Custom Flash XMPP Client

The site has readers, authors, and admins who can interact with each other in very specific ways as defined below. The XMPP server will be installed and running on a subdomain of the same site (eg: [login to view URL]). Graphics and design will be provided before project begins.

Admin & Author Chat

Admins & authors can initiate chat requests with authors or other admins or authors. Admins & authors can receive chat requests from any other user.

· Admins & authors can click a button in the admin area to open the XMPP chat client in a new window. The chat client, upon launch, will automatically log the user into the XMPP server (the server, username and password will be passed to the Flash client via hidden parameters). The admins & authors should never be presented with a login screen.

· On launch the client shows a contact list of all authors/admins currently logged into XMPP. Admins will be shown with a light green background with "Admin" beside their username. Authors will have a light blue background. Readers will not be visible on the contact list.

· The admin or author can double click any of the contacts in their contact list to begin a one on one chat with that user in a new window. This system will not support group chat (one to one only).

· As long as the admin or author’s contact list is open, they will be "online". There is no way to set a status (eg: "Away") and no way to be "invisible".

· When receiving a message from any other user the message will either be added to an existing window (if there’s already an ongoing chat with that user) or a new window will be created.

· If you’re chatting with a user and the user becomes unavailable (offline) you will receive a message in your chat window "This user is no longer online, please try again later". The title bar of the window will change to be "Name is offline" or "Name (Admin) is offline" if the user is an admin.

· The chat windows will contain the name of the user you are chatting with in the title bar, and the background color of the chat window will be determined by the user type of the person you are chatting with.

· Closing the chat window will end the chat.

· Closing the contact list window will log them out of XMPP (and they will no longer appear "online" to other users).

User Chat

Users can initiate chat requests with any author. Users cannot receive chat requests from anyone. Users do not have access to any sort of contact list.

· A user, on reading an article by an author, sees a button on the article "Chat with Author" if the author is currently logged into XMPP. If the author is not logged in they will see a graphic that says "Author is not online" instead.

· The author’s XMPP username, along with the server, user’s username, and user’s password will be passed to the Flash app as a hidden parameter so the app can log into the XMPP server and determine if the author is online or not.

· If the author is online the reader can click the button to begin a one on one chat in a new window with the author.

· Readers do not see a contact list, and cannot select who to chat with other than via clicking the buttons on the author’s articles.

· So long as the chat window remains open the user will continue to be online chatting with the author (even if they browse to a different page in the main window).

· Closing the chat window will end the chat.

The functionality described above may be split into several smaller apps. Eg:

· A button object that checks if an author is online or not, displays the proper image, and if the author is online allows the user to click launching a chat window.

· A chat window that can be launched from either the "online" button or from the author/admin contact list.

· A contact list that displays the online users, and launches chat windows when the user double clicks on a contact, or when a message is received from the server that doesn’t already have a chat window.

ActionScript Adobe Flash Flex

Project ID: #1092042

About the project