NetsBlox

NetsBlox is a visual programming language which allows people to develop networked programs.

Overview

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. RPCs 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:

Quick Start

The recommended method of installation is using Docker Compose as explained below. After starting all the services, use the NetsBlox CLI to configure the deployment. Native installation instructions are also available.

Docker Compose

First, download the docker-compose.yml file and the config file for NetsBlox cloud. Then start all the services by running the following from the same directory as the docker-compose.yml file:

docker-compose up

Next, we will connect to (and authenticate with) our deployment using the NetsBlox CLI:

netsblox host use local
netsblox login

Next, authenticate using the interactive prompt using the admin credentials defined in the config TOML file (default is admin and somePassword). Now we can set up the default services server which provides all the NetsBlox RPCs for users. First, we will need to authorize it on the NetsBlox cloud using the CLI:

netsblox service-hosts authorize http://localhost:8081 NetsBloxServices --public

This will print the secret that the server will be able to use to authenticate itself with the NetsBlox cloud. The NETSBLOX_CLOUD_SECRET environment variable needs to be set in the services section of the docker-compose file. After setting this environment variable, restart the containers by pressing CTRL+C in the terminal then run:

docker-compose up

Finally, navigate to localhost:8080 in a web browser to try it out!

Development with Docker

For development, first make sure the repository was cloned with the submodules (eg, using git clone --recurse-submodules). For services and browser development, uncomment the corresponding sections of the docker-compose file (for the services or the browser) then restart the containers as done at the end of the last section.

Native

To run a native installation, check out the individual submodules and their installation instructions. These can be run in combination with the docker-based deployment by just commenting out the section you would like to run natively and running the given server on the same port.