Matrix Javascript SDK

This is the Matrix Client-Server v1/v2 alpha SDK for JavaScript. This SDK can be run in a browser or in Node.js.

Quickstart

In a browser

Copy dist/$VERSION/browser-matrix-$VERSION.js and add that as a <script> to your page. There will be a global variable matrixcs attached to window through which you can access the SDK.

Please check the working browser example for more information.

In Node.js

npm install matrix-js-sdk

  var sdk = require("matrix-js-sdk");
  var client = sdk.createClient("https://matrix.org");
  client.publicRooms(function(err, data) {
    console.log("Public Rooms: %s", JSON.stringify(data));
  });

Please check the Node.js terminal app for a more complex example.

What does this SDK do?

This SDK provides a full object model around the Matrix Client-Server API and emits events for incoming data and state changes. Aside from wrapping the HTTP API, it:

• Handles syncing (via /initialSync and /events)
• Handles the generation of "friendly" room and member names.
• Handles historical RoomMember information (e.g. display names).
• Manages room member state across multiple events (e.g. it handles typing, power levels and membership changes).
• Exposes high-level objects like Rooms, RoomState, RoomMembers and Users which can be listened to for things like name changes, new messages, membership changes, presence changes, and more.
• Handle "local echo" of messages sent using the SDK. This means that messages that have just been sent will appear in the timeline as 'sending', until it completes. This is beneficial because it prevents there being a gap between hitting the send button and having the "remote echo" arrive.
• Mark messages which failed to send as not sent.
• Automatically retry requests to send messages due to network errors.
• Automatically retry requests to send messages due to rate limiting errors.
• Handle queueing of messages.
• Handles pagination.
• Handle assigning push actions for events.
• Handles room initial sync on accepting invites.
• Handles WebRTC calling.

Later versions of the SDK will:

• Expose a RoomSummary which would be suitable for a recents page.
• Provide different pluggable storage layers (e.g. local storage, database-backed)

Usage

Conventions

Emitted events

The SDK will emit events using an EventEmitter. It also emits object models (e.g. Rooms, RoomMembers) when they are updated.

  // Listen for low-level MatrixEvents
  client.on("event", function(event) {
    console.log(event.getType());
  });
  
  // Listen for typing changes
  client.on("RoomMember.typing", function(event, member) {
    if (member.typing) {
      console.log(member.name + " is typing...");
    }
    else {
      console.log(member.name + " stopped typing.");
    }
  });
  
  // start the client to setup the connection to the server
  client.startClient();

Promises or Callbacks

The SDK supports both callbacks and Promises (Q). The convention you'll see used is:

  var promise = matrixClient.someMethod(arg1, arg2, callback);

The callback parameter is optional, so you could do:

  matrixClient.someMethod(arg1, arg2).then(function(err, result) {
    ...
  });

Alternatively, you could do:

  matrixClient.someMethod(arg1, arg2, function(result) {
    ...
  });

Methods which support this will be clearly marked as returning Promises.

Examples

This section provides some useful code snippets which demonstrate the core functionality of the SDK. These examples assume the SDK is setup like this:

   var sdk = require("matrix-js-sdk");
   var myUserId = "@example:localhost";
   var myAccessToken = "QGV4YW1wbGU6bG9jYWxob3N0.qPEvLuYfNBjxikiCjP";
   var matrixClient = sdk.createClient({
       baseUrl: "http://localhost:8008",
       accessToken: myAccessToken,
       userId: myUserId
   });

Automatically join rooms when invited

   matrixClient.on("RoomMember.membership", function(event, member) {
       if (member.membership === "invite" && member.userId === myUserId) {
           matrixClient.joinRoom(member.roomId).done(function() {
               console.log("Auto-joined %s", member.roomId);
           });
       }
   });
   
   matrixClient.startClient();

Print out messages for all rooms

   matrixClient.on("Room.timeline", function(event, room, toStartOfTimeline) {
       if (toStartOfTimeline) {
           return; // don't print paginated results
       }
       if (event.getType() !== "m.room.message") {
           return; // only print messages
       }
       console.log(
           // the room name will update with m.room.name events automatically
           "(%s) %s :: %s", room.name, event.getSender(), event.getContent().body
       );
   });
   
   matrixClient.startClient();

Output:

  (My Room) @megan:localhost :: Hello world
  (My Room) @megan:localhost :: how are you?
  (My Room) @example:localhost :: I am good
  (My Room) @example:localhost :: change the room name
  (My New Room) @megan:localhost :: done

Print out membership lists whenever they are changed

   matrixClient.on("RoomState.members", function(event, state, member) {
       var room = matrixClient.getRoom(state.roomId);
       if (!room) {
           return;
       }
       var memberList = state.getMembers();
       console.log(room.name);
       console.log(Array(room.name.length + 1).join("="));  // underline
       for (var i = 0; i < memberList.length; i++) {
           console.log(
               "(%s) %s",
               memberList[i].membership,
               memberList[i].name
           );
       }
   });
   
   matrixClient.startClient();

Output:

  My Room
  =======
  (join) @example:localhost
  (leave) @alice:localhost
  (join) Bob
  (invite) @charlie:localhost

API Reference

A hosted reference can be found at http://matrix-org.github.io/matrix-js-sdk/index.html

This SDK uses JSDoc3 style comments. You can manually build and host the API reference from the source files like this:

  $ npm run gendoc
  $ cd .jsdoc
  $ python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8005

Then visit http://localhost:8005 to see the API docs.

Contributing

This section is for people who want to modify the SDK. If you just want to use this SDK, skip this section.

First, you need to pull in the right build tools:

 $ npm install

Building

To build a browser version from scratch when developing::

 $ npm run build

To constantly do builds when files are modified (using watchify)::

 $ npm run watch

To run tests (Jasmine)::

 $ npm test

To run linting:

 $ npm run lint