The idea is pretty much like the
meebo (which I love) or like instant chats on many support sites (such as raqspaces implementation), but with a twist. This would be an intrasite communication relay created using AJAX and not the applets which are commonly used for this. In this sample I will show implementation using
prototype windows,
prototype, and some custom JSON code.
For the front end you need some kind of popable windows, and since I don’t really like external pop-ups, I’ve built in page popups using prototype windows. If you are unfamiliar with this project, then it check out as soon as you can. Using prototype windows allows a bunch of niceties that are painful to build on your own, such as movable, closable, and minimizable windows, window top level manager, scriptaculous effects, and more. In our case they are linked to the players who are already on the site, and they are forced open when a player wishes to message another player, by clicking on the “talk” icon: