Chat applications have comprehensively transformed the way businesses operate today. Online chatting apps have surpassed social media in terms of the user base, indicating a strong consumers’ preference and trust. As a result, businesses adopt the tactic of directing processes to a chat-based infrastructure.
Furthermore, the reliability, stability, scalability, and access controls of these open-source chat applications have prompted enterprises to consider them to boost business growth through real-time customer interaction. The real-time chat apps are known for their one-of-a-kind and eternal features.
What Are the Prerequisites Needed Before Building a Chat App?
You need to select frameworks, protocols, infrastructure, and front-end and back-end coding languages appropriate for your team’s objectives and skills. Here’s a rundown of some of the most common technical considerations to build Android chat apps:
1. Chat App Code Languages
When deciding which language(s) to work with, evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each language, your current technical skills, and requirements for functionality, platform support, and scalability.
- Suitable back-end languages- Go, Python, Java, C#, Scala, PHP, Ruby, and Javascript.
- Suitable front-end languages- React, React Native, Flutter, Kotlin, or Java.
2. Chat App Frameworks
Several protocols and frameworks are designed expressly to facilitate chat features and reduce the number of manual tasks necessary to construct them.
- Chat app protocols- If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to figure out which back-end protocol you’ll use to send messages. Some of the best ones include- Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT), and WebRTC.
- Message Markup Language (MML)- MML is a package that allows you to embed components like button lists, carousel interfaces, date pickers/appointment schedulers, and configurable forms into your chat environment. It offers a dynamic chat experience as it comes with built-in support for pictures, icons, and tables.
3. Chat Application Development Tools
Picking up suitable development tools to build a chat app requires you to consider the cost, performance, and scalability. The developers should prefer building a chat app on top of dedicated chat API and chat SDK solutions, enabling them to deliver a reliable, feature-rich, scalable, user-friendly chat app.
How to Build a Chat App for Android
Follow these steps sequentially to create a chat app for Android:
1. Directory Creation and Installation of Dependencies
The initial stage in the development process is the creation of a directory and installation of the appropriate dependencies, which will host your chat server (back-end) and chat client (front-end).
2. Front-End Chat Interface and Chat Client Development
You’ll need to create a simplistic login page, a chat window where users may edit, post and read messages, and a contacts list for front-end modules. Utilizing a Chat app SDK could be a time saver as it helps developers configure existent components and enhance chat UI.
The login screen should have a form to authenticate user login whereas, the chat screen requires a virtual keypad, text input box, and a scrolling display for messages.
3. Back-End Chat Server Connection
The chat server is in charge of routing messages from sender to recipient and other back-end processes that aren’t saved remotely on the user’s device. You could choose from the above-discussed back-end languages to interact with the Chat API for this purpose.
You should now set up your user contacts list, launch and add new messages to the channel, and provide a means to show both old and new messages. The chat server must monitor for new messages, render current ones, and deliver new messages from sender to recipient.
4. Take User Feedback for Improving Chat Functionalities
After successfully launching a multi-functional chat app, the true challenge is figuring out how users interact with the application. The developers could explore and rectify the design and technical glitches revealed by gaining user insights and feedback through early access, surveys, or interviews.
Furthermore, they can coordinate their development efforts to create features that add value to your user base.
Conclusion
By incorporating pre-built chat technologies like a chat API and chat SDK solution, you could eliminate technical risk and increase the likelihood of the Android video chat app (anchor text) launching on time and within budget.
The above-discussed steps for creating a chat app are generic and may vary based on the technical approach decided by the development team, your objectives, and expectations. But the core development process applies to most of the Android apps in the market.
