ssb-patchboard

Prototype of a pluggable patchwork.

Patchboard uses depject to provide a highly composable api. all scripts in the ./modules directory are loaded and combined using depject

This makes in very easy to create say, a renderer for a new message type, or switch to a different method for choosing user names.

Currently, this is a proof of concept and only renders the 100 most recent messages. This should obviously be replaced with a module that can scroll properly through a feed, which should plug into another module that gives tabs or something like that.

overview

Currently, the main module is message.js which plugs into the message_render socket, and provides message_content, avatar, message_meta and message_action hooks.

avatar.js plugs into avatar, and provides the avatar_name socket. it just returns a link to the public key, labled with what it gets back from avatar_name socket. this is in turn provided by the names.js module.

Two modules plug into message_content, post.js and like.js

No plugs into the message_action socket have been implemented yet, but whatever is returned from this will inserted into the dom at the bottom of the message (by the message module) so this would be the plug to use for implementing a like/+1/fav/dig/yup button, or a reply button.

other ideas

Editable messages would probably need to plug into several sockets. firstly they would render content differently, so probably use the message_content socket. secondly they would need to show edit state, which would probably use message_meta
and finially they'd need to provide the ability to edit the message! that would use message_action

Implementing a "events" message type would be easy, just implement another plug for message_content, that renders events.

Instead of reading all the modules in a directory, it would be better to load these from configuration. Then, modules could be distributed as browserify bundles, and distributed over ssb. Configuration could just be a list of hashes - but you could also disable specific sockets or plugs if necessary (leaving them unconnected).

Then, that configuration could be shared over ssb!

higher level ui

Instead of just taking the latest 100 messages, what would actually be useful is ways to efficiently view messages, open threads, etc. but if we can create a plug for rendering a stream of messages, we can provide a socket for that in a module that implements tabs, or columns, or whatever.

Running

# assuming that patchwork@2.8 is already running...
git clone https://github.com/dominictarr/patchboard.git
cd patchboard
npm install electro electron-prebuilt -g
patchwork plugins.install ssb-links # must have patchwork >=2.8
electro index.js

License

MIT