Other text message processing options

Now that you can easily type text messages to send to the other browser, you can add all kinds of other functionality. If you look at common instant messaging systems such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Skype, or any of the systems based on Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol(XMPP), you'll see that they support emoticons (for example, smileys such as ;) ) that are automatically converted into image-based icons.

Many of these systems also support special command strings that allow you to access predefined functionality. Because this chat application is simply HTML, CSS, and JavaScript-based code you have developed, you can easily add custom functions to do things, such as play sounds, update the user interface, or anything else you can imagine. Then, simply define some specific symbolic strings (for example, like #hashtags in Twitter) that you can easily detect and use to trigger these functions.

This text-based chat solution is based on sending messages...