First AJAX Instant Messenger

ajax im ("asynchronous javascript and xml instant messenger") is a browser-based instant messaging client. It uses the XMLHTTPRequest object in JavaScript to send and receive commands to and from the server. No refreshing of the page is ever needed for this "web application" to work, as everything is updated in real-time via JavaScript.

Pretty basic at the moment but good idea anyway to demonstrate the feature. Strange enough works only with Firefox and Safari and not Internet Explorer ?? (They reject the blame on IE for some Javascript incompatibility; I don't understand really why but I am sure it's easy to fix)

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3 Comments

  • That's actually funny, considering that IE, back before AJAX had a name, was the first to implement client-side HTTP requests with the MSXML library. Mozilla copied the functionality with the XMLHttpRequest object, mirroring Microsoft's API. Now, because Firefox is the trendy one, "it's IE's fault."



    HA!

  • MSN Web Messenger:



    - old AJAX style with refreshing an IFRAME every 5 seconds

    -> slow response

    -> 480 bytes

    - event triggered response

    - missing caching support





    AJAX IM:



    - returns full XML response every second

    - full user status on every request (not events)

    -> 278 bytes for 4 users in boddy list

    - non-XML response after sending message

    - missing caching support

    - special chars are not working, like the German öäüÖÄÜ (missing UTF support)





  • I wasn't blaming the problems on Internet Explorer's ability to handle XMLHTTPRequest, I was blaming it on IE's ability to handle some other JavaScript. I took a look at some of the code and got it properly working in IE6 now, so all is well.

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