FIDIC is running a Google wave server for internal communications. To receive an invitation to have FIDIC waves on your desktop, please contact FIDIC at fidic@fidic.org.   Users download the client.exe application (download client.exe or download a zip archive  client.zip and unzip - for Windows only). FIDIC sends a .bat file ("client.bat"). The client.exe and client.bat should be placed in the same folder.   A user will need to make sure that Java is installed. You can download the Java SE Runtime Environment (latest version)   Then simply click on the client.bat file to start the wave client application.   The FIDIC wave server federates with Google's www.wavesandbox.com development server, but users need a Wavesandbox account to use the Wavesandbox user-friendly web client. Users interested in testing the web client should ask FIDIC to send them a Wavesandbox logon and password.   The client (Thomas's GUI Client) that can be downloaded (see above) works with the FIDIC wave server but the waves do not appear in the Wavesandbox (we do not know why). To federate with the Wavesandbox users need the simple text-only client console released by Google (info) and a.bat file that calls "client-console" instead of "client".   Wavesandbox waves can be embedded in webpages for easy viewing (info) but we, and others, have not (yet?) been able to embed waves generated on the FIDIC wave server.

Brief instructions

The client is the Thomas's GUI Client. It is very basic. A user with an address of the type peter@efidic.ch is assigned by the FIDIC wave administrator as a member of appropriate waves. These waves appear in the client's left-hand panel. The user simply opens a wave and starts typing. Waves that have new messages are indicated by "NEW" next to the wave.  As noted above, the client will not federate waves with the Google wavesandbox. For this one needs the very basic text-only client.

About the Wave Server

FIDIC's wave server runs on the eFIDIC.ch Windows 2003 server. It uses OpenFire for the XMPP server. Setting up the server was not too complicated (the main issue was to have the OpenFire server name the same as the domain name, "efidic.ch" in our case, and not the hostname). The procedure started with the instructions on Google Wave Federation Wiki. Useful references are Rottmann and Macarne.