How to get a list of connected clients on SignalR

Question

I am quite new to SignalR. My first assignment is to make simple chat app.

I have been browsing and reading and finally made a page where you come and chat and it works fine.

Now I need to show a list of connected clients. To achieve this I have wrote the following code. This is my HUB.

public class ChatHub: Hub
{

    chatEntities dc = new chatEntities();
    public void Send(string message,string clientName)
    {
        Clients.addMessage(message,clientName);

    }

    // I want to save the user into my database, when they join 
    public void Joined(string userId,string userName)
    {

        CurrentChattingUsers cu = new CurrentChattingUsers();
        cu.ConnectionId = userId;
        cu.UserName = userName;

        dc.CurrentChattingUsers.AddObject(cu);
        dc.SaveChanges();


       Clients.joins(userId, userName);
    }

    // This will return a list of connected user from my db table.
    public List<ClientModel> GetConnectedUsers()
    {
        var query = (from k in dc.CurrentChattingUsers
                     select new ClientModel()
                     {
                         FullName = k.UserName,
                         UserId = k.ConnectionId
                     }).ToList();
        return query;
    }   


}

And thats it...Now what?? Am I going to the right direction? If, I am then how to call this methods from the view? Some good suggestions will really help me out. cheers

EDIT:

I have added the following script when the hub start

$.connection.hub.start(function () {
            chat.getConnectedUsers();

        });

This is the method that returns the client names in my Hub

  public List<ClientModel> GetConnectedUsers()
    {
        var data = (from k in dc.Users
                     select new ClientModel()
                     {
                         FullName = k.UserName

                     }).ToList();

         Clients.loadUsers(data);
        return data;
    }

in firebug i can see it returns something as follows;

{"State":{},"Result":[{"FullName":"mokarom","UserId":null},  {"FullName":"aka8000","UserId":null},{"FullName":"johnnyno5","UserId":null},{"FullName":"reza","UserId":null},{"FullName":"amyo","UserId":null},{"FullName":"rezatech","UserId":null}],"Id":"0","Error":null,"StackTrace":null}

But, how would I display that in my view??

EDIT:

this the complete view so far

<script type="text/javascript">
    var chat;
    var myClientName
    $(document).ready(function(){

      myClientName = '@Request.Cookies["ChatterName"].Value';


        // Created proxy
        chat = $.connection.chatHub;
        // Assign a function to be called by the server
        chat.addMessage = onAddMessage;

        // Register a function with the button click
        $("#broadcast").click(onBroadcast);


        $('#message').keydown(function (e) {
            if (e.which == 13) { //Enter
                e.preventDefault();

                onBroadcast();

            }
        });

        // Start the connection
        $.connection.hub.start(function () {
           chat.getConnectedUsers();

        });

        chat.loadUsers = function (data) {
            loadUsers(data); 

         };
    });


    function onAddMessage(message,clientName) {
        // Add the message to the list
        $('#messages').append('<div class="chatterName">' + clientName + ' </div><div class="chatterMessage"> ' + message + '</div><div class="clear">');

    }
    function onBroadcast() {
        // Call the chat method on the server
        chat.send($('#message').val(), myClientName);
        $('#message').val('');
    }
    function loadUsers(data) {
        $('#clientList').html(data.Result[0].FullName);

    }
</script>

Problem: don't see anything here: $('#clientList').html(data.Result[0].FullName); firebug says 'data is not defined'

Answer 1

JavaScript

var chats = $.connection.chatHub;
chats.loadUsers = function (data) { loadUsers(data); };
var connectedUserCount = 0;

$.connection.hub.start(function () 
         { chats.getConnectedUsers(); });

function loadUsers =  = function (data) {
  console.log(data); //so you can see your data in firebug.etc
            //which signal r will have converted to json so you could try
  var numberOfUsers = data.length;  
}

Once hub is started chats would have all the public functions of your hub available as javascript functions. This is what the signalr/hubs creates using the best available connection method between client and server.

In reverse your C# hub will have access to any javascripts functions you setup, eg

Clients.loadUsers(query);  
//add this to you server side just before you return query

ps - you might also consider using OnConnectedAsync , though of course you might still persist these. I'm also waiting for full support for web farm support using sql, which is in the pipeline .