far I've heard very little regarding the two library releases. You can grab the module archive from my site, be sure to read what I posted regarding the configuration steps.

-Max

I posted the week 5 update on my site a few days ago, and not much changed since then. I'm still waiting to hear any feedback on the client I released a week ago. I didn't want to release the module until some testing was done on the client separately, but looks like I'll have no choice. For now, I've decided to make a few additional changes to the client, and the next version will be posted in a day or two. The module will follow shortly after.

-Max

This week was a big milestone for me, because I made the first release of the XMPP library that will eventually turn into a Drupal module. For now, the library contains just the client component which can connect to XMPP servers and send instant messages to other users. There is still a bit more work to be done (particularly on the Publish-Subscribe extension, which is currently non-existent), but I think this is a good first step.