layer vs quickblox , which is better(easier to implement,performance features)
for messages,voip, and video chat,
and do I need to add parse.com with those messaging solutions for content storage.
Some of the differentiating points are:
Quickblox supports video and audio calling, layer doesn't.
Layer provides SDK for iOS, android and Javascript & unity sdk are in queue. Quickblox provides sdk for iOS, android and js.
All the above mentioned are only for client. If you want to control something from your server then you have to use Rest APIs.
Layer provides Rest and Websocket API but Quickblox only provides rest API.
Quickblox states that their js sdk can be used on node.js server. But I was getting This browser not supported error in connecting to chat from node.js server. The same error is also specified here. This means that there is not way to get real time notification on new message/user on your server with Quickblox.
Quickblox free tier customer support sucks (for eg. see here (no response on any ticket), here and here). I found Layer's support very good.
Layer's documentation is too good. Quickblox's is confusing. Also quickblox have no doc describing there basic concepts.
Layer also provides support for UIKs.
Quickblox provides in house user management, layer does not. But you can use Parse to do that as defined in layer docs.
Layer has platform API to bulk and system level actions like sending announcements and they also provide engagement analytics on those.
I also find this small layer's feature very useful.
There are many more differences. I just started using chat Baas last week. Will update the answer with time.
Related
I am currently looking at using Microsoft Web Chat to interact with my existing Node Js application built on MS Bot Framework Core but uses DialogFlow as NLU.
Current implementation: Web Page -> Custom UI Widget -> Connects to Node.js app built on MS Botframework Core -> Queries DialogFlow NLU to identify Intent -> Node.js app constructs the Dialog -> Gives response to user.
Looking at the Web Chat component, I cannot find references using any other NLU except Azure Bot Service. Is it mandatory to use Azure Bot Service/LUIS NLU to integrate with Web Chat?
I have also looked at offline-directline npm module but the last dev on the module is more than 3 years ago.
Firstly, responding with a quick message about using offline-directline, you should feel reasonably comfortable with it. It is a few years old, but seems to stand the test of time with continued use and little in the way of issues that I have heard.
Another option would be to use a 'browser bot'. In this scenario, the bot is contained within the hosting page's html/scripts. So, there is no reliance on using Direct Line. I don't know your whole setup, so this may or may not align with your overall needs and architecture.
As for using Web Chat with something other than the Azure Bot Service, this would be an uphill battle. In theory, this is probably achievable to some degree. The issue is that Web Chat is heavily integrated with the BotFramework-DirectLineJS library. You might be able to cherry pick specific components from Web Chat, replace the Direct Line library with a make of your own, and modify the remaining code to work with your 'service'. But, I'm not certain the effort is worth it. That is something you would have to decide for yourself.
If you do go this direction, you will likely need to configure your 'service' to send messages that conform to the BotFramework schemas when communicating with Web Chat. Even without the dependency on Direct Line for connecting to the service, much of Web Chat is still oriented towards what an incoming message looks like (i.e. a BotFramework Activity) and handling it according to the properties it contains.
To start, here are a few areas you should review in order to correctly configure you service to handle inbound and outbound messages going to and coming from Web Chat:
BotFramework Activity schema
BotFramework Card schema
BotFramework Transcript schema
Web Chat's Activity, Card, Attachments, etc. Types - at present, these are loosely defined. I would expect that to change at some point in the future which may prove to be a changing break in your specific scenario.
This is not exhaustive and would require greater research as there are likely other considerations than the few I've listed above. But, again, this may not be necessary if you decide to utilize offline-directline.
Apologies in advance for the seemingly naive question, I'm a hobbyist developer learning the ropes. I noticed the opentok REST API documentation deal mainly with command line stuff, whereas the SDKs (web/node SDKs for example) come packaged with class instances, methods, etc. So is one a reference for the other? How/when does one use the REST API instead of the SDKs?
Vonage Developer Advocate here.
Our server SDKs provide a language specific wrapper for our REST API. Both are focused on session & token generation and archiving. This logic is usually processed on the server side.
The client SDKs are different in that they provide capabilities for the front-end.
I'm using Parse.com SDK services for my Android app.
I've seen that Parse had released their Android SDK as an open source project on Github on this address.
My app is almost finished, and when I'm uploading it to the Play Store, I don't want to be controlled by Parse.com (I mean that I don't want to be blocked someday, or I don't know that), so I want to move my whole database to my own server that hosted on a secure company.
I've checked the open source project on Github and realized that all I need to use it on my own server is to generate an Application ID and a client key.
So I want to ask if someone knows how to generate an Application ID and a client key of Parse to use it on my own server, or that you maybe knows another way of moving it to my server? And one more question: Today I'm using also Facebook SDK with my app. If I will move my database to my own server, will I still be able to use Facebook SDK on my app?
Thanks!
I have write an article about how to migrate parse to a custom server.
https://medium.com/#jcminarro/run-parse-server-on-your-own-server-using-digitalocean-b2a7d66e1205
There's a massive difference between Parse open-sourcing their SDKs compared to revealing their entire backend architecture and its configuration.
The open-sourced SDKs are essentially wrappers for Parse's REST API along with some convenience functions and logic for natively interpreting the JSON data Parse is transmitting.
At a high level, Parse uses MongoDB for its core database and is entirely hosted using AWS (Amazon Web Services). The entire architecture is highly complex and is not something you could just drag and drop onto your own software stack or hardware backend.
To help give you a better idea of how Parse achieves all of their services, here's an interesting presentation their Dev Ops team gave at an AWS convention. Suffice it to say, hosting the backend services for over 180,000 apps requires a complex infrastructure and that is the "secret sauce" so to speak for Parse and is why Facebook purchased them for over $85 million two years ago.
I noticed in the commercial API you have the ability to use branded map skins. How is that actually implemented on the app side? Are there "MapView" objects exposed? The commercial API documentation is not available online, but I would love to read it before I commit to purchasing a contract. I'm really interested in what is exposed by the REST Api also.
Glympse map branding is currently available only in the HTML-based Glympse viewer (i.e. a customizable experience for invite recipients or when viewing a Glympse group). There are a number of themable components, most of which are available with any registered Glympse app.
Unfortunately, the customizable map experience on the app side of things has not yet been released.
I'm looking at having thousands of simultaneous connections from mobile phones to the server whereby anytime a user interacts with his cell phone, the data is sent and logged by the server. Also, anytime the server has new information for that user, the server can push that information without a browser refresh. I am wondering what is more stable and how you would build this?
A good real-time framework or infrastructure will have numerous APIs that should let you connect any device, no matter the technology, to the real-time server e.g. an iOS client library for iPhone and iPad, a JavaScript client library for numerous platforms including normal and mobile web, an Android compatible Java library and so on.
An interesting idea might be to choose which ever framework or real-time service suits your needs best and then using something like PhoneGap. But, as #rt2088 says, it depends if you need the notification app to be running as a service on the phone or as a standalone application.
The choice will also depend on whether you want to install, host, maintain and manage the scaling of your own real-time services or not. If not, there are a number of services out there who you could use so you can concentrate on building your application. If you do want to manage your own infrastructure then the Comet Maturity guide could be a good start. It's a little out of date but is still probably the best reference available.
the ability to push new content the
user based on his GPS location which
is "pinged" to our server. Based on
that, we deliver local content. What
frameworks are you talking about?
There are a number of real-time frameworks available at the moment. Some are hosted services and others require installation on your own hardware. The majority of them will come with a bunch of libraries in different technologies that make it easier to get up and running with them e.g. a JavaScript library that wraps the WebSocket object and also manages fallback for web browsers that don't support WebSockets.
I've just created a Real-Time Technologies Guide in which I've listed all the real-time technologies that I could think of and provided a bunch of tags associated with each.
wouldn't a javascript client library
cover all platforms if it is a web
appilcation?
If the application is a web application then yes, a JavaScript library would be all you need for the client application. The server side libraries that you require would depend on the real-time technology you choose.
Best solution to achieve this is to use the WebSocket communication. It is bidirectional asynchronous communication. Currently every browser supports this new standard and plenty of code snippets available. You just have to google it. There are many server and client side frameworks. choose the one best suits to your requirement.
The details of the WebSocket specification is available at -
Websocket specification
Do you need notification when user uses mobile browser of handset or the mobile handset itself (performing non-browser tasks)? Based on that, the framework to record user activity can be selected.