NetsBlox is a visual programming language which allows people to develop networked programs.
Netsblox is an extension of Snap! which allows users to use some distributed computing concepts and develop network-enabled apps. That is, users can create apps that can interact with other instances of Netsblox. An introduction to the new networking capabilities can be found here
Currently, we have support for messages where a message is like a Snap! event except contains an additional data payload. For example, in the Tic-Tac-Toe example, the user is able to create a "TicTacToe" message which contains row and column fields corresponding to the row and column that of the user's move.
Along with the events and messages, we also currently support remote procedure calls. RPC's are implemented as REST endpoints on the server which can perform some of the more challenging computation for the student (allowing support to make more complicated apps) as well as providing access to extra utilities not otherwise available to the student.
For example, you can import the Map utilities
service which gives the user access to Google Maps with a map of (latitude), (longitude) with zoom (zoom)
block:
This results in the stage costume changing:
The recommended method of installation is using Docker as explained below. Otherwise, native installation instructions are also available.
NetsBlox requires access to MongoDB and a file system (for blob storage). MongoDB can be started using Docker:
docker run -d -p 27017:27017 -v /abs/path/to/data:/data/db mongo
where /abs/path/to/data
is a path on the host machine where the project content and media will be stored.
NetsBlox can then be started with
docker run -it -p 8080:8080 -e MONGO_URI='mongodb://172.17.0.1:27017/netsblox' -v /path/to/directory/for/media:/blob-data netsblox/server
where /path/to/directory/for/media
is the directory on the host machine to store the project content and media.
In order to enable specific RPCs which use external APIs, you may have to set environment variables using the -e
flag (like -e GOOGLE_MAPS_KEY=myGoogleMapsKey
) or pass in a list of environment variables through a file using --env-file
. The list of all the environment variables are explained in the RPC Support section below.
Next, just navigate to localhost:8080
in a web browser to try it out!
Before installing, NetsBlox requires nodejs (>= 8) and a MongoDB database. By default, NetsBlox will expect MongoDB to be running locally (this can be changed by setting the MONGO_URI
environment variable).
Server protocol can also be set through SERVER_PROTOCOL
environment variable.
Host should be set using HOST=.mydomain.com
.
First clone the repository and install the dependencies.
git clone https://github.com/NetsBlox/NetsBlox.git --recursive
cd NetsBlox
npm install
Finally, start the server with npm start
and navigate to localhost:8080
in a web browser to try it out!
RPCs that are using 3rd party API's often require getting an API key from the given 3rd party API. After obtaining a key, the appropriate environment variable should be set to given key value:
- Maps
GOOGLE_MAPS_KEY
should be set to an API key from the Google Static Maps
- Air Quality
AIR_NOW_KEY
should be set to an API key from AirNow
- Weather
OPEN_WEATHER_MAP_KEY
should be set to an API key from OpenWeatherMap
- NASA
NASA_KEY
should be set to an API key from NASA
- Traffic
BING_TRAFFIC_KEY
should be set to an API key from Bing Traffic
- Twitter
TWITTER_BEARER_TOKEN
should be set to an API key from Twitter
- Pixabay
PIXABAY
should be set to an API key from Pixabay
To simplify this process (and to keep your ~/.bashrc
clean), these values can be stored in a .env
file in the project root directory and they will be loaded into the environment on starting NetsBlox.
After opening the browser, click the file
button in the top left and click on Examples
to check out some example networked apps!