Schwack

Schwack is a clone of the business communication platform, Slack. Schwack gives users the ability to create their very own channel, or already join a pre-existing one. In these channels, users can chat through live messaging.

Schwack Live Link

Go to Schwack!

Technologies Used

• Ruby on Rails was used for the backend
• React/Redux was used for the frontend
• PostgreSQL was used for the database

Features

Live Messaging

• Users who are logged in will be able to chat live with other users
• When they submit a message in the chat, all users who are currently viewing that chat will have their messages updated to show the new message

• If a user made a mistake in their message or want to update it, they can edit the message in order to correct/update it

• If the user made a huge mistake on their message, they can completely delete their message

• Editing and Deleting both happen in real time updating other users chats after completing the action

• I used Action Cable in order to accomplish these real time update features

const createConnection = (currentUserId, channelId, dispatch) => {
    return App.cable.subscriptions.create(
        { channel: "ChatChannel", id: channelId },
        {
            received: data => {
                if (data.type === "REMOVE_MESSAGE") {
                    dispatch(removeMessage(data.messageId))
                }
                else if (data.message.userId !== currentUserId) {
                    dispatch(receiveMessage(data.message));
                }
            },
            speak: function (data) {
                return this.perform("speak", data);
            }
        }
    );
}

• In the frontend whenever the user logs in they are immidiately subscribed to all their channels chats
  • The code above is what is run to subscribe them to the channel stream in the backend
  • They are also subscribed to the a channel they create or join

class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel
  def subscribed
    @channel = Channel.find_by(id: params[:id])
    stream_for @channel if @channel
  end

  def speak(data)
    socket = data
    @channel = Channel.find_by(id: data["message"]["channelId"])
    ChatChannel.broadcast_to(@channel, socket)
  end

  def unsubscribed
    # Any cleanup needed when channel is unsubscribed
  end
end

• The backend sets up a different chat stream for each channel and broadcasts messages back to the specified channel's subscribers
• Through this users only receive messages from channels they are subscribed to

Future Directions

• Add direct messaging between 2 or more users
• Search bar to find specific channel or user to message