cyclonebri

Hi All,

I am creating a chat program for the computer help guys here at work so they can talk with one another (we got banned from using a standard chat such as MSN or AOL because too many people were just talking all day long and not working..immagine that...) Anyway, I am still in the design stage and I'm wondering how to go about making a buddy list, or at least a window that displays who is online. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My original thought is just to have a form with textboxes on the server and when someone logs on to have their name displayed, which then would update the clients buddylists with the active users. Does that sound about right? Is there an easier/better way?

Thanks,
Brian

ChiefRedBull

Your idea is pretty close.

I would alter is slightly, have a file on the server, that holds the user names / IPs and send that out to all the clients. However of course you may want to see from the server whos online too, so a listbox or several textboxes would be perfect.

orufet

For larger systems, you may want to consider a database...

divil

Personally I wouldn't have a UI on the server program at all. It may even be worth making it run as a server under Windows NT, which I what I've done for our chat thingy at work here.