ShareJS

This is a fork of version 0.6.3 of the original ShareJS library.

ShareJS is a little server (& client library) to allow concurrent editing of any kind of content. The server runs on NodeJS and the client works in NodeJS or a web browser.

ShareJS currently supports operational transform on plain-text and arbitrary JSON data.

Browser support

ShareJS should work with all of them

That said, I only test regularly with FF, Safari and Chrome, and occasionally with IE8+. File bug reports if you have issues

Developing locally

Install required packages, and compile the web client code:

npm install

Run the simple example server with demos which uses a non-persistent memory store:

./bin/demoserver

There's also an example with demos that persists the data to postgres:

./bin/demoserver-pg

And finally a standalone example server without the demos.

First create a postgres database, then the server:

createdb sharejs_example
./bin/sharejs

See bin/options.js for how to configure the standalone example server.

If you need to re-compile the web client code, just run npm install again, or alternatively you can use npm run prepublish.

Running tests

If you didn't already:

createdb sharejs_example

This project uses a pretty old version of nodeunit, but all tests can easily be run with:

npm run test

Running a server

There are two ways to run a sharejs server:

1. Embedded in a node.js server app:

   varexpress=require('express'),logger=require('morgan'),sharejs=require('share').server;varapp=express();app.use(logger('dev'));app.use(express.static(__dirname+'/my_html_files'));varoptions={db: {type: 'none'}};// See docs for options. {type: 'pg'} to enable persistance.// Attach the sharejs interfaces to the serverserver=sharejs.attach(app,options);server.listen(9000);console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:9000/');

   The above script will start up a ShareJS server on port 9000 which hosts static content from the my_html_files directory. See bin/demoserver for a more complex configuration example.

   See the Express documentation for more complex routing.

2. From the command line:

    # sharejs
   

   Configuration is pulled from a configuration file that can't be easily edited at the moment. For now, I recommend method #1 above.

Putting Share.js on your website

If you want to get a simple editor working in your webpage with sharejs, here's what you need to do:

First, get an ace editor on your page:

<divid="editor"></div>

Your web app will need access to the following JS files:

• Ace (http://ace.ajax.org/)
• Browserchannel
• ShareJS client and ace bindings.

Add these script tags:

<scriptsrc="http://ajaxorg.github.com/ace/build/src/ace.js"></script><scriptsrc="/channel/bcsocket.js"></script><scriptsrc="/share/share.js"></script><scriptsrc="/share/ace.js"></script>

And add this code:

<script>vareditor=ace.edit("editor");sharejs.open('hello','text',function(error,doc){doc.attach_ace(editor);});</script>

NOTE: If you're using version 0.4 or earler, the argument order is the other way around (function(doc, error)).

Thats about it :)

The easiest way to get your code running is to check sharejs out from source and put your html and css files in the examples/ directory. Run bin/exampleserver to launch the demo server and browse to http://localhost:8000/your-app.html .

See the wiki for documentation.

Its also possible to use sharejs without ace. See the textarea example for details.

Writing a client using node.js

The client API is the same whether you're using the web or nodejs.

Here's an example application which opens a document and inserts some text in it. Every time an op is applied to the document, it'll print out the document's version.

Run this from a couple terminal windows when sharejs is running to see it go.

varclient=require('share').client;// Open the 'hello' document, which should have type 'text':client.open('hello','text','http://localhost:8000/sjs',function(error,doc){// Insert some text at the start of the document (position 0):doc.insert("Hi there!\n",0);// Get the contents of the document for some reason:console.log(doc.snapshot);doc.on('change',function(op){console.log('Version: '+doc.version);});// Close the doc if you want your node app to exit cleanly// doc.close();});

NOTE: If you're using version 0.4 or earler, the argument order is the other way around (function(doc, error)).

See the wiki for API documentation, and examples/node* for some more example apps.