Messenger for browser and android - Comet, Lift server

Question

My objective is to implement a messenger in a client/server model. However, in the clients, one client will be a web browser and another would be an android phone. So i need to develop an android app as well for a client. For web server I intend to use Lift with Scala. I wish to use Comet for messages in a fashion similar to described here http://simply.liftweb.net/index-2.1.html#Next

Although this technique might work fine in web browsers, I don't think it will work on the android app. What solution do I have for this? How do messengers like whatsapp work? Quickness in sending and receiving responses is an important factor here which is why I chose the Comet model ( and also its ease of implementation ). However, I'm open to new suggestions and ideas for incorporating this functionality. Please guide me through....I'm also open to other languages for the server that may be better suited to the task since I haven't started development.

Answer 1

Ignite Realtime has a xmpp library for android (and you can use openfire as server)

http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/index.jsp

here about gtalk/hangouts https://developers.google.com/talk/

Answer 2

You can do something like https://github.com/nafg/reactive/blob/v0.4.0/reactive-web/src/main/scala/reactive/web/SsePage.scala -- an implementation of HTML5 server side events in Lift for reactive-web.

Answer 3

You'll probably want to use Lift's RestHelper support to develop an API that your android app will communicate with. RestHelper (or any code in your application) can send messages to your actor, and can respond by executing any code - not just a partialUpdate. In terms of sending to the actor, while I don't have any concrete examples for you, these links may help you get started:

• Sending messages to a named comet actor with REST
• Sending messages using Async REST
• Asynchronous REST Support in Lift