Benefits provided:-

• At any given time a user can know who of his project members or company colleagues are present online.
• Will be a good media to exchange info, files online which when decided amongst the group can be placed on Twiki pages.
• This can also be a good media for project discussion for which at present phones are used.(which is quiet expensive and will definately be an advantage to Twiki users).
• To be precise our messenger will do all jobs which a normal messenger does, thus adding all its benefits to our powerful tool -TWiki.

I will like to hear from the TWiki community over this. My mail id is kunal.ss@indiatimesPLEASENOSPAM.com.

-- KunalShah - 11 Sep 2004

Hi Kunal. One place you can brainstorm this is on TWikiIRC - there is usually someone around for a chat.

I think a TWiki Messenger is a good idea. I'd recommend basing it on an existing infrastructure - perhaps GAIM (http://gaim.sf.net) would be a good fit as it has perl plugin system... we could write a perl plugin that talked to a component running in twiki.

People don't tend to email each other about TWiki - most things get posted back on the site. Unfortunately the InterestedParties feature is not fully implemented yet - ideally TWiki would email/send instant messages to us about those topics for which we have expressed an interest in -- I don't know whether there is any plan for bringing this feature to fruition. There is an RSS feed but I don't know whether you use an RSS reader...

-- MartinCleaver - 11 Sep 2004

Thank you all for your suggestions on the Twiki messenger concept. What I have understood from all your suggestions is that you want me to interface a existing GAIM messaging solution with Twiki using a perl plugin. Its fine with me. The action plan which I have thought from here is now I will like to study what GAIM is and how it works and once I understand the concept we can discusses further.I will take some time for this and will keep you posted with queries if any. Do suggest me if I should be doing something else.

-- KunalShah - 14 Sep 2004

check out jabber and perhaps POE

-- TWikiGuest - 14 Sep 2004

I spent a good deal of time reading Gaim documents and all info being displayed on net for the same. What I understood from it is:-

• To me it looks like another messenger software that facilitates IM b/w various protocols. It can be installable on our PCs and when executed it would prompt for Login info and Once we logon we would be able to chat with any of our friends from Yahoo! AOL messengers

• Gaim doesn't seem to have time to explain things in detail to the people (Especially by personal contact, email...) that really is daunting to me, as I expect that we atleast will require a detailed knowledge of what Gaim is and how is its architecture before incorporating it with Twiki.

• Also the perl pulgin thing we have talked about in our previous discussions. I feel that Gaim web site mentions that a how to create such a perl plugin.

My thoughts and Suggestions:

1. Now before I proceed I will like to know about what we want (facility wise) in our Twiki messenger. What I was thinking about it was, we should have a Twiki messenger which can be used as a Intranet or Internal messenger by the companies which deploy Twiki. So that people in same project or company can use it as a good project discussion media.
2. Secondly with Gaim I feel we need install it on every PC (i.e each one in a company) so that only those who have installed it on their own pc’s will be able to use facilities provided by Gaim. And I think requiring all people to install Gaim is a hectic.
3. What I thought was to provide a messenger with the Twiki Installation itself (i.e with files which Twiki provided during installation ) and here users who can log on to Twiki can also log into this messenger automatically by just a click of button.
4. What I think is designing a custom based Messenger which can work as a internal Messenger such that it suits requirements of project members working in the same company will be a good idea.

I will like to know what you people expect out of Twiki Messenger so that I can comment on it.

-- KunalShah - 20 Sep 2004

Communication on TWiki is by it's nature asynchronous; whereas IM tools are instantainious. If you want both facilities why would you want to have them in the same tool? Wouldn't it be better to use separate tools so that you can change one without affecting the other?

If you want IM you will need to have software running on client PC's. I don't see how you can escape having to install something.

-- SamHasler - 20 Sep 2004

Ideally build it into a library, so that it can be used from either GAIM or standalone. With the right architecture this should not be too hard.

More from me next week.

-- MartinCleaver - 21 Sep 2004

Sam I agreee Twiki is asynchronous in nature but why not provide a Messenger facility so that users can use it and work on Twiki online. It can be a good benifit to Twiki Users I have written why I think Messenger should be added to twiki at the beginning of the topic I will like u to read that and then suggest me how do u find them.

Hi Martin , About the library Issue I want u to tell me a little more on this.Like some pages which I should read or some documentation of twiki which will help me understand this better I will like to here more form u. -- KunalShah - 30 Sep 2004