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Show HN: Subway, a persistent web client for IRC

by thedjpetersen on 3/1/12, 6:21 PM with 38 comments

  • by akavlie on 3/1/12, 6:37 PM

    The other collaborator here. I started with a similar client called web-irc, to make a better open source web IRC client. I combined forced with thedjpetersen because his tech stack was almost identical. And it looked better, to boot :-)

    Tech used: Node.js, node-irc, socket.io, Backbone.js, and MongoDB for optional message logging on persistent connections.

    Feedback and contributions welcome.

    This article is linked to the github repo, but you can use the client directly here: http://ridezap.com:3000/

  • by thedjpetersen on 3/1/12, 6:26 PM

    One of the collaborators here. Subway came to me as an idea a few months ago when I heard one of my co-workers trying to explain how to set up screen and IRSSI. The project has taken about 3 months to complete. There is still things to add like better IRC support and search.

    A quick disclaimer the logo right now is a Gowalla Icon, this is only a placeholder I am working on designing a new logo.

  • by nuclear_eclipse on 3/1/12, 7:29 PM

    Not to be negative, but what does this have that couldn't be done better with ZNC and a proper IRC client? I get a persistent connection to the IRC server, logs and push notifications to my phone when I'm not connected or paying attention, and I can connect from as any IRC client I want to, or connect from multiple clients simultaneously. [1] Granted, the web client does look really really nice, but as a whole it seems like an inferior solution to me.

    I would really love to see that web client made so that it could connect to any server or bouncer, and not just your own proprietary backend.

    1: http://noswap.com/articles/irc/

  • by clintecker on 3/1/12, 10:17 PM

    Looks a lot like Alice: https://github.com/leedo/alice which powers http://usealice.org
  • by wickedchicken on 3/1/12, 7:35 PM

    YES. This is exactly what I've been planning in my head since IRCCloud doesn't seem to be handing out invites. Too bad this is in node/mongo otherwise I would love to contribute.
  • by ds206 on 3/1/12, 7:11 PM

    This same idea was my excuse to learn javascript/node :) I went the "re-invent the wheel" route and skipped node-irc and Backbone for extra javascript fun.

    The interface looks good from the screenshots but how well does it work on a phone? For that reason I went with a minimal terminal-like interface to make it possible.

    I will check this out tonight. Good job.

  • by methoddk on 3/1/12, 9:36 PM

    As soon as I fix the issues plaguing me from installing the dependencies for this, it's replacing Colloquy. Thanks!
  • by davidcollantes on 3/1/12, 6:42 PM

    I tried it. Could not get authenticated by nickserv on Freenode, got no replies. If you enter a wrong server (i.e., freenode.net, instead of chat.freenode.net) it continuously tells me the server is wrong, there seems not to be a give up time.

    Other than that, it looks good.

  • by switz on 3/1/12, 10:16 PM

    Wow, this is great!

    I had to `npm install` the following modules in the lib directory: connect-assets irc bcrypt socket.io

    I'd love to be able to connect to multiple servers and auto-signin with NickServ and such.

  • by nextparadigms on 3/1/12, 9:00 PM

    I like the interface, and I want to use it, but a lot of stuff seems to be missing, like I'd expect to double click on a user and open a private windows with him. Also most of the commands don't seem to work either.
  • by mattdeboard on 3/1/12, 8:05 PM

    For those of you like me who are completely unfamiliar with node, in addition to the instructions on the README, you must also run `npm install` in the subway directory.
  • by daleharvey on 3/1/12, 7:27 PM

    Looks nice, I couldnt install the irc module on node 0.4.10 though, if I get time later I will try to get that fixed
  • by hikkymemo on 3/1/12, 7:42 PM