Socketless demos

This is a collection of demos that show off how to use the socketless framework for websocket client/server implementations. There are currently three demos: two simple functionality demos, and one full fledged multiplayer game.

• a simple example similar to the code above, with one web client,
• a true distributed version of the simple example, minus the web client,
• the simple example enriched with a web client, and
• a full blown multiplayer mahjong game implemented using socketless.

A simple example: npm run simple

The demo starts up a server, followed by several clients. 10 seconds after joining, each client (including the webclient) will set out a chat message, and after an additional 5 seconds, it will disconnect from the server. Once the last client disconnects, the server will shut itself down.

All of this is coordinated in index.js, with the client/server API declared in the Client.js and Server.js files.

A distributed simple example: npm run distributed

This is the same test as the simple test, where each client is executed as an independent process (using the spawn command), to demonstrate things still work when the client and server code has no knowledge of each other, beyond knowing the shared API.

Like in the simple example, running of the clients and server is coordinated in index.js, and the client/server API is literally the same as the simple example (it uses those exact same files). However, instead of creating objects directly, index.js will spawn external processes that run test-server.js and test-client.js, which build the server and clients respectively, in order to demonstrate that server and client don't need to be created and run by the same script.

A simple example with web clients: npm run web

This test is similar to the simple demo, except it add web clients to the mix.

The demo starts up a server, and then starts up a web client, which a browser can connect to on http://localhost:1234, followed by a number of regular clients. Like before, 10 seconds after joining, each client (including the webclient) will set out a chat message, and after an additional 5 seconds each regular client will disconnect from the server. The web client, however, needs to be told to "quit" through its browser interface. Once all regular clients plus the web client have disconnected from the server, the server will shut itself down.

You'll notice that there is a public directory in the web demo: this is where the web client servers its index.html and style/JS from. If you look at the startWebClient() function in index.js you will see the following code:

  const webclient = ClientServer.createWebClient(
    serverURL,
    `${__dirname}/public`,
    { directSync: true }
  );

This creates a web client similar to a regular client, by telling it which URL the server is running on, but it also tells the webclient what the public directory is that it should use to server web content from. Finally, the third argument turns on direct syncing, rather than syncing through a state variable. This is mostly because it makes for easier code for a demo (see the socketless documentation on the difference between direct and state-based syncing), but if you want an example that relies on syncing through a state variable, read on...

Multiplayer mahjong: npm run game.

This is an elaborate example of how you can use socketless to implement a multiplayer game with all the bells and whistles you need, with client/web synchronisation through a "shared" state variable, with quite a lot of code for coordinating a simple "lobby" of sorts, creating, joining, and starting games, and coordinating play actions both between the clients and the server, as well as between the clients amongst themselves (using broadcasting).

The code is lavishly commented, so start reading at demo/game/index.js and branch out to other files as questions arise bout how things work.