Feedbacks and comments welcomed about Elgg's desktop notification application.

Friends, I am planning of developing a desktop application for Elgg which will notify you about updates, messages, friend requests and more. Take a look at the features of prototype @ http://www.webgalli.com/blog/desktop-notifier-application-for-elgg/ and share your thoughts, Ideas, comments and of course complaints too ;)

  • aqeel: looks good @paper. i'd like to test-drive on my desktop - share thoughts, ideas..

  • Dhrup : thanks for the appreciation. Before packaging and distributing the software I have to get a digital signature. With a self signed .exe the app will work only on the development environment. I have plans to overcome this restriction so that I can release it to beta test group. If it is something not important for members then there is no need of wasting my time on this migration to new platforms, except that I will learn some new tricks. 

  • hmmm;o} + lolz
    'code signing' ?
    what's it written in ? java/ air/ js;/ php-compiled ?
    'new trix' ! yess - what ususally drives me into new techiz stuffz..
    ping me @PM if wanna @continue heavier disqsnx.

     

  • Pretty cool!

    Will it be a Universal Binary for mac? ;)

  • @rjc : thanks. Although its developed on i386, I hope it will support power pc's also. 

  • A question if I may ask. How hard would it be to adapt this to push those notifications to smart phones? We developed a site recently and a mobile app that runs off the site. We had to write our own apis and have used them to push notifications to the phone once a user log on to the app. However since so many apps are always on and most phones are also always on a system that would push the notifications as they come in would seem to be a better option for us when we begin working on version 2.

  • @wolfepk1 : We are thinking about a cross device compatabile app. So it is possible to have an app for android phones also by reusing most of the current source code. In the desktop app, its not based on a push method. The app pings the elgg's rest API at regular interval (can create some server over load, but site admin can determine the frequency) and shows the notification. The app will stop pinging if the computer is idle and will restart only after user returns.

  • Is there such a thing as a server push over HTTP?
    The short answer is no;
    The long answer is that you can emulate sever push over HTTP.
    Comet (Reverse-AJAX aka Ajax Push Engine) builds on the top
    of the existing HTTP protocol without modifying it.
    This is a little bit tricky because the HTTP protocol is not designed
    to send unrequested responses from the server to the client.
    A HTTP response always requires a previous HTTP request
    initiated by the client. The Comet approach breaks this limitation
    by maintaining long-lived HTTP connections and "faking" notifications.

  • @Dhrup, what I meant is different. A push transmission, put simply, is when a message is forced to transmit at the time of sending. This is opposed to a ‘pull’ which requires a user to go get it from the server. For example, if you’re notified when someone posts a comment on your post then that’s a push notification. If you have to refresh from within the app then you’re ‘pulling’ in the notification.

    I am not sure how comet can help here by keeping the connection open for long durations.

  • @Aqeel - what  I meant is real (not fake JAXed long polling) HTTP Push Technology. They (the global experts since ARPA/DARPA days) have been trying since 1995 to implement real HTTP Push and only now is a real implementation becoming a possiblity and reality ;) That is called real HTTP Push transmission. You can download the Comet (APE) Server from GitHub OR downoad WebSockets related server software ( see -- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1253683/what-browsers-support-html5-websocket-api ) to experiment with the real cutting-edge of real HTTP Push. There's much to research an learn in this relatively new area. much more than can be discussed @here. It;'s probably equivalent to a full semester project ;) " when someone posts a comment on your post then that’s a push notification.. (on Elgg nd other platforms) " and HTTP Push Technology are diametrically disparate situatiions).