UWP Networking Essentials

Simple and lightweight networking (including RPC) for Universal Windows Platform apps.

Available on NuGet: UWP Networking Essentials.

Features

• Easily connect UWP apps running on one or multiple devices
• Exchange arbitrary objects between server and clients (JSON serialized by default)
• A common API for messaging via StreamSockets and UWP app services (+ more channels in the future)
• Basic RPC (remote procedure calling) API
  • Supports parameters, return values and async methods
  • Method invocation using dynamic proxies

Status

• Development is currently focused on interesting features and a convenient API design, NOT on security, performance or correctness
• Thus, it is currently not recommended to use this library in any really serious or mission-critical projects
• This being said, it might be useful and time-saving in small or personal projects

Getting started

Please download the ChatSample app to understand how to use the RPC API. Documentation is still scarce, sorry :(

Server example:

// Start a server on port 1234
var serializer = new DefaultJsonSerializer(GetType().GetTypeInfo().Assembly);
var listener = new StreamSocketConnectionListener("1234", serializer);
await listener.StartAsync();
var server = new RpcServer(listener, serverRpcObject);

// Remotely invoke "clientRpcObject.DoStuffOnClient" on all connected clients
await server.Clients.DoStuffOnClient("Hello clients!");

// Remotely invoke "clientRpcObject.DoStuffOnClient" on a specific client
await server.Client(connectionId).DoStuffOnClient("Hello specific client!");

Client example:

// Connect to a server
var serializer = new DefaultJsonSerializer(GetType().GetTypeInfo().Assembly);
var connection = await StreamSocketConnection.ConnectAsync("192.168.1.99", "1234", serializer);
var client = new RpcClient(connection, clientRpcObject);

// Remotely invoke "serverRpcObject.DoStuffOnServer" on the server
await client.Server.DoStuffOnServer("Hello server!");

So, what if you need your clients to do RPC via a UWP app service instead of StreamSockets? Just replace

var connection = await StreamSocketConnection.ConnectAsync("192.168.1.99", "1234", serializer);

with

var connection = await ASConnection.ConnectLocallyAsync("AppServiceName", "PackageFamilyName", serializer);