signalRJS

===

A Node.js server implementation of Signalr. It works with the 2.0 signalr javascript client

Install

npm install signalrjs

Quick Start - Persistent Connection

The Server

var express = require('express');
var SignalRJS = require('signalrjs');

var signalR = SignalRJS();

var server = express();
server.use(signalR.createListener())
server.use(express.static(__dirname));
server.listen(3000);

signalR.on('CONNECTED',function(){
	console.log('connected');
	setInterval(function () {
		signalR.send({time:new Date()});
	},1000)
});

The Client

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="">
<head>
    <script src="bower_components/jquery/dist/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="bower_components/signalr/jquery.signalR.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        $(function () {
            var connection = $.connection('/signalr');
            connection.error(function(error){
                console.log(error);
            });
            connection.received(function (data) {
                console.log('The time is ' + data.time.toString());
            });

            connection.start().done(function() {
                console.log("connection started!");
            });
        });
    </script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Quick Start - Hub Connection

##The Server

var express = require('express');
var SignalRJS = require('signalrjs');

//Init SignalRJs
var signalR = SignalRJS();

//Create the hub connection
//NOTE: Server methods are defined as an object on the second argument
signalR.hub('chatHub',{
	send : function(userName,message){
		this.clients.all.invoke('broadcast').withArgs([userName,message])
		console.log('send:'+message);
	}
});

var server = express();
server.use(express.static(__dirname));
server.use(signalR.createListener())
server.listen(3000);

##The Client

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title></title>
    <script src="bower_components/jquery/dist/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="bower_components/signalr/jquery.signalR.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="signalr/hubs"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        $(function () {
        	//Create hub connection
            var connection = $.connection.hub;
            var chatHub = $.connection.chatHub;

            //Handle a broadcast
            chatHub.client.broadcast = function (broadcastMessage) {
            	console.log(broadcastMessage);
            };

            $.connection.hub.start().done(function () {
                $('#sendmessage').click(function () {
                	//Call the hub server send
                    chatHub.server.send('A Message');
                });
            });
        });
    </script>
</head>
<body>
	<input type="button" id="sendmessage" value="Send" />
</body>
</html>

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to allow developers to use a non .Net platform with SignalR.

The main benefit of this implementation is that it allows front end developers to quickly mockup a Signalr implementation without having to worry about the .Net server side development. The implementation is not 100% complete, and is not intended for production.

Supported Transports

The implementation currently supports the following transports:

Long Polling - IE > 10
Server Sent Events - Chrome, Firefox, etc

Examples

Check out the Docs section to see an examples for:

A Time server
A chat server
A private server
A chat server with passport authentication

Supported Connections

Hubs

Hub Servers

Hubs define a connection by a name, and a set of available methods. Signalr makes the server methods 'directly' callable within the client application like. Given a client as follows:

var connection = $.connection.hub;
var chatHub = $.connection.chatHub

chatHub.server.send('A Message');

The server would need to have the 'send' method defined in the 'chatHub' as follows:

signalR.hub('chatHub',{
	send : function(message){

	}
});

Finally, to have the send method communicate to the clients, the server needs to make a call to all clients. This can be done within a server method by calling the following:

//invoke specifies the name of the client function to call
//withArgs specifies the arguments to call the function with
this.clients.all.invoke('broadcast').withArgs([message])

The client would then have the following method defined:

chatHub.client.broadcast = function (message) {
	console.log('some message:'+message)
};

Now the server can communicate to the clients.

Handling User

These methods are provided to make it easier to set a user for a connection. If you ar using Signalr .Net you would use Integrated authentication, since signalrjs uses node.js it handles user authentication slightly differet.

With the client

Signalrjs provides the ability for clients to set the user name for a connection. NOTE: this is non-standard and is not part of the Signalr.

In the client this can be done as follows:

$.connection.hub.start().done(function () {
    $.connection.$user('anyUserName');
});

NOTE: setting a user can only be done after the connection has been set; See the privateChat example to see this in action.

With Passport

Passport provides the ability to use several strategies to manage user authentication. If you use passport, then signalrjs will automatically set the user for a particular connection. See the passportChat example to see this in action.

tjchaplin/signalRJS