Embeding a chat in an existing desktop user-enabled .NET application?

Question

Hello.

I am builing a win application that has user access control against a sql db, all the data is stored in this db as well. This project is to be installed in one site on 30-40 machines (I mean to say that it's not web, it's all in one place, maximum call it intranet).

I want that while the program is logged on, the logged-in user should be able to chat to the other logged in users.

Any recommended approaches in C# & VB? I would appreciate any idea, link or tip.

Please share me with your experience Thanks!

NOTE: The program is in Wpf if it does matter.

Answer 1

here is a great chat application

Answer 2

Architecturally, it seems like a publisher-subscriber message bus would be a good pattern for you. You would have a centralized server that each client would register with that will distribute notifications from publishers to subscribers.

Each client will register for notification of the client list upon starting. Each client can register interest in being notified when another client publishes a message. Each client would publish messages to the bus to be delivered to any subscribers for that client.

There is a good example of a pub-sub message bus written in WCF in MSDN: WCF ESSENTIALS What You Need To Know About One-Way Calls, Callbacks, And Events. You could get this up and running fairly quickly.