What You Will Learn
In this tutorial we will create a very simple realtime collaboration tool (like google docs).
We will be using WebSockets for this, as WebSockets provides us with two-way
communication over a one connection, meaning we won’t have to
make additional HTTP requests to send and receive messages.
A WebSocket connection stays open, greatly reducing latency (and complexity).
Dependencies
First we create a Maven project with our dependencies (→ Tutorial).
We will be using Javalin for our web-server and WebSockets:
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.javalin</groupId>
<artifactId>javalin-bundle</artifactId>
<version>6.3.0</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
The Javalin application
The Javalin application is pretty straightforward. We need:
- a data class (
Collab) containing the document and the collaborators - a map to keep track of document-ids and
Collabs - websocket handlers for connect/message/close
We can get the entire server done in around 50 lines:
- Java
- Kotlin
import io.javalin.Javalin;
import io.javalin.http.staticfiles.Location;
import io.javalin.websocket.WsContext;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap;
public class JavalinRealtimeCollaborationExampleApp {
private static final Map<String, Collab> collabs = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();
public static void main(String[] args) {
Javalin.create(config -> {
config.staticFiles.add("/public", Location.CLASSPATH);
config.router.mount(router -> {
router.ws("/docs/{doc-id}", ws -> {
ws.onConnect(ctx -> {
if (getCollab(ctx) == null) {
createCollab(ctx);
}
getCollab(ctx).clients.add(ctx);
ctx.send(getCollab(ctx).doc);
});
ws.onMessage(ctx -> {
getCollab(ctx).doc = ctx.message();
getCollab(ctx).clients.stream().filter(c -> c.session.isOpen()).forEach(s -> {
s.send(getCollab(ctx).doc);
});
});
ws.onClose(ctx -> {
getCollab(ctx).clients.remove(ctx);
});
});
});
}).start(7070);
}
private static Collab getCollab(WsContext ctx) {
return collabs.get(ctx.pathParam("doc-id"));
}
private static void createCollab(WsContext ctx) {
collabs.put(ctx.pathParam("doc-id"), new Collab());
}
static public class Collab {
public String doc;
public Set<WsContext> clients;
public Collab() {
this.doc = "";
this.clients = ConcurrentHashMap.newKeySet();
}
}
}
import io.javalin.Javalin
import io.javalin.http.staticfiles.Location
import io.javalin.websocket.WsContext
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap
data class Collaboration(var doc: String = "", val clients: MutableSet<WsContext> = ConcurrentHashMap.newKeySet())
fun main() {
val collaborations = ConcurrentHashMap<String, Collaboration>()
Javalin.create {
it.staticFiles.add("/public", Location.CLASSPATH)
it.router.mount {
it.ws("/docs/{doc-id}") { ws ->
ws.onConnect { ctx ->
if (collaborations[ctx.docId] == null) {
collaborations[ctx.docId] = Collaboration()
}
collaborations[ctx.docId]!!.clients.add(ctx)
ctx.send(collaborations[ctx.docId]!!.doc)
}
ws.onMessage { ctx ->
collaborations[ctx.docId]!!.doc = ctx.message()
collaborations[ctx.docId]!!.clients.filter { it.session.isOpen }.forEach {
it.send(collaborations[ctx.docId]!!.doc)
}
}
ws.onClose { ctx ->
collaborations[ctx.docId]!!.clients.remove(ctx)
}
}
}
}.start(7070)
}
val WsContext.docId: String get() = this.pathParam("doc-id")
Building a JavaScript Client
In order to demonstrate that our application works, we can build a JavaScript client. We’ll keep the HTML very simple, we just need a heading and a text area:
<body>
<h1>Open the URL in another tab to start collaborating</h1>
<textarea placeholder="Type something ..."></textarea>
</body>
The JavaScript part could also be very simple, but we want some slightly advanced features:
- When you open the page, the app should either connect to an existing document or generate a new document with a random id
- When a WebSocket connection is closed, it should immediately be reestablished
- When new text is received, the user caret (“text-cursor”) should remain in the same location (easily the most complicated part of the tutorial).
window.onload = setupWebSocket;
window.onhashchange = setupWebSocket;
if (!window.location.hash) { // document-id not present in url
const newDocumentId = Date.now().toString(36); // this should be more random
window.history.pushState(null, null, "#" + newDocumentId);
}
function setupWebSocket() {
const textArea = document.querySelector("textarea");
const ws = new WebSocket(`ws://localhost:7070/docs/${window.location.hash.substr(1)}`);
textArea.onkeyup = () => ws.send(textArea.value);
ws.onmessage = msg => { // place the caret in the correct position
const offset = msg.data.length - textArea.value.length;
const selection = {start: textArea.selectionStart, end: textArea.selectionEnd};
const startsSame = msg.data.startsWith(textArea.value.substring(0, selection.end));
const endsSame = msg.data.endsWith(textArea.value.substring(selection.start));
textArea.value = msg.data;
if (startsSame && !endsSame) {
textArea.setSelectionRange(selection.start, selection.end);
} else if (!startsSame && endsSame) {
textArea.setSelectionRange(selection.start + offset, selection.end + offset);
} else { // this is what google docs does...
textArea.setSelectionRange(selection.start, selection.end + offset);
}
};
ws.onclose = setupWebSocket; // should reconnect if connection is closed
}
And that’s it! Now try opening localhost:7070 in a couple of different
browser windows (that you can see simultaneously) and collaborate with yourself.
Conclusion
We have a working realtime collaboration app written in less than 100 lines of Java and JavaScript. It’s very basic though, some things to add could include:
- Show who is currently editing the document
- Persist the data in a database at periodic intervals
- Replace the textarea with a rich text editor, such as quill
- Replace the textarea with a code editor such as ace for collaborative programming
- Improving the collaborative aspects with operational transformation
The use cases are not limited to text and documents though, you should use WebSockets for any project which requires a lot of interactions with low latency. Have fun!
Share on X/Twitter