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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

LIVE CHAT libre now on Android

You can now create, access, and chat on your live chat channels from your Android phone or device.

The LIVE CHAT libre! app can be downloaded from Google Play, here, or search for livechatlibre on Google Play from your Android phone or device.

Sign In

Sign In, or chat anonymously. Your sign in is remembered until you sign out, so you only need to sign in once.

Browse

Browse public channels, or your own personal channels. Browse allows filtering and sorting of channels, and remembers the last bot you accessed.

Chat

Chat live directly from your phone or device.

Forums, Bots, and Domains

The LIVE CHAT libre app also provides forums, chat bots, and lets you create your own personal domain.
You can also access any channels your create from the Android app from the web interface. The web interface allows additional administrative features for configuring your channel.

The LIVE CHAT libre SDK

The LIVE CHAT libre SDK is a Software Development Kit that makes it simple to add live chat to your own mobile application or website.

The SDK currently provides two components. The first is a Java Connection API that makes it easy to access LIVE CHAT libre from a Java environment such as Android, or a Java web server. The second component is a set of Android activities that you can add to your own Android app, or copy/customize in your own app.

The SDK is developed under Project Libre an open source project hosted on GitHub
https://github.com/paphus/Project-Libre

Connection API

You can create a connection to the LIVE CHAT libre server using the SDKConnection class. You need to pass your connection Credentials, which includes your application ID. You can obtain an application from the LIVE CHAT libre website, from your user details page.

SDKConnection connection =
        new SDKConnection(new LIVECHATlibreCredential("12345");

The SDK includes a set of data objects that represent the LIVE CHAT libre object model.
The data objects are in the com.paphus.sdk.config package, and include the following,

  • UserConfig - Defines a user's credentials and info.
  • BrowseConfig - Defines a search query criteria.
  • ChannelConfig - Defines a live chat channel's details.
  • InstanceConfig - Defines a bot's details.
  • ForumConfig - Defines a forum's details.
  • ForumPostConfig - Defines a forum post.
  • DomainConfig - Defines a domain's details.
  • ChatConfig - Input for chat bot messaging.
  • VoiceConfig - Defines a chat bot's voice.
  • ChatResponse - Response for chat bot messaging.
  • ContentConfig - Defines a tag/category request.

Users

The API allows you to connect a user, or create a new user.

Use the connect() API to connect a user, the user's details will be returned, or an error message if the connect fails. The returned user details will not include the password, but will include a token, that can be used in place of the password. After connecting a connection, all subsequent requests will use the user credentials, until you call disconnect().

UserConfig user = new UserConfig();
user.user = "test";
user.password = "password";
user = connection.connect(user);

Use the create() API to create a new user. A user id and password are required. You can also pass the user's name, email, bio, and other details. The user details are returned, with a token in place of the password.

UserConfig user = new UserConfig();
user.user = "test";
user.password = "password";
user.name = "Test Account";
user.email = "test@test.com";
user = connection.create(user);

Live Chat

The API allows you to browse channels, and get channel details.

The browse() API is used to browse or search the set of channels in the domain.

BrowseConfig browse = new BrowseConfig();
browse.type = "Channel";
browse.typeFilter= "Public";
browse.tag= "cool";
browse.sort = "name";
List channels = connection.browse(browse);

The fetch() API is used to get a channel's details.

ChannelConfig channel = new ChannelConfig();
channel.id = "12345";
channel = connection.fetch(channel);

The LiveChatConnection class is used to chat in a channel. It can be created using the openLiveChat() API on the SDKConnection class. You must pass the ChannelConfig with its id set, and an implementation of LiveChatListener that will receive the chat messages. Once you have a connection established, you can send and receive messages.

ChannelConfig channel = new ChannelConfig();
channel.id = "12345";
LiveChatConnection livechat = connection.openLiveChat(channel, myListener);
livechat.sendMessage("Hello World");

Android Activities

The SDK includes a set of Android activities you can reuse, or modify in your own app. The MainActivity contains the SDKConnection and some shared data, so you will need to include it even if not using the activity. The live chat activities include, ChooseChannelActivity, ChannelActivity, ChannelBrowseActivity, and LiveChatActivity.

Here is an example of launching a ChannelActivity.

MainActivity.current = new MainActivity();
ChannelConfig config = new ChannelConfig();
config.id = "12345";
HttpAction action = new HttpFetchAction(this, config);
action.execute();

Note, because of the way Android does its packaging, you will need to search/replace the "com.paphus.sdk.activity.R" import with your own application's unique package. This will resolve the generated R class dependencies.

You can use the SDK to access any of LIVE CHAT libre's services, for personal, academic, or commercial applications. You cannot use them for spam, or to violate the LIVE CHAT libre terms of service. LIVE CHAT libre's services are also provided as a commercial service on Paphus Live Chat.

The LIVE CHAT libre web API

In addition to being able to embed your live chat channel on your own website, and access them from any Android device, you can also access your channel through the LIVE CHAT libre web API. The web API gives you the advantage of having complete control of your channel's client interface.

You can use the web API to access your channel from your own website through JavaScript, PHP or any other language. You can also use the web API to create your own mobile application to access your channel, such as an Android or iOS application.

A web API, is a set of HTTP GET/POST URI's that allow sending and receiving of message data. When you browse a website, your browser makes a series of HTTP GET/POST requests to URIs that return HTML content. In a web service the URIs return XML or JSON data, instead of HTML content.

The LIVE CHAT libre web API consists of two parts, a REST API with XML message content, and a web sockets API for distributed communication. The REST API takes HTTP POST XML data, and returns XML data.

HTTP XML POST API

  • http://www.livechatlibre.com/rest/livechatlibre/create-user
  • http://www.livechatlibre.com/rest/livechatlibre/check-user
  • http://www.livechatlibre.com/rest/livechatlibre/get-channels
  • http://www.livechatlibre.com/rest/livechatlibre/check-channel

create-user

The create-user API creates a new user, and returns the user's details.

URI: http://www.livechatlibre.com/rest/livechatlibre/create-user
Parameters: application, user, password, hint, name, showName, email, website, bio

XML POST Example

check-user

The check-user API validates a user, and returns the user's details.

URI: http://www.livechatlibre.com/rest/livechatlibre/check-user
Parameters: application, user, password, token

Parameters

applicationREQUIRED: The application ID. You can obtain an application ID from your user details page on the LIVE CHAT libre website.
userREQUIRED: The ID of the user.
passwordREQUIRED: The password of the user. A token can also be used.
tokenREQUIRED: The token of the user. A token can be obtained through check-user, and is valid until reset.

XML POST Example

get-channels

The get-channels API queries the details for all channels matching the criteria.

URI: http://www.livechatlibre.com/rest/livechatlibre/get-channels
Parameters: application, user, password, token, type, tag, category, sort, typeFilter, filter.

XML POST Example

check-channel

The check-channel API validates that a channel ID or name exists, and returns the channel's details.

URI: http://www.livechatlibre.com/rest/livechatlibre/check-channel
Parameters: application, user, password, token, id, name

Parameters

applicationREQUIRED: The application ID.
userOPTIONAL: The ID of the user. The user must be registered with FORUMS libre. If not passed the user will be anonymous. The user is required if the forum is private.
passwordOPTIONAL: The password of the user. A token can also be used.
tokenOPTIONAL: The token of the user. A token can be obtained through check-user, and is valid until reset.
idREQUIRED: The ID of the channel to validate. The channel's name can also be used, but the ID is better as it is guaranteed to be unique.
nameREQUIRED: The name of the channel to validate. The channel's ID can also be used.

XML POST Example

Web Socket API

The web socket API uses web sockets to communicate with the LIVE CHAT libre server. Most web browsers support web sockets from JavaScript, you can also get free open source web socket implementations for most programming languages, and mobile platforms.

Here is some example web socket code using JavaScript in a web browser. It assumes an HTTP connection has already been made to the LIVE CHAT libre server. If you have not connected to a channel through a web session, you can still establish a connection. Once you establish a connection, you will need to send a text message to connect to a channel of the form "connect channel-id user password application-id".

So, that is the basic web API. You can now build your own interface for your channel. You can use the API on your own website, or in your own mobile application.

Embedding your live chat channel on your own website or blog

You are free to embed the live chat channels your create on your own website or blog. It is quite easy to embed a channel, and only takes a few lines of HTML code. You can embed a channel to provide help or service for your website, or to connect with people on your blog.

The embedding HTML code can be copied from your channel's Embed page under Admin.

The simplest solution is to embed a channel inside your webpage using an iframe. Here is some simple code to embed the LIVE CHAT libre chat room in an iframe.

Code to embed a channel in a iframe

The embed tab provides 5 different embedding options. You just need to select the embed option and click "Get Code" to see the results. You can also make up your own option using your own code, or modifying the generated code.

Another option is to put a button or link on your website that open the channel in another window. This can be done using a little Java Script code.

Code to popup live chat in a window

This code will produce the following:

So that's it, you should now be able to embed your channel on your website or blog.