Sending message to another user on a network...

[lidds]

Can anyone point me in the right direction of how to send a message to another user / computer on network from vb.net. I only want to send a message to other users that are running my app. I will store user computer info within a database table i.e. computer name and / or IP address.

 

I have seen examples of sending messages using the net send option, but to be honest I was looking for a way that could display a customised message window rather than the msgbox that net send displays.

 

If someone could point me in the best way to acheive this, that would be great.

 

Thanks

 

Simon

[rot13]

Can anyone point me in the right direction of how to send a message to another user / computer on network from vb.net. I only want to send a message to other users that are running my app. I will store user computer info within a database table i.e. computer name and / or IP address.

 

I have seen examples of sending messages using the net send option, but to be honest I was looking for a way that could display a customised message window rather than the msgbox that net send displays.

 

If someone could point me in the best way to acheive this, that would be great.

 

Thanks

 

Simon

 

You have to make your app listen for a connection on a port, and when it recieves a connection, start listening incoming data, then see if that data is from the application you want to recieve messages from, then display it however you want from the application.

 

then, the application that you send with will have to have a socket, and send data to a System.Net.Sockets.RemoteEndPoint which is basically an IP and port

 

it's really not hard... but it is kinda tricky if you've never done it before

 

Do you want to do it asynchronously (I dont know if i spelled that right) or not? I would say yes... i would do it async all the time... but that's just me...

 

I can help you out more once I know the answer to that question.

[lidds]

I will be doing it asynchronously as you suggested, but to be honest I have never done anything with sockets before, so any help you could give me would be much appreshiated.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Simon

[rot13]

I will be doing it asynchronously as you suggested, but to be honest I have never done anything with sockets before, so any help you could give me would be much appreshiated.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Simon

 

Alright... I'll type out a lil "article" with some psuedo code... it'll look like vb.net.. but it might not be all right... just to give you the idea (this is for the server part)

 

Create the three following classes: clsSocket, clsSocketCollection, and clsListener.

 

In clsSocket you basically need something like the following (customize to w/e you need)

 

'this is what actually does the work... it's the socket... or it includes the socket
Public Class clsSocket

    Dim MySocket As Socket

    Public ReadyOnly Property IP As Net.Sockets.IPAddress
         Get
              Return DirectCast(MySocket.RemoteEndPoint, Net.Sockets.IPAddress).Address
         End Get
    End Property

    Public Sub New(ByVal Socket As Net.Sockets.Socket)
         MySocket = Socket
         MySocket.BeginRecieve(blah blah blah, yuou can figure it out... lol)
    End Sub

    Public Sub CloseSocket()
         MySocket.CloseConnection 'w/e
    End Sub

    Public Sub Incoming(ByVal IAR as IAsyncResult)
           MySocket.EndRecieve(IAR)
           MySocket.BeginRecieve(blah blah blah, yuou can figure it out... lol)
    End Sub

    'Theres more stuff... but I don't wanna type it all out... you'll have to read and figure it out like i did... lol

End Class

'This is just a collection to hold,add, and remove clients
Public Class clsSocketCollection
    Inherits System.CollectionBase

    Public Sub AddClient(ByVal Client As clsClient)
         MyBase.List.Add(Client)
    End Sub

    Public Sub RemoveClient(ByVal Client As clsClient)
         If MyBase.List.Contains(Client) Then
              MyBase.List.Remove(Client)
         End If
    End Sub

    Public Sub Remove(ByVal Index As Integer)
         If MyBase.List.Count >= Index then
              MyBase.List.Remove(MyBase.List(Index))
         End If
    End Sub

End Class

Public Class clsListener

    Dim cSocketCollection As New clsSocketCollection

    Dim TCPListener As New TCPListener

    Public Sub StartListening()
          TCPListener.BeginListening(blah blah blah, you can figure all this out)
    End Sub

     Public Sub ConnectionAttempt(ByVal IAR As IAsyncResult)
           Dim cSocket as new clsSocket(TCPListener.EndListening(IAR))
           TCPListener.StartListening(Same Stuff As IN StartListening)
     End Sub

End Class

 

This will give you an idea of some of the steps... but you still have to have a way to get the icoming data from the clients in the collection... youll have to use delegates... or i would anyways... and theres lots more left out...

 

I'll add more later...