Realtime Chat with NodeJs

The project is a multiroom Node.js chat web app. It allows users to chat online with each other by entering messages into a simple form. A message, once entered, is sent to all the other users in the same chat room. When starting the application, a user is automatically assigned a guest name, but it can be changed by entering a command. Chat commands are prefaced with a slash (/). Similarly, a user can enter a command to create a new chat room (or join it if it already exists). You can simply register by email and start chatting.

Overview

Server

Runs on a NodeJs server. Uses socket.io library for communication and MongoDb for storing the chats and users.

Client

Uses AngularJs as a javascript mvw framework and socket.io library for communication.

API

There are some available endpoints:

• /api/authenticate: Retrieves a token for a known user
  • Method: POST
  • Header: none
  • Body: { email: '', password: ''}
  • Response: A JSON object containing the jwt auth token.
• /api/users: Register a new user
  • Method: POST
  • Header: none
  • Body: { email: '', username: '', password: ''}
  • Response: A JSON object containing the jwt auth token.
• /api/chatrooms: List the full history of chatrooms (requires authentication)
  • Method: GET
  • Header: x-access-token
  • Parameters: None
  • Response: A JSON object containing all the history of chatroom names.
• /api/history/{chatRoomName}: List the list of messages for the chatRoomName (requires authentication)
  • Method: GET
  • Header: x-access-token
  • Parameters: string
  • Response: A JSON object containing the full list of messages in a given chatrooom.

Getting started

To get you started you can simply clone the repository and install the dependencies.

Prerequisites

You need git to clone the repository. You can get git from the Git website.

I also use a number of node.js tools to initialize and test the node-chat. You must have node.js and its package manager (npm) installed. You can get them from the NodeJs website.

Clone node-chat

Clone the node-chat repository using git:

git clone https://github.com/gastonmancini/node-chat.git
cd node-chat

Install Dependencies

You can get the tools we depend upon via npm, the node package manager.

Simply do:

npm install

You should find that you have a new folder in your project:

• node_modules - contains the npm packages for the tools we need

Config

You will need to setup the SMTP and NewRelic account before starting. Take a look to the settings.json and the newrelic.js files. For the mailer you can create a free account in MandrilApp.

Run the Application

The simplest way to start this server is:

node server.js

Now browse to the app at http://localhost:3000/.

Build process

Install Gulp (may require installing Gulp globally npm install gulp -g).

Gulp build script checks for JavaScript errors, optimizes css, jasvascripts, and concatenates and minifies files. It also restarts the server when changes are detected and run the tests.

Available gulp commands

• gulp — Compile and optimize the files in your build directory. Any changes in the javascript and css files will be automatically processed by Gulp
• gulp test-frontend — Excecutes all the frontend tests
• gulp test-backend — Excecutes all the backend tests
• gulp test-e2e — Excecutes all the end to end tests

It's highly recommended to use gulp during development.

Testing

There are three kinds of tests in the node-chat application: frontend unit tests, backend unit tests and end to end tests.

Running the frontend unit tests

The node-chat app frontend comes preconfigured with unit tests. These are written in Jasmine, which are run with the Karma Test Runner. Karma configuration file to run them is priovided.

• the configuration is found at karma.conf.js
• the frontend unit tests are found in the folder /test/frontend-unit-tests/specs/ and are named as *.spec.js.

The easiest way to run the unit tests is to use the gulp script:

gulp test-frontend

This script will start the Karma test runner to execute the unit tests.

Running the backend unit tests

The node-chat app backend comes preconfigured with unit tests written with Mocha, Sinon and Should.

• the backend unit tests can be found in the folder /test/backend-unit-tests/specs/ and are named as *.spec.js.

The easiest way to run the unit tests is to use the gulp script:

gulp test-backend

This script will start the Mocha test runner to execute the unit tests.

End to end testing

The node-chat app comes with end-to-end tests, again written in Jasmine. These tests are run with the Protractor end to end test runner.

• the configuration is found at /test/e2e-tests/protractor.conf.js
• the end to end tests are found in /test/e2e-tests/scenarios/*.spec.js

Protractor simulates interaction with our web app and verifies that the application responds correctly. Therefore, our web server needs to be serving up the application, so that Protractor can interact with it.

In addition, since Protractor is built upon WebDriver we need to install this. The node-chat project comes with a predefined script to do this:

gulp webdriver-update

This will download and install the latest version of the stand-alone WebDriver tool.

Once you have ensured that the development web server hosting our application is up and running and WebDriver is updated, you can run the end-to-end tests using the supplied npm script:

gulp testing test-e2e

This script will execute the end-to-end tests against the application being hosted on the development server.

Continuous Integration

Travis CI

Travis CI is a continuous integration service, which can monitor GitHub for new commits to your repository and execute scripts such as building the app or running tests. The node-chat project contains a Travis configuration file, .travis.yml, which will cause Travis to run the frontend and backend unit tests when you push to GitHub.

You will need to enable the integration between Travis and GitHub. See the Travis website for more instruction on how to do this.

Heroku

Heroku have provided a CI/deployment setup:

If you run this, you will get a cloned version of this repo to start working on in a private git repo, along with a CI service (in Travis) hosted that will run unit tests.

Issues and nice-to-have features

Please report any issue or nice to have feature here.

Production

Currently available online in heroku.