Welcome to Chatly's Trac site

Chatly is a cross-platform chat system that includes a standalone client and server in all distributions. Since Chatly makes use of PyQt (Python bindings for Qt 4 to be specific), its interface is identical whether you're using it from Linux, BSD, or Windows--even Mac OS X*. Although I plan on continuing progress on Chatly, I will stop when it is feature complete. Of course, I may add on to it for other things!

Why Chatly?

Chatly is the spiritual successor of  Cited, the web-based AJAX chat system, and features a self-contained client (non-web based) and server. However, Chatly isn't intended to supplant or replace existing chat systems such as modern instant messengers (IMs) or IRC; it is instead intended as a technology demonstration of creating a reliable GUI application written entirely in Python using nothing more than bindings to existing libraries. For instance, Chatly's GUI is supported by the Python Qt bindings (PyQt) and Chatly's networking is managed by  Twisted Python. Both of these provide a robust application that can be used as a local chat system, but be aware that it was designed only to: 1) satisfy my own personal curiosity, as 2) a technology demonstration, and 3) an educational tool.

License

Chatly is distributed under a modified 2-clause BSD license (the "no advertising" clause has been removed). The exact license text is as follows.

Copyright (c) 2009, Benjamin A. Shelton
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above
      copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
      disclaimer.
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
      copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
      disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials
      provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND
CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR
CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF
USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED
AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN
ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.