7 ms·

Google Talk for Developers

130 points by ovechtrick 14y ago

mikeevans 14y ago
What's so special about this? I thought it was common knowledge that Google Talk was on Jabber/XMPP.
- ChrisClark 14y ago
  I think this now allows people to write clients that can also use voice and video chat through Talk.
  - gst 14y ago
    This was already possible years ago. I used a patched Psi (XMPP) client for VoIP calls to Google Talk clients in 2006 (IIRC).
  - mikeevans 14y ago
    >Last updated March 23, 2012. Doesn't look like there has been any recent changes that warrant being on the front page.
    - ChrisClark 14y ago
      Hmm, good point.
jeffxl 14y ago
Wait, Jingle supports file transfers, but Google Chat currently doesn't?
- gst 14y ago
  Up until at last something like one year ago Google Chat didn't even support the full Jingle spec, but only Google's Jingle-like variant.
- abraham 14y ago
  It depends on the Chat client. The older Talk windows client supports file transfers. http://www.google.com/talk/about.html http://www.google.com/talk/about.html
  - jeffxl 14y ago
    That sucks, I guess for iChat or Messages to support file transfers with Gmail they'd have to have a specific Account Type for GChat which implements Jingle extensions, instead of just going through Jabber.
Kilimanjaro 14y ago
Allow me to connect to GTalk via webSocket and I'll do the rest. Appengine already support xmpp bots so it would be a piece of cake to manage presence, stanzas, etc. That's all I ask for: ws = new WebSocket('ws://talk.google.com:5222')
kyro 14y ago
I'll take this opportunity to kindly request that someone build an alternative to gTalk and Skype for video chatting. The forums for both are filled with complaints that do not ever get answered. Both products are huge resource hogs – gTalk will freeze my browser and Skype repeatedly disconnects and just slows down my entire machine. And it seems to happen to many, many people out there. On top of that, we all know Google offers little to no customer service, and it seems as if the Skype folks have just completely abandoned addressing any issues. I've said this before: we are long, long overdue for a gTalk/Skype killer for video chat. At this point, I'm willing to pay for something better.
- hugs 14y ago
  I agree we're overdue for a Skype killer. The technology that's going to power it is called "WebRTC". http://www.webrtc.org/ http://www.webrtc.org/ http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/basics/ http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/basics/ Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8C8ouiXHHk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8C8ouiXHHk You can play with WebRTC now in Google Chrome. Enable the chrome://flags: http://www.webrtc.org/running-the-demos http://www.webrtc.org/running-the-demos Then play with this demo: https://webrtc-demos.appspot.com/html/gum1.html https://webrtc-demos.appspot.com/html/gum1.html Then play with the source code: http://code.google.com/p/webrtc-samples/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fdemos%2Fhtml http://code.google.com/p/webrtc-samples/source/browse/#svn%2... Have fun!
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    I think that multiple peer connection support has landed in Chrome. Time to integrate the ROAP over JSEP and fix my code up and I should have a basic multi-peer p2p video chat demo working.
  - darklajid 14y ago
    Please don't build another 'You should "upgrade" your browser to Chrome' service. WebRTC might be cool, the demo looks cool, but the official site says that it might break or go away anytime and - please, please, please never ignore this - only one single browser seems to support that tech. Fool around with it, but this can _never_ be part of a Skype killer until everyone can use it.
wamatt 14y ago
And now if they could combine Google Voice and Google Talk into a combined product....
- ErikTheRed 14y ago
  Don't forget Messenger! I wish they'd at least have a desktop or web client for it.
pm90 14y ago
Its high time that they also released an api for google voice[1] . If there are any googlers reading this: why has this not been done yet? I've been looking into this in my spare time as there is no google voice client for Meego (Nokia N9) and I wanted to write one/improve an existing one[2] [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1668619/is-there-a-google-voice-api http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1668619/is-there-a-google... [2] http://code.google.com/p/qgvdial/ http://code.google.com/p/qgvdial/
- untog 14y ago
  My perception for all of this is that Google Voice is a deeply controversial project to people like cellphone networks, who Google need for Android. That's why we haven't seen APIs, VOIP calling, etc. It seems to be stuck in a rut, and I suspect it's political rather than technical.
Yrlec 14y ago
If you're looking for Java alternative to libjingle (which is written in C++) then I can recommend Jitsi (https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/). From what I understand they are more or less compatible with each other.
- marquis 14y ago
  Also check out the fantastic OpenFire XMPP server written in hava, works great with http-bind, strophe.js and even custom XMPP filters in javascript. Now we just have to solve the elusive clustering issue with an open-source alternative.
cmatthieu 14y ago
I agree and recently started working on a peer-to-peer, audio/video chat client called twelephone - here's a demo of the WebRTC-based project as of this weekend. http://youtu.be/9GvBe0kCJGI http://youtu.be/9GvBe0kCJGI
ZoFreX 14y ago
This is absolute hogwash. Google Talk moved away from the standards it was built on a long time ago and this token gesture does nothing to make it any easier for developers to integrate their systems. If Google really wanted to be open, here's what they would do: * Create an XEP for the method they use for history replay so that other clients and servers can get in on that goodness * Implement XEPs that the most popular XMPP clients have that Talk does not (for example contact sharing so you can use transports without having to click "yes" to adding a contact 200 times) * Either bring their Jingle in-line with the standard /which they helped create/ or create a new version of the standard incorporating their proprietary changes * Release the protocol that the Google Talk Android app uses. It's proprietary, slimmed-down, and means that any other XMPP client or GTalk client on Android is at a huge disadvantage in terms of sign-in time and data usage.

130 points by ovechtrick 14y ago

mikeevans 14y ago

What's so special about this? I thought it was common knowledge that Google Talk was on Jabber/XMPP.

ChrisClark 14y ago
I think this now allows people to write clients that can also use voice and video chat through Talk.
- gst 14y ago
  This was already possible years ago. I used a patched Psi (XMPP) client for VoIP calls to Google Talk clients in 2006 (IIRC).
- mikeevans 14y ago
  >Last updated March 23, 2012. Doesn't look like there has been any recent changes that warrant being on the front page.
  - ChrisClark 14y ago
    Hmm, good point.

jeffxl 14y ago

Wait, Jingle supports file transfers, but Google Chat currently doesn't?

gst 14y ago
Up until at last something like one year ago Google Chat didn't even support the full Jingle spec, but only Google's Jingle-like variant.
abraham 14y ago
It depends on the Chat client. The older Talk windows client supports file transfers. http://www.google.com/talk/about.html http://www.google.com/talk/about.html
- jeffxl 14y ago
  That sucks, I guess for iChat or Messages to support file transfers with Gmail they'd have to have a specific Account Type for GChat which implements Jingle extensions, instead of just going through Jabber.

Kilimanjaro 14y ago

Allow me to connect to GTalk via webSocket and I'll do the rest. Appengine already support xmpp bots so it would be a piece of cake to manage presence, stanzas, etc. That's all I ask for: ws = new WebSocket('ws://talk.google.com:5222')

kyro 14y ago

I'll take this opportunity to kindly request that someone build an alternative to gTalk and Skype for video chatting. The forums for both are filled with complaints that do not ever get answered. Both products are huge resource hogs – gTalk will freeze my browser and Skype repeatedly disconnects and just slows down my entire machine. And it seems to happen to many, many people out there. On top of that, we all know Google offers little to no customer service, and it seems as if the Skype folks have just completely abandoned addressing any issues. I've said this before: we are long, long overdue for a gTalk/Skype killer for video chat. At this point, I'm willing to pay for something better.

hugs 14y ago
I agree we're overdue for a Skype killer. The technology that's going to power it is called "WebRTC". http://www.webrtc.org/ http://www.webrtc.org/ http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/basics/ http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/basics/ Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8C8ouiXHHk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8C8ouiXHHk You can play with WebRTC now in Google Chrome. Enable the chrome://flags: http://www.webrtc.org/running-the-demos http://www.webrtc.org/running-the-demos Then play with this demo: https://webrtc-demos.appspot.com/html/gum1.html https://webrtc-demos.appspot.com/html/gum1.html Then play with the source code: http://code.google.com/p/webrtc-samples/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fdemos%2Fhtml http://code.google.com/p/webrtc-samples/source/browse/#svn%2... Have fun!
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  I think that multiple peer connection support has landed in Chrome. Time to integrate the ROAP over JSEP and fix my code up and I should have a basic multi-peer p2p video chat demo working.
- darklajid 14y ago
  Please don't build another 'You should "upgrade" your browser to Chrome' service. WebRTC might be cool, the demo looks cool, but the official site says that it might break or go away anytime and - please, please, please never ignore this - only one single browser seems to support that tech. Fool around with it, but this can _never_ be part of a Skype killer until everyone can use it.

wamatt 14y ago

And now if they could combine Google Voice and Google Talk into a combined product....

ErikTheRed 14y ago
Don't forget Messenger! I wish they'd at least have a desktop or web client for it.

pm90 14y ago

Its high time that they also released an api for google voice[1] . If there are any googlers reading this: why has this not been done yet? I've been looking into this in my spare time as there is no google voice client for Meego (Nokia N9) and I wanted to write one/improve an existing one[2] [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1668619/is-there-a-google-voice-api http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1668619/is-there-a-google... [2] http://code.google.com/p/qgvdial/ http://code.google.com/p/qgvdial/

untog 14y ago
My perception for all of this is that Google Voice is a deeply controversial project to people like cellphone networks, who Google need for Android. That's why we haven't seen APIs, VOIP calling, etc. It seems to be stuck in a rut, and I suspect it's political rather than technical.

Yrlec 14y ago

If you're looking for Java alternative to libjingle (which is written in C++) then I can recommend Jitsi (https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/). From what I understand they are more or less compatible with each other.

marquis 14y ago
Also check out the fantastic OpenFire XMPP server written in hava, works great with http-bind, strophe.js and even custom XMPP filters in javascript. Now we just have to solve the elusive clustering issue with an open-source alternative.

cmatthieu 14y ago

I agree and recently started working on a peer-to-peer, audio/video chat client called twelephone - here's a demo of the WebRTC-based project as of this weekend. http://youtu.be/9GvBe0kCJGI http://youtu.be/9GvBe0kCJGI

ZoFreX 14y ago

This is absolute hogwash. Google Talk moved away from the standards it was built on a long time ago and this token gesture does nothing to make it any easier for developers to integrate their systems. If Google really wanted to be open, here's what they would do: * Create an XEP for the method they use for history replay so that other clients and servers can get in on that goodness * Implement XEPs that the most popular XMPP clients have that Talk does not (for example contact sharing so you can use transports without having to click "yes" to adding a contact 200 times) * Either bring their Jingle in-line with the standard /which they helped create/ or create a new version of the standard incorporating their proprietary changes * Release the protocol that the Google Talk Android app uses. It's proprietary, slimmed-down, and means that any other XMPP client or GTalk client on Android is at a huge disadvantage in terms of sign-in time and data usage.