Show HN: Subway, a persistent web client for IRC

The other collaborator here. I started with a similar client called web-irc, to make a better open source web IRC client. I combined forced with thedjpetersen because his tech stack was almost identical. And it looked better, to boot :-)<p>Tech used: Node.js, node-irc, socket.io, Backbone.js, and MongoDB for optional message logging on persistent connections.<p>Feedback and contributions welcome.<p>This article is linked to the github repo, but you can use the client directly here: <a href="http://ridezap.com:3000/" rel="nofollow">http://ridezap.com:3000/</a>

One of the collaborators here. Subway came to me as an idea a few months ago when I heard one of my co-workers trying to explain how to set up screen and IRSSI. The project has taken about 3 months to complete. There is still things to add like better IRC support and search.<p>A quick disclaimer the logo right now is a Gowalla Icon, this is only a placeholder I am working on designing a new logo.

Not to be negative, but what does this have that couldn't be done better with ZNC and a proper IRC client? I get a persistent connection to the IRC server, logs and push notifications to my phone when I'm not connected or paying attention, and I can connect from as any IRC client I want to, or connect from multiple clients simultaneously. [1] Granted, the web client does look really <i>really</i> nice, but as a whole it seems like an inferior solution to me.<p>I would really love to see that web client made so that it could connect to any server or bouncer, and not just your own proprietary backend.<p>1: <a href="http://noswap.com/articles/irc/" rel="nofollow">http://noswap.com/articles/irc/</a>

Looks a lot like Alice: <a href="https://github.com/leedo/alice" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/leedo/alice</a> which powers <a href="http://usealice.org" rel="nofollow">http://usealice.org</a>

YES. This is exactly what I've been planning in my head since IRCCloud doesn't seem to be handing out invites. Too bad this is in node/mongo otherwise I would love to contribute.

This same idea was my excuse to learn javascript/node :) I went the "re-invent the wheel" route and skipped node-irc and Backbone for extra javascript fun.<p>The interface looks good from the screenshots but how well does it work on a phone? For that reason I went with a minimal terminal-like interface to make it possible.<p>I will check this out tonight. Good job.

As soon as I fix the issues plaguing me from installing the dependencies for this, it's replacing Colloquy. Thanks!

I tried it. Could not get authenticated by nickserv on Freenode, got no replies. If you enter a wrong server (i.e., freenode.net, instead of chat.freenode.net) it continuously tells me the server is wrong, there seems not to be a give up time.<p>Other than that, it looks good.

Wow, this is great!<p>I had to `npm install` the following modules in the lib directory: connect-assets irc bcrypt socket.io<p>I'd love to be able to connect to multiple servers and auto-signin with NickServ and such.

I like the interface, and I want to use it, but a lot of stuff seems to be missing, like I'd expect to double click on a user and open a private windows with him. Also most of the commands don't seem to work either.

For those of you like me who are completely unfamiliar with node, in addition to the instructions on the README, you must also run `npm install` in the subway directory.

Looks nice, I couldnt install the irc module on node 0.4.10 though, if I get time later I will try to get that fixed

Why not <a href="http://qwebirc.org/" rel="nofollow">http://qwebirc.org/</a> ?