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Lite Cable

Lightweight ActionCable implementation.

Contains application logic (channels, streams, broadcasting) and also (optional) Rack hijack based server (suitable only for development and test due to its simplicity).

Compatible with AnyCable (for production usage).

Sponsored by Evil Martians

Examples

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'litecable'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install litecable

Usage

Please, checkout Action Cable guides for general information. Lite Cable aims to be compatible with Action Cable as much as possible without the loss of simplicity and ligthness.

You can use Action Cable javascript client without any change (precompiled version can be found here).

Here are the differences:

  • Use LiteCable::Connection::Base as a base class for your connection (instead of ActionCable::Connection::Base)

  • Use LiteCable::Channel::Base as a base class for your channels (instead of ActionCable::Channel::Base)

  • Use LiteCable.broadcast to broadcast messages (instead of ActionCable.server.broadcast)

  • Explicitly specify channels names:

class MyChannel < LiteCable::Channel::Base
  # Use this id in your client to create subscriptions
  identifier :chat
end

App.cable.subscriptions.create('chat', ...)

Using built-in server (middleware)

Lite Cable comes with a simple Rack middleware for development/testing usage. To use Lite Cable server:

  • Add gem "websocket" to your Gemfile

  • Add require "lite_cable/server"

  • Add LiteCable::Server::Middleware to your Rack stack, for example:

Rack::Builder.new do
  map '/cable' do
    # You have to specify your app's connection class
    use LiteCable::Server::Middleware, connection_class: App::Connection
    run proc { |_| [200, { 'Content-Type' => 'text/plain' }, ['OK']] }
  end
end

Using with AnyCable

Lite Cable is AnyCable-compatible out-of-the-box. You should write a simple server script:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require "my_app"
require "rack"
require "anycable"

# Turn AnyCable compatibility mode
LiteCable.anycable!

Anycable.connection_factory = MyApp::Connection

Anycable::Server.start

And then run this script along with your application. See Sinatra example for more.

Configuration

Lite Cable uses anyway_config for configuration.

See config for available options.

Unsupported features

  • Channel callbacks (after_subscribe, etc)

  • Stream callbacks (stream_from "xyz" { |msg| ... })

  • Periodical timers

  • Remote connections.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/anycable/litecable.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.