Halo

This library makes it quick and easy to build a real-time node backend for Backbone.js clients using Socket.io as the communication protocol.

Installation

npm install halo

Quick Start/Example

// Get the Halo library
var Halo = require('halo');

// Create a new model
var MyModel = Halo.Model.extend({
  initializer : function(options) {
    // Initialize your model
  },

  properties : {
    defaults : {
      someProperty : "a default value"
    },

    someMethod : function() {
      // Do some stuff
    },
    
    someOtherMethod : function() {
      // Do some other stuff
    }
  }
});

// Create a collection to hold the instances of MyModel
MyModel.collection = new Halo.Collection({contains: MyModel});    


// Create a view model. This determines how your model can be
// viewed and interacted with by clients

var MyModelView = Halo.views.socket.Model.extend({
  properties : {
    
    // The name string should be used as your Backbone.js Model's URL.
    name : "MyModels", 
    obj : MyModel,
    
    // This dictionary defines what your front-end clients have 
    // permission to do. Possible values include: 
    // create, read, update, destroy, list
    routes : {
      'create'  : 'create',
      'read'    : 'read',
      'update'  : 'update',
      'list'    : 'list'
    },

    // If you have custom logic for a given action, just
    // provide a function with the name of the action.
    update : function(client, data) {
      
      var myModel = MyModel.collection.get(data.id);

      if (!myModel.get('someProperty' !=== "a default value")) {
        
        // When setting properties on a model, you can pass in
        // an array limiting the names of the properties to set.
        myModel.set(data, ['someProperty']);
      }
      return this.render(client, myModel, data);
    }
  }
});

var voteView = new VoteView();

// Create a router object and add the views that you'd like
// external clients to be able to access.
var router = new Halo.Router();
router.addView(voteView);
router.listen(80);

// Now you can create a Backbone model and collection for the MyModel
// with the URL property set to "MyModels". Any time a any client saves
// a change to a model, that change will get pushed to all other clients
// who have a copy of that instance of MyModel. Creating new MyModels
// will add that new instance to any Backbone collection connected to
// MyModels.

Attribution/Credits

The code for Halo.sync was heavily borrowed from Backbone.ioBind, created by Jake Luer, and distributed under the MIT license. You can find his original library at http://alogicalparadox.com/backbone.iobind/ https://github.com/logicalparadox/backbone.iobind

License

Released under the MIT license. See file called LICENSE for more details.