Full docs here: Django Chatter Docs
Chat is a crucial aspect of many web apps at present. However, Django's package repository does not have well-maintained reusable chat packages that Django developers can integrate into their platforms.
Django Chatter is an attempt to change that. This is an open-source fully reusable chat application that has mechanisms to support group chats in place.
The HTML front-end for this app is built with Flexbox, making it responsive to numerous viewports.
[More work to be done] Added to that, it can also possibly be used as a REST API, since all the views generate standard JSON responses that need to be parsed by the websockets present in the front-end of the app using this package.
This app makes use of Django Channels 2 and uses Redis as the message broker.
To run Django Chatter properly, you'll require python>=3.5 and Redis. Note: For development, we are currently using redis-5.0.3, built from source on Ubuntu machines.
The core mechanisms of Chatter follow the instructions provided in the Django Channels tutorial section, with some added modifications and theming.
Chatter is on PyPi now! To install it, run
pip install django-chatter
This should install all the required dependencies for Chatter.
Once you're done with that, add it to your
settings.INSTALLED_APPS:INSTALLED_APPS = [ ... 'django_chatter', ... ]
Since we use Redis as our message broker, you need to enable channel layers for Chatter's ChatConsumer (see Channels' Consumers for more details). To enable that, you need to add the following lines to your project's
settings.pyfile:CHANNEL_LAYERS = { 'default': { 'BACKEND': 'channels_redis.core.RedisChannelLayer', 'CONFIG': { "hosts": [('127.0.0.1', 6379)], }, }, }
If you haven't already, create a file named
routing.pyin your project's configuration folder. This is because Django Channels uses a specification called ASGI for its websocket protocol. To enable Channels on your app, you have to add a file that routes all websocket requests to a Channels app (in this case, Chatter). This should be the same as the folder where yoursettings.pyfile is located.In
routing.py, add the following lines:from channels.auth import AuthMiddlewareStack from channels.routing import ProtocolTypeRouter, URLRouter import django_chatter.routing application = ProtocolTypeRouter({ 'websocket': AuthMiddlewareStack( URLRouter( django_chatter.routing.websocket_urlpatterns # send websocket requests to chatter's urls ) ) })
This routes all websocket requests to Chatter, with the logged in
Userobject. If you are using different django-channels applications other than Chatter, you may already have this file, and can add the appropriate URL for chatter to handle. More details can be found on Django Channels' Routing page.If you know how the middleware wrapping in Channels works, then feel free to replace
AuthMiddlewareStackwith what you use as your auth middleware for User object processing (if you're curious to know about this, get in touch! We'd be happy to talk to you about it).Now that you're done setting up
routing.py, add the following line in yoursettings.pyfile to link to the routing.py (again, you may have already done this if you're already using channels)ASGI_APPLICATION = '<project name>.routing.application'
Chatter uses a context processor to generate a list of all rooms that a user is a member of. To use this context processor, add it to your
TEMPLATESlist in yoursettings.pyfile:TEMPLATES = [ { ... 'OPTIONS': { 'context_processors': [ ..., 'django_chatter.context_processors.get_chatroom_list', ..., ], }, }, ]
Link
django_chatter.urlsto the URL you want in your URLConf (<project>/urls.py).Example:
from django.urls import path, include ... urlpatterns = [ ..., path('chat/', include('django_chatter.urls')), ... ]
Run migrations:
$ python manage.py makemigrations django_chatter $ python manage.py migrate
Start your app's development server and go to your
'/chat/'URL, and you will see Chatter's homepage.
Tests haven't been setup for this package yet. I built this app before I knew what good test practices were like. So, tests welcome!
- Chatter, as of right now, provides a very minimal interface for users to chat with other users.For starters, while group chatting is supported on the model layer, the corresponding templates and front-end logic have not yet been setup.
- If you're using chatter as a package in your own app, you have to make sure that you handle user authentication in your app. Chatter, by default, provides views that require user authentication. If you're developing Chatter on the other hand, the usage will vary a bit. The notes for that can be found in the Get Involved section.
- Add a "Create Group" option for users on the templates
- Add 'Seen by user x' functionality
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