Inspiration
During a global pandemic, socialization with others is harder than ever. One of the greatest things we've been thankful for is the ability to socialize with others online. We wanted to create our own web chat and learn some useful tools along the way.
What it does
A simple text-based chat application. Someone joins via a URL and can type a message and have it displayed on the screen, this message is also sent to anyone else connected to the application and the server (not currently hosted anywhere). When joining, each person is assigned a random username so it's possible to keep track of who said what while keeping things anonymous.
How we built it
The front-end was built with react (over-kill? yes (: ), the back-end was built using express (node.js) and the connection between the clients and server was managed using socket.io. A client connects to the server via a socket and the client and server can send messages between each other. Usernames are generated on connection to the server via the socket and last for as long as that connection exists.
Challenges we ran into
We had issues with availability so we had to scrap a ton of features we wanted to try to implement. Features like pairing up with someone random and having a mini-game between them will have to wait for another time.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Both of us were not familiar with react, node.js, or socket.io going into this. We're really proud we managed to gather enough info from documentation and tutorials to be able to present anything with the time issues we ran into.
What we learned
Most of the learning and the major purpose for us was to learn more on how to use node.js and react. we're really satisfied we did, from what we've seen and experienced they seem like extremely powerful and simple tools and we're looking forward to creating more with them. Aside from tools working in a team under non-ideal conditions is always a learning experience in time management.
What's next for AnotherWebChatApp
Potentially adding the features we initially set out for as well as hosting this on a server so it can accessed through the web. First and foremost though would be to finally fix some CSS bugs.
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