I have an application developed in PHP. I'm completely new to node.js and would like to know how I can use node.js for status updates. I don't know node.js that well to have the whole appliction built in node.js. I would like to keep the PHP parts and just use node.js for updates and other real time features. Any tips?
The main aim of using node.js is to bypass the use of an apache server (like in the case of php) by developing your own web pages server.
You can still use node.js with your php app but this will get you into a lot of troubles.
If you want to add updates and real-time features i advice you to give it a try with websockets.
Have a look here to understand the functioning of node.js: http://www.toptal.com/nodejs/why-the-hell-would-i-use-node-js
and here for php websockets: http://socketo.me/
Good luck
Related
I'm currently working on a trade / social network site as a side/learning/fun project.
At the moment I have an sql database messaging system. I want to create a live chat system like facebook which can tell the user is online, typing a message and everything.
I did some research into this and figured I need to start learning to use node.js and websockets. I called my webhost and they said they don't support node.js. I like the tools I'm using and do not want to migrate my website.
I also looked into some info about CORS.
I was thinking of a solution: client as well as the php server also communicates with an external node.js server using jquery to handle all chat and notification requests. The node.js server will also store messages in the php servers mysql database.
Is this solution feasible and am I on the right track? Or is there a better way?
I need to develop a web application with a chat feature, and I would like to know if there are any sophisticated ways to create a realtime web-application with a push engine.
I know jQuery, and I can handle to create a chat web-application which, in the client side, check every period for new messages, and show them, but I don't like this solution and I was wondering if there are any better ways to do it.
In my research I discovered the existence Ajax Push Engine project, and it looks like what I need, but when I was navigating in their website I found it not very well done and somehow incomplete, so I was wondring if there API is stable enough to be put in a production environment if not are there any other solutions?
Sorry if I made it long, any help/hint/link/suggestion would be very welcomed :)
EDIT
I would like to specify that I'm working with PHP in the server side
Here is an implementation in NodeJs.
http://dhotson.tumblr.com/post/271733389/a-simple-chat-server-in-node-js
I recently (year 2012) developed an application in ASP.NET MVC3 where I used SignalR for real-time messaging between server and client. At their own site, they describe SignalR like this:
ASP.NET SignalR is a new library for ASP.NET developers that makes it incredibly simple to add real-time web functionality to your applications. What is "real-time web" functionality? It's the ability to have your server-side code push content to the connected clients as it happens, in real-time.
... and they give the following example of what you can use SignalR for:
SignalR can be used to add any sort of "real-time" web functionality to your ASP.NET application. While chat is often used as an example, you can do a whole lot more. Any time a user refreshes a web page to see new data, or the page implements Ajax long polling to retrieve new data, is candidate for using SignalR.
Further, based on my experience, I believe it is very simple to set up, easy to use, and have a good github page with well-written documentation that gets you going in no time. I can highly recommend it :)
I'm looking into the development of a site where socket use is a must for real time updates. I understand with wordpress it is difficult to incorporate node.js and socket.io and was wondering if this is the case with drupal. Specifically could I incorporate node.js and socket.io with php? What specific steps would I need to take? I appreciate the help and of course if you give me a good answer, I'll rate you up.
There are currently Node.js modules that connect to Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress. I wrote the one for Joomla: https://github.com/jlleblanc/nodejs-joomla You can find all of these through NPM. First, you would download one of these modules, then you would also download the Socket.io module. Then you would write server side code connecting the CMS to Socket.io. Finally, you would write client-side code to talk to the socket running in Node.
You can have it separated and since you want some client-server communication with node.js, you can have it - outside Drupal (this is the easiest and cleanest way).
CMS you use (be it Drupal or Wordpress) does not limit your JavaScript from using socket.io and node.js for the calls you want to be made outside the CMS server-side code. You can eg. read the same database Drupal/Wordpress does, but using Node.js and returning the results directly to the client-side JavaScript script.
You can integrate Socket.IO with whatever technology you like, but you need to think of them as 2 separate parts that need to communicate.
I see 2 solutions for Socket.IO to communicate with an external service (Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, whatever):
1) Making a rest API for your Socket.IO application (for example using Express for the API layer and then passing messages to Socket.IO with an EventEmitter).
2) The better solution in my opinion is to use a message queue like Redis, RabbitMQ or ZeroMQ. The Drupal website would send a message down the channel to Socket.IO and then Socket.IO would send that message to the client(s).
If you are creating a system that needs authentication also, I suggest you don't let your users send message directly with Socket.IO, but make an Ajax call to your main server instead (Drupal for ex.). That way you can check the user's identity more easily. (This scenario would be a fit for a chat based system that requires authentication)
Although this video tutorial is for EventMachine with Faye, the same logic could apply to your app: http://railscasts.com/episodes/260-messaging-with-faye
What is the best way to connect an android application and a php server using sockets? I am trying to implement a chat system between multiple clients, but I know that PHP does not allow multithreads.
Sorry for not giving enough information about what I intend to do. I basically want to create an app simmilar to google latitude, and I also want to implement a chat system between the users. I have aldready decided that I am going to use a MySQl DB and therfore a PHP server so the client communicates with the DB using JSON for data exchange. I am quite new to this and I don't know how the architecture Client-Server-Client communication should look like. I found out that the easiest way to do this is using HTTP requests, but I don't know how I should implement this.
I think you can use jabber protocol, install any xmpp server and you can connect to that from android, this is standard for chat applications
use xml-rpc base php webservices for chat server. your chat client will contact to chat server throught web services.
*I was going to make this a comment but I ran out of space, plus it does have some answer-y qualities to it.
This question does not contain nearly enough information for anyone to usefully help you. How do you think it should be done? You can't ask people to critique an idea when you haven't told them what your idea is.
PHP is the wrong language for this, because (as you rightly point out) it can't be multi-threaded - amongst a multitude of other reasons. I personally would recommend Node.js (or possibly Java), but that's just my preference.
If you still insist on using PHP, take a look at this. It might give you a point in the right direction for a non-blocking multi-IO setup such as this - but you're letting yourself into a whole world of unnecessary complication by doing this in PHP.
I was looking at Kanaka's reply to a websockets question here.
If I want to write a native app in PHP to use a websocket based webservice, where do I start? Are there any client libraries available in PHP to write native linux clients?
Basically, my server can work on a RESTful architecture for 90% of the time. However, there is one reason for the server to alert the client, so REST won't work here. So I am wondering if websockets is an answer here for me as compared to periodic polling by client.
Why not write the 90% using normal REST and do the remaining part where notifications are sent to the client using web sockets?
Here is a github project that looks like it might be what you want https://github.com/nicokaiser/php-websocket