Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - [VB6] Winsock Chat app with multiple clients

John Henry · 03-10-2004, 04:01 AM

I've just decided to scrap what I've written and start again from scratch, rather than wading through sloppy code. Essentialy what I'm doing is looking like it's going to end up as a reverse engineered msn messenger without any of the trimmings.

Initially I tried starting with a single client single server, simulated on one machine, then used between two machines. Although this was a useful way to learn winsock, it was proved very difficult to build from.

So to make my question a little more specific, any pointers on the order I should put it together in so that I can test and debug it on the way through.

Also I'm struggling to get my head round the listening getting and sending the server has to do. If you know of any tutorials or source code that deal with that that area of this specific problem, that would be appreciated. I have searched planetsourcecode etc. but only turned up single client or chatroom type things, which appear to be quite a different kettle of fish.

Also I need to be able to send updated lists of who's online to each client each time someone logs on or off as well as sending details to each client of who each message is from. What's the best way to distinguish between this info data and the actual text being sent. Should I do it cyclically, using tags of some sort, having set places for different data in the strings that are sent or some other way?

I realise that I'm effectively asking you to write my whole program for me here and obviously I don't expect you to do that, but anything here that you could help out with I'd be grateful for.

Cheers

03-10-2004, 04:01 AM	#3 (permalink)
John Henry Addict Location: Grey Britain	I've just decided to scrap what I've written and start again from scratch, rather than wading through sloppy code. Essentialy what I'm doing is looking like it's going to end up as a reverse engineered msn messenger without any of the trimmings. Initially I tried starting with a single client single server, simulated on one machine, then used between two machines. Although this was a useful way to learn winsock, it was proved very difficult to build from. So to make my question a little more specific, any pointers on the order I should put it together in so that I can test and debug it on the way through. Also I'm struggling to get my head round the listening getting and sending the server has to do. If you know of any tutorials or source code that deal with that that area of this specific problem, that would be appreciated. I have searched planetsourcecode etc. but only turned up single client or chatroom type things, which appear to be quite a different kettle of fish. Also I need to be able to send updated lists of who's online to each client each time someone logs on or off as well as sending details to each client of who each message is from. What's the best way to distinguish between this info data and the actual text being sent. Should I do it cyclically, using tags of some sort, having set places for different data in the strings that are sent or some other way? I realise that I'm effectively asking you to write my whole program for me here and obviously I don't expect you to do that, but anything here that you could help out with I'd be grateful for. Cheers __________________ "No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."