Janx

A simple web enabled chat app

Janx is a demo using WebSockets to allow real time simultaneous messaging between users. This is the repository for the React based frontend. The backend api repository resides at: Janx-Backend

Demo

Installing / Getting started

This project was bootstrapped with Create React App.

This project uses npm and react. It also uses react-actioncable-provider to connect WebSockets in React components. Go check them out if you don't have them locally installed.

Begin by installing and running the backend API server Janx-Backend.

Then in a separate directory: Fork and/or clone the repository down then run:

npm install

to get dependencies installed locally. Then

npm start

to get it serving to your local host. If you are running your API server on localhost:3000 you will be asked if you would like to start the client server on a different port. Press Y and enter to allow this. Because it is a Create-React app this will automatically open a browser window pointing to the frontend and you will be able to interact from there.

In order to test multiple simultaneous users you can open a second browser window to the same url in "Incognito Mode" to spoof a different connection.

Alternatively you can serve the backend API using ngrok as discussed in the backend API README and then be able to access the same API from multiple computers on your local network.

Licensing

MIT Copyright 2018 Sebastian Royer and Kelly Sample

Thanks to:

Icon pack by Icons8