How to have a Chat feature in java-based application?

[Arun Singh Raaj]

Assume there is a healthcare web-application where you want to provide chat feature so that the patient and chat with his doctor after logging into their accounts.
How to have a chat feature in your application? Do you need third party API integration?


Thanks in advance.

[Tim Moores]

You don't need a 3rd party API (and for something privacy-critical such as healthcare you probably want to avoid 3rd party code as much as possible). For something browser-based, these days I'd advise to use web sockets. There's an example web app in https://coderanch.com/t/685060/java/web-app-Server-Events-SSE

[Arun Singh Raaj]

Hi,
according to JMS, it says it is used to send and receive messages between two applications. What kind of 'messages' it talks about? What is the real time example of these 'messages' in Java based application? Is it like chat messages?
Is there any role of JMS if you want to send SMS to user, to send email to the user, to have chat with the user?

Thanks.

[Tim Moores]

JMS is an entirely different kind of message, used as an architectural feature between different application components. It has nothing to do with SMS, Chat or email.

[Arun Singh Raaj]

I came across some information that JMS can be used to create "message queues", is it?

And I have a question about "notification" 🔔 feature in a web application:
Who does initiate the notification in a user-server application? Does server send the notifications to the client without client's request or the client requests for the notifications (like an ajax call is made automatically from client side as the client signs into his account)? How does it usually happen technically?


Thanks.

[Arun Singh Raaj]

I'm confused about JMS.
I want to repeat my question,  Is there no involvement of JMS in sending email, SMS, have chat with user and send "notification" to user's profile?

[Tim Moores]

I came across some information that JMS can be used to create "message queues", is it?

Yes, JMS is the standard Java API for message queues, like ActiveMQ and OpenMQ.

Who does initiate the notification in a user-server application? Does server send the notifications to the client without client's request or the client requests for the notifications (like an ajax call is made automatically from client side as the client signs into his account)? How does it usually happen technically?

Both are possible. The client can pull (with an AJAX call) or the server can push (using server-sent events or web sockets).

I'm confused about JMS. I want to repeat my question,  Is there no involvement of JMS in sending email, SMS, have chat with user and send "notification" to user's profile?

It is conceptually possible that an SMS/email/chat implementation uses message queues (and thus JMS) in the background, but that's an implementation detail that has nothing to do with SMS/email/chat. Please get the notion out of your head that the "message" in "message queueing" has anything to do with the "message" in SMS/email/chat.

[Arun Singh Raaj]

Thanks for the help

[Arun Singh Raaj]

When you need to send SMS to the client, how would you add them to the queue?

[Tim Moores]

Again, SMS have nothing to do with any "queue". You would sign up with an SMS service provider - search for "bulk sms sending" or some such phrase to find those.