XMPP Over WebSocket
XOWS (or Xows) stands for "XMPP Over WebSocket", it is a JavaScript/HTML based XMPP web client that use the WebSocket protocole.
It consist on a JavaScript application as main program with additional web content (HTML, SVG images and fonts) for the interface.
It can be used simply by loading the JavaScript files (or the single minified file) from a web page (typically, an index.html), then call the initialization function from the HTML <script> element. Nothing more to do since the application is designed to automatically load the additionnal web content from the specified theme subfolder.
The initial idea of the project was to create an easy to install XMPP web client for personal servers allowing to provide chat client in self-hosting context. The focus was made on the following caracteristcs:
- Easy to install, in a "rustic" way (no docker, no DB, only web content)
- Easy to use, with modern chat client features and a pretty interface.
- Free from third party JavaScript library, lightweight and quick to load.
- Allowing customisation and creation of graphical theme / web interface.
It is better to mention that, since it is only a client, you will need to connect it to an XMPP server to run it properly. It is up to you to use your self-hosted XMPP server or to connect to any public XMPP server, however, it is initially more self-hosting oriented.
The application now implements the main required features that made it a modern chat client. It is mainly focused on chats features to mimic what is offered by the famous "D*****d" client, but in a way more rudimentary way. The main implemented features are the following (features with '*' depend on XMPP server configuration):
- Instant messaging, to chat with friends and people you trust.
- Multi-User-Chat* (or Group Chat), to chat with strangers in IRC-like channels.
- File Upload*, to share image or data in chats (using XEP-0363 HTTP File Upload)
- Audio or Video calls (in duo/private only, based on XMPP Jingle and WebRTC).
More in details, here are the implemented chat features:
- Support for MarkDown styling in messages.
- Support for message deletion and correction.
- Support for message reply (reply-to) in chat context.
- Automatic embedding of images, video and audio.
- Automatic embedding of most popular video platforms.
You will find documentations to deploy and configure your own instance of Xows Web Client in the following GitHub Xows Wiki pages:
Little more documentation will come over time.
The application is written in ECMAScript 6 JavaScript, BUT, in old-fashion (C style) using many (almost exclusively) callback functions, avoding as most as possible promises, arrow functions, (pseudo) classes and await/sync mechanism. That is, exactly the opposite of what is recommended for "modern JavaScript".
I could enumerate many reasons why I am strongly refractaire to "modern javascript syntax" and "way to do", but here is the main one : This has an huge impact on my ability to write, READ and UNDERSTAND the code. I don't care the "callback hell", I learned to code in C/C++ where callbacks are the only way and never being a problem ("This is the way").
What I fear are unundestandable code, syntax sugar that hides monstruous backstage implementations, classes that are actually not classes, "strings" that are strings but not instances of String() and even sometimes arrays of bytes, local variables that 'magically' pass from a function to another and APIs that doesn't allow to pass a custom variable for callbacks.
Excepting such things, JavaScript is a pretty amusing toy.
