At the request of some friends I have started up a personal project to build an instant messenger.
I am creating this using PHP, JQuery, XHTML, and CSS.
jQuery – http://jquery.com
I chose the codeIgniter framework as the base for my build as I have always like how MVC works, and I find it an good one to work with, it makes code easy for others to understand and work with, which means updates are straightforward too.
Codeigniter MVC PHP framework – http://ellislab.com/codeigniter
To begin with my plan was to build this instant messenger as a website for desktop, Android mobile and iPhone, running in a web browser, with app development later and push notification support as well.
For the initial basic build of functionality in HTML/PHP/CSS I felt that I was looking at 1 months worth of development time working 2 or 3 hours in my spare time, however this is I feel a long term project which will take much more time than my previous ones to finish.
Android App development using the internal web browser inside an app to load a url looks quick and easy to setup, I found some tutorials on how to do this with eclipse IDE and the Android SDK, as I already use eclipse as my IDE for PHP this seems like a good way to go for me.
Creating an Android Project – https//developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/creating-project.html
Eclipse Android WebView Tutorial – http://www.tutorialspoint.com/android/android_webview_layout.htm