script to auto create a topic

agarcia17

@esiao yeah that's actually where I'm at right now, I have this code inside a function, createTopic(), and whenever a certain hook is fired by NodeBB, createTopic() is called and the topic gets created fine. But my question is, can a third party app get NodeBB to fire this particular hook so that createTopic() gets executed?

agarcia17

anybody have an idea?

esiao

I'm not 100% sure but since NodeBB uses sockets why can't you send a socket from a third party tool/app to NodeBB port and then fire your function on that socket catch ?

agarcia17

@esiao thanks..! Since I'm pretty new to NodeBB would you care to elaborate a bit more on how I would accomplish this?

esiao

@agarcia17 Basically follow & adapt what's done here
http://socket.io/get-started/chat/

For the logic :

NodeBB is on port :4567 so you need to listen on that one.
Localhost should be fine if your instance is on the same server else you need the server adress or dns.
Socket emit custom_event → your trigger
Socket on custom_event → the receiver (your function)

You can pass any data through sockets so you can easily imagine a form to fill up that you parse and the data is passed to the function.

agarcia17

@esiao thank you sir..!!! I will look into that

agarcia17

@esiao so I attempted (socket io is brand new to me) to follow the socket io tutorial you provided me but I can't seem to get it working. If you're willing to help me out some more here's what I have.

Running NodeBB on 127.0.0.1:4567
Running 'Chat' application on 127.0.0.1:3000

'Chat' index.js

var app = require('express')();
var http = require('http').Server(app);
var io = require('socket.io')(http);

app.get('/', function(req, res){
    res.sendfile('index.html');
});

io.on('connection', function(socket){
    console.log('a user connected');
});

http.listen(3000, function(){
    console.log('listening on *:3000');
});

'Chat' index.html

<script src="/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>
<script>
    var socket = io('http://127.0.0.1:4567');
    socket.emit('something_custom', 'message');
</script>

Added this line to NodeBB's '/src/socketio/index.js'

socket.on('something_custom', function(msg) {
    console.log('worked!');
});

I keep getting this error "XMLHttpRequest cannot load 127.0.0.1:4567/socketio/. No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'http://127.0.0.1:3000 is therefore not allowed access.

esiao

@agarcia17 said:

No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin'

Stackoverflow answer : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10143093/origin-is-not-allowed-by-access-control-allow-origin
You need to enable your server to make cross-origin request for ajax.

agarcia17

@esiao thanks! I got passed that error message by running chrome with these two arguments "--allow-file-access-from-files --disable-web-security" but the NodeBB server doesn't print out "worked!"

PS. I duplicated the "Chat" application and tested it this way:
Running Chat1 on 127.0.0.1:3000
Running Chat2 on 127.0.0.1:4000

and I was able to Socket.emit from Chat2 and Socket.on (Chat1) was executed. so that is working.

agarcia17

anybody know why NodeBB doesn't receive the custom event that another application emits to it?

agarcia17

finally got it working!! thanks @esiao couldn't have done it without you..!
I changed 'Chat' index.html to look like this"

<script src="http://127.0.0.1:4567/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>
<script>
    var socket = io.connect('http://127.0.0.1:4567');
    socket.emit('topics.test', {data: "some data"}, function(err, result) {
        alert(result);
    });
</script>

I removed the line that I added to NodeBB's /src/socketio/index.js

And used @Schamper post from here where he explains how to use websockets in your plugins. So thanks @Schamper for the post it helped a lot..!

esiao

@agarcia17 I'm glad I could help you. And I want to say thanks for the solution I'll probably do something along those lines for my forum too