ComicChat

This is the main ("ComicChat service") program. While it's running it maintains key data memory. The program doesn't have a confutation file, instead, defining important settings at the top of each program.

var wsServerPort = args.port || 8042;
var historySize = args.historySize || 1000;
var clients = [];
var rooms = {};

The server port must be exposed to the internet for web-socket connections. You can change this port but must also change client/js/client.js to match.

The historySize variable stores a number of text messages to keep in memory for each channel. (Pedantic: In fact, messages are truncated after adding new messages, so the functional max size of the history is historySize + 1 while processing a new message to a channel with max messages kept already.)

The clients list stores the connections ("listeners") to the server. The value for each element in this list is a node WebSocket connection used to send data back to that client.

These track, for each text channel that the server instance is tracking, a number of items including a history of messages. This is perhaps best explained by a look at the initRoom function.

function initRoom (name) {
  // Init room if doesn't exist
  rooms[name] = rooms[name] || {};
  rooms[name].history = rooms[name].history || [];
  rooms[name].clients = rooms[name].clients || [];
}

The name and history properties are hopefully self-evident. The client list stores, once again, node WebSocket connections. Each connection mentioned in a given channel's list revives a push of each new message sent to that channel, allowing the web-comic to update in Somewhat Real-Time™, as messages are sent from IRC and/or Discord.

We call the initRoom function when the server "joins" a channel. Membership in the servers rooms list controls whether that server will accept messages targeted to that room.

    {
        type: 'join',
        room: 'room'
    }

  {
    type: 'part',
    room: 'room'
  }

  {
    type: 'message',
    message: 'Hello, ComicChat',
    room: 'room'
  }

  {
    type: 'message',
    message: 'Hello again, ComicChat',
    author: "someone",
    spoof: true,
    room: 'room'
  }

Relay provide a means of "feeding" messages into the ComicChat server from some other source. In the case of relay.js (in the relay folder of the ComicChat project), provides a bare-bones IRC bot (automated client for an IRC network) able to join a predefined set of channels and passes the messages it sees in them to the ComicChat server. There aer no interactive commands (e.g. via public/private message with the bot via the chat network).

As with the server component, relay is configured within the program. Relay has a more substantial set of "options":

var config = {
  cchat: {
    nick: 'petroglyph',
    room: '##freenode',
    host: 'dungeon-mode.com',  // hidoi.moebros.org
    port: 8042,
    roomLink:  'http://dungeon-mode.com/toon/#dungeon'
  },
  irc: {
    nick: 'petroglyph',
    user: 'comic',
    real: 'relay',
    channels: [ '#dungeon' ],
    host: 'irc.libera.chat',
    port: 6697,
    ssl: true
  }
};

The first group of options ccchat coordinates with configuration given in/to the server, described above, and with your (my) web-server configuration discussed below.

Most important here are host, which is the host or IP (localhost should work, here) where we'll connect to the ComicChat server, and port, which should match what you have in server.js.

In the IRC block we configure our simple IRC client/bot with the information it will need to connect the network and join channels.

The nick used on IRC can be different from config.cchat.nick, the latter of which is used for messages sent to the sever (so, for the comic) from the bot. The bot makes brief "hard-coded" messages channel on the ComicChat server as well as an entry message each time it joins an IRC channel. The IRC nick on the other hand (config.irc.nick) is used to establish a name for the bot on the IRC network. (IRC servers don't repeat our own messages back to us.)