remote-controllers-manager 💻🎮

This package creates an abstraction on top of socket.io to easily manage devices (smartphones for example) that can act as a remote controller of you web app, similar to how AirConsole works.

This is a super experimental package ⚠, I'm building it for personal usage in a project but if it gets good enough may I publish a stable version on npm and write complete documentation.

Examples of apps I have in mind:

• Peer-to-peer games.
• TV web app interfaces.
• Collaborative playlists for parties.

Features

• ✅ Allows multiple controllers to connect to a screen.
• ✅ Define if you need a master controller and what happens if it disconnects.
• ✅ Send messages from one device to another.
• ✅ Allow multiple separate rooms.

Getting started

1. Install the packages:

yarn add remote-controllers-manager socket.io socket.io-client

2. Create a Node server using socket.io and apply the required middleware:

import * as io from 'socket.io'
import { applyRCMMiddleware } from 'remote-controllers-manager/server'
import { green, blue } from 'colors'
const server = io.listen(3000)

applyRCMMiddleware(server, {
  // You can configure some behaviors.
  maxControllersPerRoom: 4,
  eachRoomNeedsAMasterController: true,
  ifMasterControllerDisconnects: 'waitReconnect',
})

console.log(green('⚡ Listening on port http://localhost:3000'))

3. Then create a "screen.js" file and instantiate the Screen class, like this:

Note that you will need a bundler.

// screen.js
import * as io from 'socket.io-client'
import { Screen } from 'remote-controllers-manager/client'

const screen = new Screen({
  io,
  uri: 'http://localhost:3000',
})

screen.start().then(() => {
  console.log('Successfully connected to server!')

  // Show screen id so user can connect
  document.body.innerHTML = `SCREEN_ID = ${screen.deviceId}`
})

4. Create another file called "controller.js" and instantiate the Controller class:

// controller.js
import * as io from 'socket.io-client'
import { Controller } from 'remote-controllers-manager/client'

const controller = new Controller({
  io,
  uri: 'http://localhost:3000',
})

controller.connectToScreen('<SCREEN_ID>').then(() => {
  console.log('Successfully connected to screen!')
})

Just that, the package will take care of managing all controllers that connect in the room.

You can now easily send messages to all connected devices, like that:

// controller.js
// ...
document.querySelector('button').addEventListener('click', () => {
  controller.sendToScreen({ eventName: 'change_title' })
})

// screen.js
// ...
screen.onMessage(({ eventName, data }) => {
  if (eventName === 'change_title') {
    // ...
  }
})

screen.onConnect(() => {
  screen.broadcastToControllers({ eventName: 'new_controller' })
})

Documentation

The documentation is not written yet because the package needs to be refined, but you can see what the final API will looks like in this file.

License

MIT License