Spark interfaces with collaboration website

I have almost finished my intranet site, with collaboration features using spark.

As you can see in the picture below, I have a portlet with the current members for a workspace. If the user clicks on the IM status picture, it will launch spark using the chatto parameter.

http://www.manorhouselimpsfield.com/spark1.JPG

Now here is the problem, if the user tries to initiate a conversation with another member, it will close the current connection and start a whole new instance of spark.

I believe this issue was being tracked in

http://www.jivesoftware.org/issues/browse/SPARK-163

but it hasn’'t been updated for a long time. So my question is, will this be fixed or has this enhancement been dropped. I just need some info so I can make some plans on my project.

Regards

Ollyando

Hey ollyando,

This is going to be fixed. The real issue is that we need to fix another issue before that one, otherwise “Log Out” will not work correctly. So no fear, this is coming. I’'ll update with better estimates.

-Derek

thanks for the update, I’'ll await the estimate.

Are there any updates to this request.

Our users are really clamoring for this one.

Hi Ollyando,

The next release of Spark will support URI mapping, so you will definitly be able to do exactly as you wish. URI mapping allows you to create links in your web pages to allow for certain actions to occur in spark, such as enter conference room, start chat, change presence, etc.

Cheers,

Derek

XMPP URIs - Finally!

After 2+ years of on-and-off work by yours truly, the IESG has approved of draft-saintandre-xmpp-iri as a proposed standard. Now you can finally use XMPP URIs with confidence!

Posted on 2006-05-08 at 13:11. File under jabber.

source: http://www.saint-andre.com/blog/2006-05.html#2006-05-08T13:11

so “approved” URI mapping is very hot, the 8th May was just some weeks ago.

Well that’‘s great news, can’‘t wait for the next release. One question, will this work if I am only running spark via webstart. I think i tested this before when i tried a uri mapping, it only seemed to work when the client was installed on the user machine and it associated uri mappings with the client’'s browser. But when I tried it using webstart the browser did not know anything about the mappings. Maybe I am getting confused. Can you shed light on this as well?

Hi Ollyando,

The Webstart version of Spark will not work with URI mapping due to the fact that there is no “executable” to pass in any parameters to. However, I would strongly recommend using Spark Manager to distrubute Spark to your employees. This will allow for version control and with the nice side effect of having XMPP URIs.

Cheers,

Derek

Can I use the start_chat_jid and start_chat_muc to obtain the same functionality.

i.e I can start a chat or muc but it will not log me off my current session.

Our users do not have access rights to install software and we really want a web based solution, so they can access any machine in the network to use spark.

I don’'t really want to get into rollouts of software, or ensuring the latest build of our windows machine have spark etc.

Hi Ollyando,

Have you thought of going to a pure web based chat client such as JWChat? From your needs you have described, a thick client is just not ideal.

-Derek

Yeah, I did look at jwchat, and it worked quite well, but there did not seem to be any support for starting a chat with a specific user using a parameter call.