Implementing a Client-to-client Communication System

Abstract

Due to people, behaviour over the social networking and peer-peer needs for the online chatting and sharing the information, file etc…, Chat Applications had acquired great importance and there is abundant increase in the development of these applications. Therefore, in this Conference Chat Application Project we are going to develop a chat application to implement client-to-client communication using client server architecture for the group talk of the clients and additional feature of sending the personal messages using keyword and another keyword to leave the group talk. This is java based chat application, where we are going to implement server socket programming in which we have to create the server by creating the server socket in which client request for the connection for further communication. Server socket allows the maximum number of connections. To add new users/sockets in parallel when server is running, we have to create a thread class “Server Thread” and array lists for storing the client’s information. This Application is developed by using Net Beans (8.0.1). The output of this application enables the clients to join in a group talk, which is already running and allows client to send the personal messages simultaneously.

1. Introduction

Conference Chat Application enables the users/clients to exchange the information among all clients or to the specified client in the group. This Application requires Transfer Control Protocol (TCP) to establish the connection between two sockets for the communication. There are two programs, Server side program and client side program. Server will receive the request from the client, establishes the connection, and send the messages sent by the client to all other clients except the sender itself. Before connection, client’s user name is needed which immediately after connection will be send to the server using Print Writer, server will save this client, and a message thread will start for this client, which we implemented on the client side as myThread Class. Each client has its own message thread so this thread data will be read/received from server and displayed to client using buffered reader.

1.1Problem Statement

• Most of the chat Application’s need email address to enter the group talk; username will be more flexible instead of email address.
• Chat Applications does not have personal messaging option in the group chat. Personal messaging in the group chat increases efficiency.

1.2 Research Question

• How to develop a chat application using Client Server Architecture?
• How can we send personal messages in a group chat simultaneously?
• How to add clients in the chat using user name instead of email address?

1.3 Objectives

• To develop a Chat Application and to implement Client-to-Client communication using Client-Server Architecture.
• To add Additional feature of sending personal messages in a group using a keyword and to leave the group with another keyword.

2. Literature Review/Previous Work

On March 9^th 1998 the first version of Yahoo messenger was launched.it supports various operating systems. It is chatting application said to be rapid messaging client. It used to support various operating sytems.Yahoo uses transfer control Protocol for the communication but its header is supported by its own application format.it supports messaging, voice calls and video calling.

Microsoft company created MSN which was formerly known as Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client application.it supports various operating systems like Windows etc.., MSN basic functions are pc to phone calls, messaging and game application. Client and server programing is performed over Transfer Control Protocol (TCP) in MSN. In MSN client uses various port numbers to request the server for the establishment of the connection, the server uses the port 80 to reply to the client requests, and it only replies to the clients whose port numbers are less than 1024. For the transport layer protocol, it uses Hyper Text Transfer protocol. MSN also supports file sharing and uses Session Initiation protocol for messaging and Transfer Control Protocol for file sharing.

3. Approach/ Methodology

The Methodology we use in this project is Joint Application Development (JAD). It is used for any development process initially used to design computer-based system. End user or client is involve in the development process of an application. Many companies accept Joint Application Development methodology. Data processing industry was developed by JAD. Joint Application Development minimizes errors and produces the faster output, as client is involved in the whole development process the user will acquire great satisfaction. It eliminates the delays, output can obtain in short span of time, and it is cost effective.

Transfer control protocol is used by socket to provide communication between computers. On one end of the communication, client creates a socket and tries to connect the socket to server. The server represent server socket object, which denotes port number for the communication. The server appeal accept() method of server socket class. This method will wait until client connects to given port of the server. Transfer control protocol is two-way communication protocol. Therefore, data is exchanged between clients at the same time

4. Results/experiments/Discussion

The anticipated results of the project are

• To create and execute client side program.
• To create and execute server side program.
• To execute the server thread for multiple connections.
• The output of this application enables the clients to join in a group talk, which is already running and allows client to send the personal messages simultaneously.

5. Significance of Study

• This Application is useful for the peer-to-peer communication
• Any company can make benefit of this conference chat application which enables group talk as well as personal chat.
• Faculty and students can make use of this application to discuss about the subjects.
• The customer service representatives to communicate with the customers can use this Application.

6. Future Works

We have many social networking sites like WhatsApp messenger, Facebook messenger, Instagram etc.., which do not have a feature called personal texting in a group chatting. Therefore, this feature will be useful for many mobile chat applications.

Conference Chat Application does not have automatic joining of the clients; clients are added manually to the group. This feature can be added to the further development of this application.

7. Conclusion

• We are going to develop chat application and implement client-to-client communication using Client Server architecture

• We are going to add Additional feature of sending personal messages in a group using a keyword and to leave the group with another keyword.

8. References

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4. Veletsianos, G. 2012. Higher education scholars’ participation and practices on Twitter. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp 336-349. Veletsianos, G. and Kimmons, R. 2016. Scholars in an increasingly open and digital world: How do education professors and students use Twitter? The Internet and Higher Education, Vol. 30, pp 1-10.
5. Schiller, S. Z., 2016. CHAT for chat: Mediated learning in online chat virtual reference service. Retrieved July 15, 2016, from Web site: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.053.
6. Open Source Chat Servers in Java http://java-source.net/open-source/chat-servers