Hello All.

 

I'd be very grateful if you could answer a few questions for me.

 

I want to create a site that functions as a gateway to chatrooms. That is, on the main page you see something like "chris wants to talk" which then lets you click and actually talk to chris who filled out a short form earlier.i also want to program the actual chat environment to include some features, and i would like all chats to be saved and to be accessible from the website later. people should also be able to register and create basic links with one another.

 

now, i have some programing experience, but not much web experience.

 

it would be very kind if you could just point me to the right direction in terms of what programming languages / software i can/need to use to create a chat room, a database of users, and a website that integrates the chatroom and the database.

 

thanks very much.

 

david

The best option for you is either a shoutbox, guestbook, or a forum. They are really easy to set up, but something of your experience requires you to either hire an experienced programmer or become one. If those aren't an option, then I would suggest a forum, as it saves the posts for later and also lets people register.

 

Suggested forums are: BBpress (made by Auttomatic/Wordpress. Good if you have a self-hosted wordpress blog, because you can intergrate them and make them joined together.)

Invision Power Board (Invision hosts your forum without you needing a site.)

PhpBB2 (Most people use this).

Yes,

 

I would suggest Invision Board Forum Software.

 

They also support Parachat (Real-time chatting software) so it seamlessly integrates into the board and they are also going to be releasing a Shoutbox shortly.

 

Hope that helps!

At this point all options are open, including the hiring of professionals. I would just like to know what kind of structure the website needs, so I can deal with it.

 

How do you build a chatroom? How do you build a database of users? How do you integrate them on a website?

 

I do have considerable programming experience (Java, and some SQL) and a minor in computer science. I repeat that at this point i'm really trying to get a grasp on the whole problem. Once I understand what skills are needed, it will be much easier to deal with.

Hi david,

 

There are two types of chat rooms Java based and Ajax based.

I do not know much about prgramming in the java enironment but I dont think there is much open source material on this.

Ajax method uses PHP and Mysql , there are endless number of open source scripts out there. Your first stop will be hotscripts.com. Try and find free ajax based chat scripts ( You need to identify the free scripts from the paid ones).

and just set up a server and test it out

 

I think you should start to learn PHP and Mysql first (its a lot easier than java, less formalities in programming style but yet so powerful and flexible).

 

 

Hope this info helps.

thanks. this is a great help.

 

i'm assuming that these are then integrated to the site with HTML? Excuse my ignorance, i've just been away from the scene for a lot of years.

 

And how do I do the database of users? also Ajax?

 

Thanks,

 

David

 

ps. I hear a a lot about python these days. Could you write a few sentences about it? thanks