If you're already on Hive, you're also already on the Sting Chat dapp which is in several places around Hive. Look for this icon:
I was amazed at how easy it was to build a Sting Chat front end, and do it for free! Here's how you can make one too.
Front end is for show
The Sting Chat front end below was set up in about 15 minutes.
Really, only two files are needed, both are provided thanks to the awesome work by at the Peak Open Project:
- an index.html file (a web page)
- a javascript file
I'm not sure if this is persistent, but this is the link I referenced: https://chat.peakd.com/t/hive-163399/1?j=mirafun|1695732432860 The Sting post is copied below:
There is a tutorial on this in the docs https://chat.peakd.com/docs/widget The embedded widget can also be customized on this page: https://chat.peakd.com/widgeteditor - after customizing it, one can copy the generated code to create an iframe with those settings.
For example you might select the embed mode (instead of overlay) as it will be always shown on your page next to the video. You can also specify the default community channel to show on load among other options.
Finally, the widget comes with a stwidget.js library, that lets you optionally set the logged-in user among other things.
A simple 25-line html example is here: https://gitlab.com/peakd/sting-message-frontend/-/blob/main/examples/widget_embed_js.html?ref_type=heads
Really, all you do is host the two files on a server then point your browser to the web page.
I chose to put the front end on Fleek because (a) it's free, (b) it uses IPFS, which I like, (c) it auto-updates via GitHub, (d) it's free. I was a little surprised that "sting" had not yet been taken so https://sting.on.fleek.co was available.
Noteably, if using Brave, you'll be asked if you wish to load from IPFS. If so, the site loads ipns://sting.on.fleek.co rather than https://sting.on.fleek.co That's new proyol to me, but interesting.
The two files needed can be found in the links above. The repository sting.on.fleek.co draws from https://github.com/crrdlx/sting and you can grab the files there if you wish. Simply place them on a web host, navigate to the index file, login with Hive Keychain, and things should just work.
On desktop, it works great with Hive Keychain installed.
On mobile, it works with the Hive Keychain app. Open the app, go to the browser (3 dots-->browser), then open the URL sting.on.fleek.co
One tip I've learned the hard way...be sure to have the latest version of the Keychain app. I had to uninstall it, then install fresh from the Play store, then things worked great.
Back end is where the action happens
If you really want to deep dive, set up a Sting node.
Back end building is always trickier, at least to me. of Actifit put out a great "how to" tutorial and setting up a Sting Chat node at @mcfarhat/tutorial-how-to-setup-a-sting-chat-node
I've tried a bit to set up a node, come close to success (I think), but ultimately hit a snag. Still, it seems doable. I'd encourage anyone with the resources and talent to give it a whirl. The more Sting back end nodes we have, the better. Decentralization is the goal.
The more front ends, the more back ends, the better. Give it a try.
Or, just give https://sting.on.fleek.co a try.
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