Our text chat component was implemented completely in parallel to the existing codebase and did not make any substantive changes to it.
- AChatMessage:
- We defined the AChatMessage abstract class as a foundation for our more specific chat classes.
- GlobalChatMessage:
- The GlobalChatMessage class is our representation of a chat message that is sent to everyone in the town in the chat box and is visible above the head of the Player that sent it.
- PrivateChatMessage:
- The PrivateChatMessage class is our representation of a chat message that is sent between two players in the same town and appears in the chat box only.
- sendGlobalPlayerMessage:
- An endpoint that posts a GlobalPlayerMessage to the server.
- sendPrivatePlayerMessage:
- An endpoint that posts a PrivatePlayerMessage to the server.
We implemented socket endpoints so that the chat messages can be sent to the covey server and distributed amongst all players. Messages are stored in an instance of a CoveyTownController, where they can be easily rendered based on their own data.
We added several methods to add these endpoints but didn't change any of the existing code in these classes. These classes include TownsServiceClient, CoveyTownController, CoveyTownsStore, CoveyTownRequestHandlers, and towns. For TownsServiceClient, TownsServiceClient, CoveyTownController, CoveyTownsStore and towns, the API endpoints were implemented in a similar way to the other previous endpoints. In CoveyTownRequestHandlers, the handlers were implemented in a similar way to previous ones before but in the the townSubscriptionHandler, we added socket endpoint for listening for player messages.
We have a chatbox (class name is Chat) that allows players to send both global and private messages. Players can specify what kind of message they want to send using the "send global" and "send private" buttons. Private messages display the usernames of the Players involved alongside the message and are purple, while global messages display the username of the Player sending the message alongside the message itself and are green.
Global messages are displayed over the head of the Player sending the message and will remain there for 5 seconds or until they send another message, whichever comes first. This required us to change the WorldMap component in the front end along with App so that we can use the messages state to keep track and display the messages on the map.
We implemented a censorer in the frontend and backend that checks all messages for prohibited phrases and replaces them with *s before they are sent. We implemented it in both parts of the codebase so that it would censor words for players receiving messages (covered by the backend) and players sending messages (covered by the frontend).
