JC Brand

Converse (and XMPP) provides a federated alternative to other chat apps.

You can set up a chat instance for your own project or team, while still using the same account to join other team chats on other servers.

In this talk I'll show the advances that have been made the last two years, discuss some of the challenges we're facing and explain how we're improving and extending the XMPP protocol to fulfill modern expectations around teamchats.

Two years ago I gave a talk about Converse.js, the XMPP webchat client.

Since then lots of further development work has been done and many new features added. Converse can now be used as a fullpage teamchat client.

It's being deployed in various environments and an Electron client is in the works.

Converse (and XMPP) provides a federated alternative to other chat apps.

You can set up a chat instance for your own project or team, while still using the same account to join other team chats on other servers.

In this talk I'll show the advances that have been made the last two years, discuss some of the challenges we're facing and explain how we're improving and extending the XMPP protocol to fulfill modern expectations around teamchats.

Converse.js is an XMPP-based webchat application that can be used as a standalone application or it can be customized and integrated into any website. In this talk I'll provide an introduction to Converse.js and I'll also explain the infrastructure required to integrate and host XMPP-based webchat.

What is XMPP and how do I integrate it into a website?

I'll provide a brief introduction to XMPP (as presence and chat protocol) and the two main technologies for integrating XMPP into the webbrowser (long-polling with BOSH versus websockets).

What is Converse.js?

Next follows an introduction to Converse.js, which is a webchat client that can be used standalone, or which can be integrated into any website. Then I'll talk about how Converse.js came to be, what it was originally used for, where it's been integrated and what's been done with it since.

How to integrate webchat into your website

In this section, I'll provide an outline of what's needed to create a webchat solution for your website. I'll mention XMPP servers, BOSH connection managers, XEPs (XMPP protocol extensions) that you'll likely want to enable, and more. I'll also elaborate on how you might want to enable communication between your web app's backend and an XMPP server.

Plans for the future

I'll then finish off by discussing plans for future improvements and enhancements to Converse.js