A real-time chat application built using React, Node.js, Express, and Socket.io which allows for communciation between multiple users inside of a chatroom

• General info
• Setup
• Deployment
• Technologies
  • Server
  • Client
• Features
  • To-do list
• Status

Chatter is a real-time chat application built using React, Node.js, Express, and Socket.io which allows for communciation between multiple users inside of a chatroom. The purpose of this project was to serve as an introduction to utilizing WebSockets through the Socket.io library. Socket.io is a library which allows for real-time, bidirectional, event-based communication. It is setup on both the server, to handle all incoming requests, and on the client, to handle the messages being created by the users, and provides a fast and responsive experience for real-time communication. During the implementation of this project, I was also introduced to the use of hooks within React to handle state and props. This feature allowed for the removal of class components and stream-lined the process of handling the users and connections amongst different components.

Clone project into desired directory and ensure Node.js is installed.

Navigate to the server folder and modify the ENDPOINT variable in index.js and set it to localhost or your server location.

Install project dependencies for both the server and the client:

cd ./server/
npm install
cd ../client/
npm install

Once the dependencies have been installed, initialize the server, followed by the client:

cd ../server/
node start
cd ../client/
node start

This app was deployed using Heroku and can be viewed by first initializing the server by opening:
oarnosa-chatter-server.herokuapp.com

And then launching multiple clients depending how many users will be connecting:
oarnosa-chatter.herokuapp.com

• Node: v10.16.0
• Express: v4.17.1
• Socket.io: v2.3.0

• React: v16.12.0
• React-Emoji: v0.5.0
• React-Scroll-to-Bottom: v1.3.2
• Sass: v4.13.0

• Mobile view support
• Accepts multiple user connections
• Create various chatrooms with different users
• View other users within the channel
• Chat in real-time and share emojis

• Implement list view for all active chatrooms
• Add ability to privately message other users
• Add users to a friends list

Project is: in progress, as there are several features which I would like to implement as I grow more comfortable utilizing React, Express, Node, and Socket.io.