Someone asked about using Chesspark with other XMPP or Jabber accounts and I thought I would make a quick post on how to do it with livejournal. Any XMPP account will work the same as livejournal, so you do not have to limit yourself.

First, if you have a livejournal account, you will need to create a Chesspark account using your livejournal username.

See the following urls :
http://www.chesspark.com/faq/#general-5
http://www.chesspark.com/join/

I used this one, so the username I put in the form field was thetofu@livejournal.com
Note the '@livejournal.com' , you will need to add this when creating and logging into the account.

Now here is the only part where it may get confusing. You have to enter a Chesspark password. This can and should be different from your livejournal password. It is used to access the Chesspark website and not the live game server. This will be changed soon and support for openid is in the works. So fill in your Chesspark password, but remember to use your livejournal password on the next part.

Next we want to play some games. To get to the live game server you can use the web or download a client.
Web: http://www.chesspark.com/play/
Download: http://www.chesspark.com/download/

Going to the play url or starting up the Chesspark application you will be presented with a login screen.
Here you will enter your full livejournal username and password. ( NOTE: not your Chesspark password from above).

So, I enter thetofu@livejournal.com and my livejournal password and I am off! Playing Chesspark with my livejournal account!

So, how does this work? Well, Chesspark is XMPP based and can communicate with other XMPP chat servers. Livejournal has XMPP chat and when you log in with a Chesspark client you are actually logging into livejournal.com. After that you can communicate via livejournal to Chesspark and do anything you like as if you were on the Chesspark server.

I hope this helps and have fun!

Jack and I was recently interviewed by Duncan McGreggor at twisted.

http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/wiki/InterviewChesspark200802

We talk about twisted, python, XMPP, and of course, Chesspark. Thank you very much for the interview Duncan!

It has been seven weeks since I have updated this. :( That is not good. Anyway, to remedy this problem I am gonna document some problems I am currently in the process of solving. The first one, is the complexity of Punjab. Punjab is a HTTP XMPP connection manager. It provides a way to use Jabber or XMPP via HTTP.

Currently, punjab provides a SOAP, XMLRPC, HTTP Polling, and BOSH frontend to XMPP servers. The only one that works well is BOSH. The others have been a chore to maintain.

Because of this, I am gonna cut down on what Punjab 1.0 will be. Here are the steps for the KISSification of Punjab. :)

1. Make the requirements to run punjab the current version of twisted and twisted words. (Backwards compatibility is out the door till later.)

2. Focus on just BOSH. Clean up the code and the session interface to just do BOSH.

3. Write tests to make sure Punjab is 100% BOSH compatible.

4. Make a 1.0 release.

Please make comments below if you have any thoughts on this. After those 4 steps are made, each 'new' thing in Punjab will try to be as simple as it can. Current thought is a JSON version of BOSH.

NOTE: as of now #1 is done. The rest will be other posts.

Just some quick notes that I feel I should blog about.

Danielle will be 30 on the 31st! Contact me if you feel like you should be at the party. :)

Just released a bug fix version of palaver!

Chesspark is going well and we have made many improvements lately.

Vote for it on jyte! :) You will need an openid account to vote.

http://jyte.com/cl/chesspark.com-is-the-best-place-to-play-chess-online?

Been fooling around with yet another social networking website. This one is for games.

http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/user/twonds

Needs more xmpp games. :) Also would be cool to have an xmpp interface.

A new version of punjab has been released. Also, we left sourceforge for various reasons. The new url is http://www.butterfat.net/wiki/Projects/PunJab

This release has small bug fixes involving sessions and it now works with the newest versions of twisted and twisted.words.

I got rid of the old demo too. I will put up a new one soon. If you want to demo what punjab is capable of you can visit http://chesspark.com The webclient uses punjab.

The following is a quick overview of what I am doing these days:

1. I just bought a new house and have been doing all the fun stuff that comes with it, like painting, moving furniture, and fixing things. I also installed some flood lights on the back porch. I will have pictures up eventually.


2. MUSC is as fun as usual. ;)


3. Punjab should have a new release and a mochikit javascript library that ships with it soon.


4. Palaver should also have a new release with many new features added, more to come on this later.


5. Last but not least has been Chesspark. It has been just over a month since beta release and things have been moving along. We are about to release some new features like correspondence games and tournaments. If you have not checked it out yet, you should check it out now! We are also in need of a web developer to help with the web client and website. If you are interested in working with python, django, twisted, xmpp, or ajax then please apply. Chesspark is also open source friendly. :)

I have been working on a project for OGG, LLC called Chesspark. If you did not catch the announcement, Chesspark just went beta. It is an online chess community and uses XMPP for its IM and game protocol. Punjab and Palaver are some open source projects it utilizes. It also uses jabberd2 as the server and idavoll for two of its pubsub mechanisms. The weblient located at the following url :

http://chesspark.com/webclient/client.xhtml

uses http binding provided by punjab. It and the windows client will be released under an open source license shortly. The jabber client library strophe is already open.

Of the many neat features chesspark has, there is one that I like a lot. It is the ability to use an existing jabber account to play chess. You just enter that as your chesspark account and then create a password that is used just for the chesspark website. Then, using your existing account and password, you log in with a chesspark client and you are able to play chess and still keep your existing roster.

We have many ideas for future features and with a growing interest it should be an exciting chess community! We are also hoping to do more games in the near future. I am excited!

I am sure I will be mentioning chesspark more, but if you would like to keep up with new features, etc you can follow the news or blog at chesspark.

We have released version 0.3 of palaver. This version has bug fixes and supports its old file back-end and a new postgresql back-end. It also has support for 'player' roles and 'player' affiliations. Now that it has a new postgresql back-end, I am gonna do a write up on how to provide a web interface to palaver with django! Keep looking out for this! :) You could also use punjab, but I will save that for later. Speaking of punjab, it should have a new release soon.

Today, along with Online Game Group, I released the initial version of palaver. It is a multi-user chat component for Jabber and XMPP servers. The intention is to support all features of JEP-0045 as well as the relevant extended discovery features of JEP-0128. It is done in twisted. The project will also go beyond the JEP and have a web based admin and many other features.

The sky is the limit with twisted. :) An IRC interface would be interesting. A user could connect to palaver with an xmpp client or an IRC client.

I am really excited about the twisted words jabber part. There is a lot of potential for some neat stuff with this project. Even world domination? :)

Anyway, I want to thank Ralph Meijer for his work on the twisted.words project! Without it, punjab and palaver would not have been as easy to implement. Thanks!