SimpleChat is a text-user-interface app for reading and writing public chat messages in tinySSB. It serves mostly as a testing tool.
The main program is simplechat.py. It is built on top of
SimplePub, hence shares several configuration options with
it. Internal logging messages can be seen by toggeling with ESC the
screen between the chat and log view.
In comparison to SimplePub, SimpleChat has a notion of authorship. If not existing, an ED25519 private key is generated and the corresponding append-only log is added to the repository of the unterlying SimplePub. Authorship permits to create and sign new log entries, which SimplChat requires in order to post messages.
"tinySSB simple chat" displays all public 'Text-And-Voice' messages found in a repo's content; new messages can be added. The replication logic running underneath SimpleChat:
- is accessible via web sockets, and
- is accessible via BLE (central-only)
- runs the tinySSB synchronization protocol
- datagram-based, packets have 120 Bytes or less
- growOnlySet protocol for compressing feed IDs
- vectors with WANT and CHNK information
- has adaptive timers, made for reliable connections
- is crash resistant: the
frontier.binfile for a log is updated on startup, should the log have been extended but the frontier failed to be updated
See the README.md of SimplePub for the limitation.
A log entry for the TAV public chat of tinySSB has the following
format:
[ "TAV", # identifies the app
"a text string", # the posted text
#c0dec2010..#, # codec2-encoded voice, or null
1691098012 ] # timestamp
This list of four values is BIPF-encoded and stored in the tinySSB append-only log as a "chain20" log entry type.
usage: simplechat.py [-h] [-data DATAPATH] [-id IDPATH] [-role {in,inout,out}] [-v] [uri_or_port]
positional arguments:
uri_or_port TCP port if responder, URI if intiator (default is ws://127.0.0.1:8080)
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-ble enable Bluetooth Low Energ (default: off)
-data DATAPATH path to persistency directory (default: ./data)
-id IDPATH path to tinySSB private directory (default: ~/.tinySSB)
-role {in,inout,out} direction of data flow (default: inout)
-v print i/o timestamps
Example how Alice and Bob start their chat clients (on the same machine):
% ./simplechat.py -d ./alice -i ./alice -v 8080 # Alice' clients will respond on websocket port 8080
% ./simplechat.py -d ./bob -i ./bob -v ws://127.0.0.1:8080 # Bob is initiator
The screen of Bob, before sending the reply:
-────────── tinyS─────-- <w> connection up─┐
│ │
│ #19 [TVUK3-ZVR4B] │
│ Heyo local butts, what's going on! │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-06-24 19:48:45 │
│ │
│ #20 [6F24K-PBSQ6] │
│ <voice msg> │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-06-26 01:10:18 │
│ │
│ #21 [73ZOO-QOWFW] │
│ Message │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-07-04 07:50:33 │
│ │
│ #22 [QDS2Z-Z3U6W] │
│ Message │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-07-04 08:02:44 │
│ │
│ #23 [7NQQX-YZUDL] │
│ Hi Bob, how are you? Cheers, Alice │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-08-03 23:22:45 │
│ │
┌────────────────────────────────────./bob─┐
│> Hi Alice, all is fine. Best, Bob │
└─────────────────── ESC=log/chat ^C=exit ─┘
The screen of Alice, after having received the reply:
/────────── tinyS─────────────sending 120B─┐
│ │
│ #20 [6F24K-PBSQ6] │
│ <voice msg> │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-06-26 01:10:18 │
│ │
│ #21 [73ZOO-QOWFW] │
│ Message │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-07-04 07:50:33 │
│ │
│ #22 [QDS2Z-Z3U6W] │
│ Message │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-07-04 08:02:44 │
│ │
│ #23 [7NQQX-YZUDL] │
│ Hi Bob, how are you? Cheers, Alice │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-08-03 23:22:45 │
│ │
│ #24 [LJUGR-FULBS] │
│ Hi Alice, all is fine. Best, Bob │
│ _ ⏲ 2023-08-03 23:26:52 │
│ │
┌──────────────────────────────────./alice─┐
│> │
└─────────────────── ESC=log/chat ^C=exit ─┘
Showing the log view (switching is done with ESC)
-────^[──── tinyS─────-- <w> connection up─┐
│ │
│ gset dmx 613dfa70c47aba │
│ want dmx 343fc019f3c9ad │
│ chnk dmx 2af30fda04c000 │
│ Starting websocket responder on port 808 │
│ w> 0.000 o=1 61B 0x343fc019f3c9ada40│
│ <w 0.001 i=2 22B 0x2af30fda04c000743│
│ <w 0.001 i=3 105B 0x613dfa70c47aba631│
│ w> 4.002 o=4 61B 0x343fc019f3c9ada40│
│ <w 4.003 i=5 22B 0x2af30fda04c000743│
│ new c=[ 1.6.32 1.7.0 ] │
│ w> 8.004 o=6 61B 0x343fc019f3c9ada40│
│ <w 8.007 i=7 22B 0x2af30fda04c000743│
│ new c=[ 1.6.32 1.7.0 ] │
│ w> 12.006 o=8 61B 0x343fc019f3c9ada4│
│ <w 12.007 i=9 22B 0x2af30fda04c00074│
│ <w 15.002 i=10 105B 0x613dfa70c47aba63│
│ w> 16.008 o=11 61B 0x343fc019f3c9ada4│
│ <w 16.010 i=12 22B 0x2af30fda04c00074│
│ new c=[ 1.6.32 1.7.0 ] │
│ =C [ 1.6.32 1.7.0 ] [] │
┌──────────────────────────────────./alice─┐
│> │
└─────────────────── ESC=log/chat ^C=exit ─┘