What is y-protocols?
The y-protocols npm package provides a set of protocols for building collaborative applications using Yjs, a high-performance CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Type) framework. It includes protocols for awareness, WebRTC, and WebSocket communication, enabling real-time collaboration features such as shared editing and presence awareness.
What are y-protocols's main functionalities?
Awareness Protocol
The Awareness protocol allows you to manage and track the presence and state of users in a collaborative session. This can be used to show who is online and their current activity or status.
const { Awareness } = require('y-protocols/awareness');
const awareness = new Awareness(doc);
// Set user state
awareness.setLocalStateField('user', { name: 'Alice' });
// Listen for changes in awareness
awareness.on('change', changes => {
console.log('Awareness changed:', changes);
});
WebRTC Protocol
The WebRTC protocol enables peer-to-peer communication for real-time collaboration. It allows users to connect directly to each other without the need for a central server.
const { WebrtcProvider } = require('y-protocols/webrtc');
const provider = new WebrtcProvider('my-room-name', doc);
// Listen for connection events
provider.on('synced', () => {
console.log('Synced with WebRTC peers');
});
WebSocket Protocol
The WebSocket protocol facilitates real-time communication over WebSocket connections. This is useful for scenarios where a central server is required to manage connections and data synchronization.
const { WebsocketProvider } = require('y-protocols/websocket');
const provider = new WebsocketProvider('wss://my-websocket-server', 'my-room-name', doc);
// Listen for connection events
provider.on('status', event => {
console.log('WebSocket connection status:', event.status);
});
Other packages similar to y-protocols
automerge
Automerge is a library for building collaborative applications using CRDTs. It provides similar functionality to Yjs and y-protocols, allowing for real-time collaboration and conflict resolution. However, Automerge focuses more on simplicity and ease of use, while Yjs and y-protocols offer higher performance and more advanced features.
sharedb
ShareDB is a real-time database backend based on Operational Transformation (OT). It allows multiple users to collaborate on the same data in real-time. While ShareDB uses OT instead of CRDTs, it provides similar real-time collaboration features and can be used with WebSocket for communication.
gun
Gun is a decentralized, real-time, graph database that supports real-time data synchronization and offline-first capabilities. It provides similar real-time collaboration features as y-protocols but focuses on decentralized data storage and peer-to-peer communication.