Add Rocket.Chat to an existing Meteor application

jadus · July 23, 2024, 9:44am

Hello,

We have a Meteor web app with many users. In addition to its main features, the application offers very basic messaging between users. We are currently preparing version 2 of the application. The server remains on Meteor, and the front end is moving to React Native (Expo), but the web app will still exist for admins. One of the project goals is to have a more comprehensive messaging system, and we’re considering using Rocket.Chat (self-hosted open-source free version). My question is as follows: Is it possible to use Rocket.Chat for messaging between users integrated into our app while connecting it to our Meteor accounts system? Since Rocket.Chat is built with Meteor, this should be possible… Would there be any documentation or tutorial available?

Thank you very much.

paulishca · July 23, 2024, 1:57pm

AFAIK the Meteor part of the community version of Rocket.Chat did not move on to Meteor 3 and probably will not do it cause … someone has to do it and Rocket.Chat has slowly demeteorized over the past years.

jadus · July 23, 2024, 2:30pm

Thanks for your answer.
Maybe Rocket.Chat is still a good way to go, Meteor or not.
Anyone knows if it is possible to use it seamlessly with an existing accounts system ?

rjdavid · July 23, 2024, 2:53pm

Rocket.chat removed Fibers within their custom code but still using Meteor and currently moving to Meteor 3.x

xet7 · July 23, 2024, 2:54pm

@jadus

RocketChat is huge app, it would complicate your app a lot, I presume it would be easier to add some small features to your existing chat.

jadus · July 23, 2024, 4:51pm

Thank you for your answer. So in which case is Rocket.Chat a good idea if it’s too big for a complete integrated chat ?

xet7 · July 23, 2024, 5:24pm

@jadus

It depends on what kind of integration you mean.

Installing free community version of Rocket.Chat and login integration

Currently installing community version requires fix, mentioned here. That page also has info about settings for RocketChat be OAuth2 login provider to your app,

Webhooks

It’s possible to send changes happening at WeKan boards to webhooks, like RocketChat etc:

In WeKan, webhooks are sent like this:

github.com

wekan/wekan/blob/main/server/notifications/outgoing.js#L56


      
                value = 1;
              }
              this._lock[id] = value;
              this.clear(id, delay); // always auto reset the locker after delay
            },
            unset(id) {
              delete this._lock[id];
            },
          };
          
          const webhooksAtbts = (process.env.WEBHOOKS_ATTRIBUTES &&
            process.env.WEBHOOKS_ATTRIBUTES.split(',')) || [
            'cardId',
            'listId',
            'oldListId',
            'boardId',
            'comment',
            'user',
            'card',
            'commentId',
            'swimlaneId',

Activities are sent to webhooks:

github.com

wekan/wekan/blob/main/models/activities.js#L108


      
            );
            Activities._collection.createIndex(
              { customFieldId: 1 },
              { partialFilterExpression: { customFieldId: { $exists: true } } },
            );
            // Label activity did not work yet, unable to edit labels when tried this.
            //Activities._collection.dropIndex({ labelId: 1 }, { "indexKey": -1 });
            //Activities._collection.dropIndex({ labelId: 1 }, { partialFilterExpression: { labelId: { $exists: true } } });
          });
          
          Activities.after.insert((userId, doc) => {
            const activity = Activities._transform(doc);
            let participants = [];
            let watchers = [];
            let title = 'act-activity-notify';
            const board = ReactiveCache.getBoard(activity.boardId);
            const description = `act-${activity.activityType}`;
            const params = {
              activityId: activity._id,
            };
            if (activity.userId) {

Rocket.Chat Marketplace

You could change your app to be at RocketChat Marketplace. In that case, RocketChat would handle login, chat, etc, and your app would be additional app added from RocketChat Marketplace. Or alternatively, maybe additional app, that could be added, but it not at RocketChat Marketplace, if possible.

https://docs.rocket.chat/docs/rocketchat-marketplace

Old discussions about integrating WeKan and Rocket.Chat

There was some old discussion about integrating WeKan and RocketChat, but those are currently outdated:

RocketChat Accounts

RocketChat currently uses these accounts packages:

github.com

RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/blob/develop/apps/meteor/.meteor/packages#L18-L25


      
          accounts-base@2.2.11
          accounts-facebook@1.3.3
          accounts-github@1.5.0
          accounts-google@1.4.0
          accounts-meteor-developer@1.5.0
          accounts-oauth@1.4.4
          accounts-password@2.4.0
          accounts-twitter@1.5.0

About WeKan

I’m maintainer of WeKan Open Source kanban:

https://wekan.github.io

WeKan GitHub repo here, made with Meteor 2:

storyteller · July 23, 2024, 10:02pm

It depends on what kind of integration you want. If you just want messaging, go for something like socialize:messaging. If you want to have chat rooms, then integrating rocket.chat might be worth a try. Probably a standalone with some integration like @xet7 has pointed out would work the best long term because then you could keep on updating rocket.chat independently of you app.
If you want to integrate it into your app completely via the source code, then first start by getting super familiar with the Rocket.chat codebase. Most likely you will have to adopt their approach to everything over the default Meteor one though.

jadus · July 27, 2024, 8:58am

Ok tanks a lot for your answers !
I’ll dig in to this.
But it’s going to be hard it seems…

paulishca · July 28, 2024, 9:54am

Hey @jadus I have a chatting and contacts product built with Meteor. I am interested in a co-authoring towards a more complex product if you want to put some effort into this. If you are interested or just want to know more about it, we can discuss it in private.