Writeurl - an online collaborative editor

Writeurl is a collaborative editor

Writeurl is a client server system. The frontend code is written in pure

javascript using no frameworks. The backend is a node.js application.

The client and server communicate through a WebSocket connection. The client stores local

changes in the browser's local storage. The editor can be used in offline mode. Changes are

always uploaded to the server when a connection is available.

Writeurl documents are identified by their (write)url:

www.writeurl.com/text/id/read-password/write-password

There is a read only version with a (read)url of the form

www.writeurl.com/text/id/read-password

This url structure makes it easy to share documents. No user registration is needed.

Writeurl as an online service

Writeurl is available as an online service at www.writeurl.com

The code running the online service is the same as in this git repo.

###Local installation

Writeurl can be installed and run locally as an alternative to using the online service.

Installation instructions

Dependencies

The only required dependeny is node.js and the modules in package.json.

It is recommended to use node.js version 8.

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/morten-krogh/writeurl.git

Install the node js modules

npm install

Build the browser code

Go to the writeurl directory. Use the build script.

bash build.sh browser

Now the browser code is available in the directory

build/release/browser/

Configuring the server

The node.js server code is located in the directory server-nodejs-express

The server needs a configuration file in the YAML format. An example file is server-nodejs-express/config.yaml

port: 9000

release:
  public: /Users/mkrogh/writeurl/build/release/browser

debug:
  host: debug.writeurl.localhost
  public: /Users/mkrogh/writeurl/build/debug/browser

documents:
  path: /Users/mkrogh/writeurl-test-dir/doc_dir

publish:
  public: /Users/mkrogh/writeurl-test-dir/publish_dir

# Pino logger
# Output goes to stdout.
logger:
  # levels: silent, fatal, error, warn, info, debug, trace
  level: trace

port is the port at which the server listens.

release and debug are the directories built above containing the browser code.

documents is the directory where all the writeurl documents will be stored. The server uses files to

store the documents (one subdirectory per document).

publish is the directory where the published (html) versions of the documents will be stored.

logger.level is the logging level. Logging goes to standard output.

Starting the server

In the directory server-nodejs-express type

node writeurl-server.js config.yaml

Start typing

Go to localhost:9000 in the browser and start typing.

Example production installation

For production, it is recommended to use a reverse proxy with TLS, and to daemonize the

Writeurl server. For daemonization, one can use a node.js process manager or a system daemon

such as systemd on Linux.

The online Writeurl service uses nginx as a reverse proxy and systemd under Linux for daemonization.

Example nginx configuration

An example nginx.conf file is located at

https://github.com/morten-krogh/writeurl/blob/master/documentation/nginx.conf

Example systemd unit file

[Unit]

Description = writeurl server
After = network.target

[Service]
Type = simple
User = www
ExecStart = /home/www/.nvm/versions/node/v8.9.4/bin/node /home/www/writeurl/server-nodejs-express/writeurl-server.js /home/www/writeurl/server-nodejs-express/config-debian.yaml
Restart = on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

Backup

The server can be backed up by just backing up the files in the documents and publish

directories specified in the config.yaml file. Any type of file backup can be used, e.g. periodic

rsync. The backup script can be used while the server is running as long as the backup script does not

change any files.

The server can be restarted from a backup by just placing the backup directories in the place

pointed to by documents and publish in the config file.

Embedding

Writeurl can be embedded as described in

https://github.com/morten-krogh/writeurl/blob/master/html/embed/index.html

This page is available on the online service as well

https://www.writeurl.com/embed

Contributions and issues

Bugs and feature requests are appreciated and can be opened as Github issues.

We also welcome code contributions as pull requests.