Latest release: 0.3.0beta2 (view changelog)
Twitter: @socketstream
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/socketstream
IRC channel: #socketstream on freenode
Take a tour of all the new features at http://www.socketstream.org/tour
SocketStream is a new open source Node.js web framework dedicated to building single-page realtime apps.
Whether you're building a group chat app, multiplayer game or trading platform, SocketStream makes realtime web development fun and easy. It provides the structure and back-end functionality your app needs, whilst allowing you to build the front-end using technologies you already know (such as jQuery, Hogan, Backbone.js, Ember.js).
We follow a few guiding principals to keep the framework lean, modular and extensible whilst ensuring your app can easily integrate with other great Node.js modules such as Express.js, Everyauth and thousands more.
SocketStream 0.3 is in full-time development, rapidly progressing thanks to frequent contributions from a growing community of developers. Now the 0.3 API is pretty much stable there will be frequent updates to master before 0.3.0 is pushed to NPM later in April. Demos and more documentation coming soon.
- Designed for large apps - excellent code organization, modularity and extensibility. Not a black box framework
- True bi-directional communication using websockets (or Socket.IO 0.9 fallbacks). No more slow, messy AJAX!
- Write all code in JavaScript or CoffeeScript - your choice
- Works well alongside Express.js and other Connect-based frameworks
- Easily share code between the client and server. Ideal for business logic and model validation (see Questions below)
- Request Middleware - enabling session access, authentication, logging, distributed requests and more
- Effortless, scalable, pub/sub baked right in - including Private Channels
- Easy authentication - use a backend database or authenticate against Facebook Connect, Twitter, etc using Everyauth
- Uses Connect 2.0 - Hook-in your own HTTP middleware, share sessions between HTTP/Connect/Express/SocketStream
- Optionally use Redis for fast session retrieval, pub/sub, list of users online, and any other data your app needs instantly
- Modular transport design allow alternative websocket or back-end event transports to be used
- MIT License
- Works great with Chrome, Safari, Firefox 6 (and above) using native websockets
- Compatible with older versions of Firefox and IE thanks to configurable fallback transports provided by Socket.IO
- Use
require()andexportsin your client-side code as you would on the server - Define multiple single-page clients by choosing the CSS, JS and client-side templates you wish to serve
- Integrated asset manager - automatically packages and minifies all client-side assets
- Live Reload - automatically reloads the browser when a HTML, CSS or JS client file changes
- Works with iPads and iPhones using Mobile Safari (iOS 4.2 and above), even over 3G. Send a smaller, lighter client if desired
- Use optional code formatters (e.g. CoffeeScript, Jade, Stylus, Less, etc) by easily installing wrapper modules
- Multiple clients work seamlessly with HTML Push State 'mock routing' so you can use Backbone Router, Davis JS and more
- Supports many client-side template languages (Hogan/Mustache/CoffeeKup/jQuery), pre-compiling them for speed
- Works great with Ember.js for 'reactive templates' which automatically update when data changes
- Bundled with jQuery - though not dependent on it. Will work great with Zepto and other libraries
- Easily add additional client libraries such as Underscore.js
- ss-console Connect to a live server and call RPC actions or publish events over the REPL / terminal
- Code Formatters: ss-coffee (CoffeeScript), ss-jade Jade (for HTML), ss-stylus Stylus (for CSS), ss-less Less (for CSS)
- Client-side Template Engines: ss-hogan Hogan/Mustache, ss-coffeekup CoffeeKup
SocketStream automatically compresses and minifies the static HTML, CSS and client-side code your app needs and sends this through the first time a user visits your site.
From then on all application data is sent and received via the websocket (or Socket.IO fallbacks), instantly established when the client connects and automatically re-established if broken. Normally this will be in JSON RPC format, but SocketStream 0.3 allows you to use different message responders depending upon the task at hand.
All this means no more connection latency, HTTP header overhead, polling, or clunky AJAX. Just true bi-directional, asynchronous, 'streaming' communication between client and server.
Ready to give it a whirl? Install Node 0.6.X then clone the project locally (just until 0.3.0 is released and published to npm):
git clone https://github.com/socketstream/socketstream.git
cd socketstream
sudo npm link
To generate a new empty SocketStream project type:
socketstream new <name_of_your_project>
Install the bundled (optional) dependencies:
cd <name_of_your_project>
npm install
npm link socketstream
To start your app simply type:
node app.js
If all goes well you'll see the SocketStream banner coming up, then you're ready to visit your new app at:
http://localhost:3000
SocketStream is a perfect fit for all manner of modern applications which require realtime data (chat, stock trading, location monitoring, analytics, etc). It's also a great platform for building realtime HTML5 games. However, right now it would make a poor choice for a blog or other content-rich site which requires unique URLs for search engine optimization.
SocketStream 0.3 example apps coming soon!
SocketStream 0.3 supports multiple ways to send messages to and from the server. The most common of which, JSON-over-RPC, is included by default. An RPC call can be invoked on the server by calling ss.rpc() in the browser.
For example, let's write a simple server-side function which squares a number:
// server/rpc/app.js
exports.actions = function(req, res, ss){
// return list of actions which can be called publicly
return {
square: function(number){
res(number * number);
}
}
}Restart the server and then invoke this function from the brower's command line:
ss.rpc('app.square', 25)You'll see the answer 625 logged to the console by default. The eagle-eyed among you will notice ss.rpc('app.square', 25) actually returned undefined. That's fine. We're only interested in the asynchronous response sent from the server once it has processed your request.
You may be wondering why app.square? Because we're invoking the square action/function in the app.js file. If you had written a resize action in /server/rpc/image/processor.js you'd call it with ss.rpc('image.processor.resize'). Create as many sub-directories as you wish to organize your code.
Now let's write some code in the client to do more with this response:
// client/code/app/demo.js
// define the number to square (vars are local to this file by default)
var number = 25;
ss.rpc('app.square', number, function(response){
alert(number + ' squared is ' + response);
});Once you save the file, the browser will automatically reload and you'll see an alert box popup with the following:
25 squared is 625
More examples coming soon!
Please start with http://www.socketstream.org/tour which walks you through the key features and shows you the code.
We've made a start on documentation for 0.3. Right now the following sections have been written in /doc/guide/en:
- Client-side Code
- Client-side Templates
- Defining multiple Single-Page Clients
- Loading Assets On Demand
- Live Reload
- Web Workers
Install the excellent 'nodemon' module with sudo npm install -g nodemon then start your app with nodemon app.js. A .nodemonignore file has already been created for you with the optimal settings. This feature is very useful when developing your app.
Like so:
ss.ws.transport.use('socketio', {io: function(io){
io.set('log level', 4)
}});Yes. We have several users running SocketStream on Windows without problems. Please see the Windows installation instructions in INSTALL.md
Simply require() one of your client-side modules in your server-side code.
Not yet. Right now we only support RPC calls and Events. However, websocket middleware and modular websocket responders were introduced in 0.3 to encourage people to start experimenting with different ways to define, access and sync models over websockets. If and when good contributed solutions exist we will promote them here. Models will be our primary focus for the next major release.
Yes. SocketStream installs the Redis driver by default but does not require Redis to be running when developing your app (for convenience sake). However, as soon as you want to host your app for real, you need to be using Redis.
Redis is used in two areas of SocketStream - session storage and internal pubsub (used by ss.publish commands). You can enable Redis in your app with the following commands in your app.js file:
ss.session.store.use('redis');
ss.publish.transport.use('redis');
Pass any config as the second argument to either of the above commands as so:
{host: 'localhost', port: 6379, pass: 'myOptionalPass', db: 3}
SocketStream 0.3 makes a big assumption in order to maximize speed and reduce code complexity: All incoming connections with the same session should be routed to the same server (also known as Sticky Sessions). The session details are stored in memory and then optionally saved to Redis to preserve the session should the node fail.
Front end scaling can be achieved using a combination of different websocket transports (such as the forthcoming Pusher Pipe module) and optional features we intend to introduce in the future.
Back end scaling has yet to be properly documented, but we're keen to continue looking into ways to use ZeroMQ and also Hook IO. We will make sure back end scaling is as easy and flexible as possible, but it will no longer be a feature of the framework itself.
SocketStream is primarily written in CoffeeScript which is 'pre-compiled' into JavaScript using make build. If you're actively developing on the code make sure you install the dev dependencies first (just clone the project and type sudo npm link).
To avoid having to continually type make build every time you make a change, pass the SS_DEV=1 environment variable when running your SocketStream app:
$ SS_DEV=1 node app.js
This instructs your app to run the CoffeeScript code in <socketstream_root>/src directly, so you only need to restart the server to see your changes.
There are a number of Mocha tests starting to appear for parts of the API which are unlikely to change. To run them type:
$ make test
More tests coming soon. Contributions very much appreciated.
Creator and lead developer: Owen Barnes.
Special thanks to Paul Jensen for contributing code, ideas and testing early prototypes. Big thanks also to Addy Osmani for help with everything JavaScript related, Alan Milford for the excellent SocketRacer.com demo (which will be running on SocketStream 0.3 soon!), and Craig Jordan Muir for designing the awesome new SocketStream logo.
Thanks also to the many who have contributed code and ideas. We plan to properly feature contributors on our website in the near future.
Thanks to Guillermo Rauch (Socket.IO), TJ Holowaychuk (Stylus, Jade), Jeremy Ashkenas (CoffeeScript), Mihai Bazon (UglifyJS), Isaac Schlueter (NPM), Salvatore Sanfilippo (Redis) and the many others who's amazing work has made SocketStream possible. Special thanks to Ryan Dahl (creator of node.js) for the inspiration to do things differently.
SocketStream is kindly sponsored by AOL.
SocketStream is released under the MIT license.