Pusher & React Real-Time Chat App

This is an example chat application using React for a componentised UI and Pusher for real-time chat messages.

The UI components can be found in static/javascripts/ui_components.

The back-end is a Python app, found in app.py.

Tutorial

There is a full tutorial on building a real-time chat application with React and Pusher available.

Running the App

You'll need a Pusher account, so signup for a free account.

You'll then need to install the application Python package dependencies. We'd recommend you do this in a Virtual Environment:

$ virtualenv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate

Then install the dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Prior to running the Python app you'll need some environmental variables to be set.

• PUSHER_CHAT_APP_ID - your Pusher application ID
• PUSHER_CHAT_APP_KEY - your Pusher application key
• PUSHER_CHAT_APP_SECRET - your Pusher application secret

You can do this from the command line as part of running the application:

PUSHER_CHAT_APP_ID=YOUR_APP_ID PUSHER_CHAT_APP_KEY=YOUR_APP_KEY PUSHER_CHAT_APP_SECRET=YOUR_APP_SECRET python app.py

Or, probably much more easily, with the help of foreman and by setting these values in a .env file:

PUSHER_CHAT_APP_ID=YOUR_APP_ID
PUSHER_CHAT_APP_KEY=YOUR_APP_KEY
PUSHER_CHAT_APP_SECRET=YOUR_APP_SECRET

Then running:

$ foreman start