My son provided me a link to Hab.la, which is supposed to permit online chat through a web page. This is my experiment; I’m adding to code to enable chat through this post.
(If I have problems, this post’ll get modified…)
The steps on the Hab.la site are:
- Sign up for Hab.la
- Add Hab.la to iChat, Gaim, Trillian (or, I assume, other chat clients)
- Add Hab.la to the web page
So, that’s what I’m doing…
…and, having done that, I see there’s a little box in the lower right of the screen. As I write, the box reads “not available,” but I see in the demo it can read “click to chat.”
Ah, I’m understanding this better.To work with hab.la, I needed to:
- Create an ID with hab.la (which I did)
- Use a chat client like Pidgin, entering hab.la as an XMPP*
- Add the hab.la code to a web page (like this post)
- Log into hab.la via Pidgin.
(Some understanding — two of the points I’d written above, earlier…)
If I do that, then when you visit the page that the hab.la code is on (like this post), you’ll see a little box with “available to chat” on it. If I’m not logged onto hab.la, you’ll see “not available.”
The hab.la box on this page allows any visitor to the page to chat with me, assuming I’m around to respond. An interesting concept.
* Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, a standard for messaging — like Jabber.
Added an hour later: okay, I moved the hab.la code off this post and into the WordPress sidebar. Everything still seems to work, but now the hab.la chat box should appear even if this post isn’t on the page.