node-remote-api v0.2.0

node-remote

A set of core automation scripts exposed over REST. This is the API for https://github.com/dougflip/node-remote. Currently this is only targeted at Linux, but there are future plans to run cross platform.

Prereqs/Setup

In order for any functions that require keyboard or mouse input the following must be installed. If xdotool isn't installed, the server will still run perfectly fine it will just be missing functionality.

• sudo apt-get install xdotool Installs xdotool which allows for easier mouse/keyboard scripting

Running the Server

Install dependencies

npm install

Start the server:

npm start

localhost:9001 should be up and running at this point. Check out the docs to see what is now available.

Basic Overview

The above starts up a web server listening on 9001. You should be able to request the API over your local network by referencing the server machine by ip - something like 192.168.x.x:9001. All of the routes at this point are POST requests so you cannot simply navigate to them in a browser. I use Postman to interact with the API without running the client.

API requests come in over HTTP. The Node server then issues commands directly to the host machine. Most of these end up being xdotool commands to either simulate keyboard input or mouse input.

Core Features

NodeRemoteApi ships with a set of core modules that automate basic features.

• System control such as volume and closing windows
• Browser controls such as tab switching and zoom
• Mouse input
• Keyboard input
• See the docs for all available core routes.

Plugins

Plugins are a work in progress and do exactly what you think - add functionality to NodeRemoteApi. Check out the plugin docs for some detail on where that is headed.

Branches

I am going to try and keep master stable and tested on my actual media machine. Work will be done against feature branches and integrated into the dev branch and then to master.

Running Tests

There are API/integration tests using supertest. To run the tests - 2 step process for now:

1. npm run test:serve (in console 1) to bring up the server in test mode
2. npm test (in console 2) to execute the tests