About a year ago, I wrote a post “Everyone Has a Robot” on my blog, saying:

I have a dream that everyone has a robot for him/her on the Internet.

It seems that dream is coming to the edge of true. At least everyone would have her/his IM agent robot if s/he would like to use izuz.net’s web IM services.

And here was a conversation from my robot with someone. Enjoy the conversation (It seems that my agent robot does not understand “thanks”):

[17:6 on Tuesday] java2script.demo@gmail.com : ( talking to you through http://izuz.net/ web IM )
hi
(17:6 on Tuesday) me : [Zhou Renjian's robot agent speaking] hello
[17:6 on Tuesday] java2script.demo@gmail.com : how r u?
(17:6 on Tuesday) me : [Zhou Renjian's robot agent speaking] fine, thanks
[17:6 on Tuesday] java2script.demo@gmail.com : r u an agent?
(17:6 on Tuesday) me : [Zhou Renjian's robot agent speaking] how about google it
[17:6 on Tuesday] java2script.demo@gmail.com : ok
(17:6 on Tuesday) me : [Zhou Renjian's robot agent speaking] enjoy your web IMs
[17:6 on Tuesday] java2script.demo@gmail.com : thanks
(17:6 on Tuesday) me : [Zhou Renjian's robot agent speaking] oops, add zhourenjian to your friend list for further information
[17:6 on Tuesday] java2script.demo@gmail.com : ok
(17:6 on Tuesday) me : [Zhou Renjian's robot agent speaking] enjoy your web IMs

If you want to take a try on this agent robot, paste

javascript:ClazzLoader.loadClass(’net.izuz.gtalk.DemoRobot’,function(){net.izuz.gtalk.DemoRobot.main([]);})

to address bar and press <Enter>.

And then login using demo accounts ( java2script.demo for example). And then add yourself to the demo account’s friend list and talk to yourself. You will get your agent robot’s response. The agent robot only responses to demo accounts automatically without telling you. Your friends’ messages will always bring up chatting dialogs for you.

Enjoy web IM plugins.

http://izuz.net/ is providing web IM (instant messenging) services for our users. Currently, the web IM services include web Google Talk (Gtalk), web Windows Live Messenger (MSN), web Yahoo! Messenger (YMsg), AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). More services may be added later.

To illustrate our web IM plugin API, we will develop a plugin to export all contact emails.

The final plugin codes:

javascript:p=new net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.IMPluginAdapter();p.dealRoster=function(w, e){log(e.email);return false;}; net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.addIMPlugin(p);

How to use this web IM plugin

1. Logout your web IM
2. Copy the above line of codes (in fact, it is a link), and paste it into the browser’s address bar and press <Enter> to run the JavaScript code
3. Login your web IM
4. After all your contacts are listed, there will be a new link anchor generated inside the page named “Open System Console”. Click it will bring you a window with all your contacts’ email.
   If you can not find the link, copy
   javascript:ClazzLoader.loadClass(’org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Console’,function(){$wt.widgets.Console.openConsole();});
   And paste it into address bar and <Enter> will also bring you a window with all your contacts’ email.

IM Plugin Development Details

In fact, the above plugin contains following lines:

var plugin = new net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.IMPluginAdapter ();
plugin.dealRoster = function (mw, evt) {
log (evt.email);
return false;
};
net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.addIMPlugin (plugin);

First, all plugins should be an instance of net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.IMPluginAdapter. Here is the its Java source (You are not required as a Java expert. But we think giving its source will help you to get a better understanding) :

public static class IMPluginAdapter implements IMPluginable {
public boolean dealLogin(MainWindow mw, DuplicateLoginEvent dle) {
return false;
}
public boolean dealTyping(MainWindow mw, TypingEvent ts) {
return false;
}
public boolean dealMessage(MainWindow mw, MessageEvent ms) {
return false;
}
public boolean dealRoster(MainWindow mw, RosterEvent rs) {
return false;
}
}

And you can override its methods to fulfill your job. The above plugin overrides its dealRoster method, which is about contacts’ information. To override a method using JavaScript is quite an easy job:

plugin.dealRoster = function (mw, evt) {
log (evt.email);
return false;
};

In the above codes, we use log() method to print email into console window. log() method is provided by Java2Script core library. For more information about Java2Script, please visit http://j2s.sourceforge.net/ .

And finally, you add the plugin to our web IM system by net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.addIMPlugin (plugin); And you can remove it later by net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.removeIMPlugin(plugin);

More about IMPluginAdapter’s Method

net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.IMPluginAdapter.dealLogin(MainWindow, DuplicateLoginEvent)
net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.IMPluginAdapter.dealMessage(MainWindow, MessageEvent)
net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.IMPluginAdapter.dealRoster(MainWindow, RosterEvent)
net.izuz.gtalk.MainWindow.IMPluginAdapter.dealTyping(MainWindow, TypingEvent)

These methods all have two parameters. The first parameter is the messenger window itself. You can do anything you want by using this MainWindow object. We will provide more information this instance in later articles.

The second parameter is about data passing back from web IM servers. There are four events. Here are their data structures:

iz.z.event.DuplicateLoginEvent
iz.z.event.DuplicateLoginEvent.beQuiet // always be true, if there is such a event

iz.z.event.MessageEvent
iz.z.event.MessageEvent.body // message in plain text
iz.z.event.MessageEvent.from // email of sender
iz.z.event.MessageEvent.thread // an ID to mark the chatting session
iz.z.event.MessageEvent.to // email of receiver

iz.z.event.RosterEvent
iz.z.event.RosterEvent.avatar // user’s avatar picture hash
iz.z.event.RosterEvent.confirmed // already a registered user or not
iz.z.event.RosterEvent.email
iz.z.event.RosterEvent.id
iz.z.event.RosterEvent.mode // available, away, idle, busy, offline
iz.z.event.RosterEvent.name
iz.z.event.RosterEvent.status // customized status message

iz.z.event.TypingEvent
iz.z.event.TypingEvent.from // email of sender
iz.z.event.TypingEvent.typing // is typing or not

So, you already can develop some interesting plug-ins to collect your messages and your contacts information.

We would like to hear your feedback for more APIs.

1. We now support avatar in MSN/Windows Live Messenger and AIM.

2. We fixed bugs on MSN and AIM, so chatting through izuz.net is much stabler than before.

3. Other UI bugs.

We are working out for other improvements of our web IM services. Please let us know what your thoughts are.

P.S.

We also added some international description pages for other languages besides English:

French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Russian, Arabic,

ChineseSimplified, Chinese Traditional, Korean, Japanese

The translation is powered by Google Translate.

After making tons of tests and fixing all those nasty bugs of izuz.net web IM services on Google Chrome and other browsers, we just updated our web IM services to version 20080921. And Google Chrome is well supported.

And according to the testing result, we strongly recommend all of izuz.net web IM users to install Google Chrome. Here are our reasons:

• It is much faster than any current available browsers.
  According to our tests on loading speed, here is our recommendation order:
  1. Google Chrome
  2. Firefox 3.0+
  3. Safari 3.1+
  4. Internet Explorer 7.0+
  5. Opera 9.25+
  6. Firefox 2.0.*
  7. Internet Explorer 6.0
• It is much easier to load the web IM pages into a standalone window.
• You can create izuz.net’s web IM “application shortcuts” on your desktop, and load it from your desktop.

Hope to hear feedback from our Google Chrome users.

BTW: Here is our web IM services list:

• http://izuz.net/ (Primary server for all Gtalk, MSN, YMsg, AIM IMs)
• http://uziz.net/ (Secondary server for all Gtalk, MSN, YMsg, AIM IMs)
• http://izuz.net/gtalk/ (Gtalk service on primary sever)
• http://demo.java2script.org/gtalk/ (Google Talk demo)

http://uziz.net/ provides users with the same web IM services as http://izuz.net, like Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and others. uziz.net is hosted on a different server to provide users with more choices on accessibility.

Attention: This uziz.net service is on beta test, so there is no guarantee on service quality. Services may be interrupted for server adjustment.

Hope to hear your feedbacks ( http://blog.izuz.net/bug-report/ ).

RSA is the well-known encryption for public/private key algorithm, commonly used in certificates. And HTTPS protocol is an HTTP protocol using SSL channel, which is based on RSA. Once upon a time, we recommended you to use https://izuz.net/gtalk/ for safer communication. As using HTTP protocol, all requests are not encrypted and there are chances (even though the chance is little) that someone may sniff your login request package and parse out your login account and password. Using HTTPS protocol, RSA encrypted package won’t be decrypted. So even someone may sniff your request package but will never parse out your password. So HTTPS communication is considered a safer way for web IM. But HTTPS is much slower than HTTP, as encrypting and decrypting package require more CPU times for both server and browser.

And now, izuz.net web IM supports password RSA encryption. It means that you do not need HTTPS protocol any more. Your password is already encrypted in HTTP protocol, so your password won’t be leaked. So if you only concern about login security problem, you can switch back to http://izuz.net/gtalk/ as it will be faster in both loading and chatting.

Enabling RSA encryption may cause your extra 0.1s-1s in each login, but it is important that you get a much safer web IM experience.

izuz.net now release its long awaited Web IM services: http://izuz.net/ (Alpha now). It supports multiple protocols (Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM) and multiple logins for each IM service. It fixed lots of known bugs of izuz’s previous web IM services.

Please give it a trial and tell us what you thought.

If you find our web gtalk, msn live, yahoo!, aim servics are down, please take a try later.

Yahoo! Messenger is a popular advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger is provided free of charge and can be downloaded and used with a generic “Yahoo! ID” which also allows access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail, where users can be automatically notified when they receive new email. Yahoo! also offers PC-PC, PC-Phone and Phone-to-PC service, file transfers, webcam hosting, text messaging service, and chat rooms in various categories.

Yahoo! Messenger was originally launched under the name Yahoo! Pager on 1998-03-09.

Currently, the provided web Y! Messenger is using the same UI of Gtalk desktop client. The native Yahoo! Messenger UI is under plan, and it may come out some days later. And avatar is not supported yet. Please let us know your opinions.

If you would like other IM services being available by izuz.net, please let us know.

1. 12.44% Outlook
2. 9.55% MS Word
3. 6.60% Gmail
4. 5.42% Excel
5. 4.14% MSN Messenger
6. 3.45% Facebook
7. 2.46% Mail
8. 2.36% Visual Studio
9. 2.26% Thunderbird
10. 2.25% Google
11. 2.18% iTunes
12. 2.17% YouTube
13. 2.07% Google Reader
14. 1.94% PhotoShop
15. 1.90% PowerPoint
16. 1.79% Skype
17. 1.53% Adium
18. 1.21% Notepad
19. 1.21% Wikipedia
20. 1.19% World of WarCraft

We are interesting in chatting statistics:

1. 4.14% MSN Messenger
2. 1.79% Skype
3. 1.53% Adium
4. 1.00% Google Talk
5. 0.82% Pidgin
6. 0.52% iChat
7. 0.49% Yahoo Messenger
8. 0.41% AOL Instant Messenger

It seems that MSN wins the IM battle by this time.

And by RescueTime’s data, report said that users spent 44.6% of their time using communication services. Here is the list:

1. 44.63% Communication/Chat
2. 24.43% Office
3. 11.49% Media
4. 8.07% Information
5. 6.87% Design + Development
6. 1.48% Games
7. 3.o3% Everything Else

Well, online communication or chatting matters a lot to most users.

O, BTW: It seems AIM is less popular than other IM services in chatting battle, so less visitors will use izuz.net’s newly-provided web AIM service? OK, izuz.net’s web MSN Live Messenger should be updated with new features (last update was Aug, 2007), as it is the leading IM services. And izuz.net will also add its own web Yahoo! Messenger in coming days.