Creating a chat program like MSN messager?

[ProgrammerJon]

I want to make a chat program like MSN messager, but a bit simpler. Can anyone please tell me were to start.

[Pirate]

Originally posted by ProgrammerJon
I want to make a chat program like MSN messager, but a bit simpler. Can anyone please tell me were to start.

All what I know about such applications is that they're called Peer-to-Peer chat programs .I remember guys here dicussed this issue months ago .Search the forum and MSDN .I'm sure you find tips about this topic .
Luck

[Edneeis]

Start at the beginning

Learn or look up info on the Sockets namespace.

[Redth]

yes...

You'll want to make a Server (probably multithreaded) with windows sockets, as well as a client.. two seperate applications...

the server will be the tricky part... I'm trying to work on a basic server right now for something of a similar setup... needs to be multithreaded to be realstically scalable...

now, from here, it all depends on exactly how you want this to work... there are a few routes to go... you could:

A) Have a server handle everything... client sends server message, server handles this message and sends it back out to who it is intended for... this method would be the easiest to program i think... however, it relies heavily on the server since the server acts sort of as the middle man... kind of like the post office.. you send them a letter, they make sure it gets to who you want it to end up with..


B) Have a server handle only things like authentication, and holding user state... This takes a HUGE load off of the server... to send messages, the client would ask the server for the address of a user you want to send a message to.... then, you would directly connect to that person's computer and send him the message directly... This way works kind of like a phone book... you look up from the phone book an address of who you want your letter to get to... now instead of having someone else send your letter, you walk to that person and hand them the letter yourself!

as you can imagine, this way is much more complex... to do this, each client application must also act as a multi connection server itself, handling multiple connections (for multiple conversations)... in the long run, i think this is the best method to use in such an approach... it is very scalable... the other way would require a lot more server use...


i've been thinking of doing some kind of application along these lines myself... once i create a basic multi-connection/multi-threaded server, i may attempt something like this... it would be interesting...

on that note, does anyone have any really good tutorials on multithreading a server in vb.net with sockets? i've found one example on pscode, and it's pretty good, but not commented, and a bit complex to pick up just by looking at the code...