Internal Chat option in asp.net 2.0

Question

How can I add a chat option in ASP.NET like gmail chatting? It does not need to be available online; only internal users will use it.

Currently we are using one piece of software (a web application that all people who need access to the chat login into, I'd like those people to be shown as available). The software will be used within a hospital, so the internet is not required. any idea ?

Answer 1

A simple way you could achieve this is by having a database table of currently logged on users. When a user logs on, a record is inserted. The user could keep sending a small request every 1 minute (or so) to update a timestamp in that table. Every 5 minutes say, clear out the users from the table that have let there timestamp lapse...

So then your online list is just a select from that table...

You could tweak/tune all the timings to have it more accurate...over an intranet, you could likely poll more frequently.

Answer 2

You could start from my open source Live Chat project and tweak it to fit your need.

You would already have the online / offline mechanic and the chat engine as well. It's a one on one chat, since you mention gmail I suppose you meant one on one.

In any case, you might save some days starting from it, have a look to the current version uses ASP.NET MVC 3

You can start from the ASP.NET 2.0 2007 release if you cannot go with .NET 4 & MVC 3 this is the direct link to the ASP.NET 2 release download