dabb.it

Archived

A web IRC client that wanted to be IRCCloud before IRCCloud existed.

Stack
Angular, Node.js, WebSockets, jQuery UI, socket.io
Links
Source
The refreshed dabb.it client, with a channel list on the left and a chat view in the middle.

dabb.it was my IRC client project. Its intent was to become basically what IRCCloud did, before IRCCloud existed. Unfortunately I was too slow to the draw and never released a product. IRC clients were something I was very interested in making. I loved the IRC protocol for its ease of use. Being able to telnet into a server and still communicate (maybe poorly) with people was an incredible thought.

dabb.it started out using jQuery UI and socket.io. I’m not a designer by any means, so this version looked very rough around the edges. Thankfully a community member helped make a refreshed UI. With the new UI, and armed with WebSockets, I rewrote dabb.it with a new backend.

dabb.it before the UI refresh: the main chat view.

dabb.it before the UI refresh: a channel view.

The refreshed dabb.it used Angular for the front end, WebSockets for the communication layer, and Node.js with a WebSocket server package from npm. I wrote the IRC parser myself; it’s on GitHub. This of course was not scalable, but my concern at the time was releasing something usable and scaling later.

One of the settings views in the refreshed UI. Angular 1.0 with a Node.js backend.