I am going to make a chat app to learn the basics of nodejs.
Sources I used to learn: https://levelup.gitconnected.com/set-up-and-run-a-simple-node-server-project-38b403a3dc09, https://nodejs.org/en/learn/getting-started/introduction-to-nodejs, https://medium.com/@joekarlsson/complete-guide-to-node-client-server-communication-b156440c029, https://www.npmjs.com/package/ws?activeTab=readme, https://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/ehchua/programming/webprogramming/NodeJS_Basics.html, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV-fDdHhGqs
Usually, I would be logging (aka yapping) much more, but since all this info about Nodejs and backend web stuff was so new to me, I made an exception and only logged the big sources I used.
I tried not to look at any other Nodejs chat apps, because I didn't want to copy them, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV-fDdHhGqs is the closest I got to an actual chatting app.
For a bidirectional connection bt the server and client, I am using websockets.
The code now is very simple.
First, run node server.js.
Then, on a browser with the same computer, go to localhost:8080.
You should see a button, but that doesn't actually do anything.
To send messages, go to inspect and then console on the webpage, then run const socket = new WebSocket('ws://localhost:8080'); and then socket.send("Hi guys").
You should see received: Hi guys on the CLI where you ran node server.js.
I am going to commit now so ppl can see this version.
I added some new features:
- Sending json instead of the bare messages
- Adding email which is equivalent to usernames
- Server stores chatlog (as a local string variable, not as a file yet). Client can request and display chatlog
I will commit this to save the changes. The client UI is pretty self explanatory.
If you are running the server, you can't actually do anything; just watch what happens.
I didn't intend for this, but having multiple clients at once actually works, the chats don't show up on the messages recieved section, but you can see it in the chatlog.
WebSockets didn't work, so I am going to use GET and POST requests.
Tomaz' server side js code can be found https://github.com/TmzChevres/PeddieCS/blob/4e95ebff29b946da01af7ceab73f6056def2c0f7/nodejs/app.js.