Woolly NPM | npm.io

woolly

A tool for building and using simple node.js backends.

The basic idea comes from an observation that most of the screens I write in my apps can be broken down into:

state
actions on that state

Given the above, I sought to find the simplest interface that would suffice.

To that end, Woolly has two parts. WoollyClient and WoollyServer.

Example Usage

server.js

// Woolly Server
const app = require('express')()
const server = app.listen(3000)

let w = WoollyServer(server)

// This example stores all messages in an in memory map of topicName => [messages...]
let messages = {}

const route = '/topics/:topic'
const getState = ({topic}) => messages[topic] || []
const actions = {
  addMessage: (message) => {
    // Modify the state
    messages[topic] = (messages[topic] || []).concat([message])
  }
}

w.handler(route, getState, actions)

client.js

const WoollyClient = require('woolly/lib/WoollyClient.js')

const client = WoollyClient('/topics/testing', (messages) => {
  //Update the view here
  console.log('topic messages:', messages)
})

client.actions.addMessage({text: `Tick ${new Date()}`})

WoollyServer

API

WoollyServer(server)

Returns a WoollyServer attached to the HTTP server.

WoollyServer.handler(route, getState, actions) : WoollyServer

Makes a resource available at the given route. When a client connects to it, they start receiving its current state as determined by calling getState()

actions is a map of action names to handler functions. After an action is completed, the state is considered updated, and all connected clients will receive the new state.

WoollyClient(uri, onChange) : WoollyClient

Generates a WoollyClient and connects it to the uri provided. When a state change occurs, the onChange handler will be called.

WoollyClient.do(action, params = {}) : Promise

Sends a request for the server to perform the action with the provided params (if any)

WoollyClient.actions.ACTION_NAME(params = {}) : Promise

Each action defined in the server is available by name here and can be invoked.

WoollyClient.on(event:string, callback:function)

Allows clients to register for the events 'ready', 'connected', 'disconnected', and 'error'. Until the ready event is fired, the actions map will be empty.