actionhero/docs/index.html

actionhero.js is a multi-transport API Server with integrated cluster capabilities and delayed tasks

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layout: home
title: Home
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<section class="intro">
    <div class="intro-body">
        <div class="container">
            <div class="row">
                <div class="col-md-8 col-md-offset-2">
                    <h1 class="brand-heading">actionhero</h1>
                    <p class="intro-text">The Reusable, Scalable, and Quick node.js API Server.</p>
                    <a href="http://github.com/evantahler/actionhero">
                        <img src="/img/logo/actionhero_400.png" width="300" />
                    </a>
                    <div class="page-scroll">
                        <a href="#about" class="btn btn-circle">
                            <i class="fa fa-angle-double-down animated"></i>
                        </a>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</section>

<section id="about" class="container content-section text-center">
    <div class="row">
        <h2>What is actionhero?</h2>
        <h4>actionhero.js is a multi-transport Node.JS API Server with integrated cluster capabilities and delayed tasks.</h4>
    </div>
</section>

<section id="about" class="container content-section text-center">
    <div class="row">
        <h2>What does that mean?</h2>
        <h4>In actionhero, you make actions which respond to client requests.</h4>
{% highlight javascript %}
// actionhero generateAction --name=randomNumber
// File: actions/randomNumber.js

exports.randomNumber = {
  name: 'randomNumber',
  description: 'I am an API method which will generate a random number',
  outputExample: {
    randomNumber: 0.123
  },
  
  run: function(api, data, next){
    data.response.randomNumber = Math.random();
    next();
  }

};
{% endhighlight %}
    </div>
</section>

<section id="about" class="container content-section text-center">
    <div class="row">
        <h4>These actions don't just work for the web, they work for all sorts of clients.</h4>
    </div>
    <div class="row">
        <div class="col-md-4">
            <h3>Web</h3>
{% highlight bash %}
> curl localhost:8080/api/randomNumber

{
  "randomNumber": 0.8158452461939305
}
{% endhighlight %}         
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-4">
            <h3>Socket</h3>   
{% highlight bash %}
> telnet localhost 5000
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
{"welcome":"Hello! Welcome to the actionhero api","context":"api"}
randomNumber
{"randomNumber":0.7903316407464445,"context":"response","messageCount":1}
{% endhighlight %}
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-4">
            <h3>WebSocket</h3> 
{% highlight javascript %}
var client = new ActionheroClient;
client.connect(function(error, details){
    client.action("randomNumber", function(data){
        alert(data.randomNumber);
    });
});
{% endhighlight %}  
        </div>
    </div>
</section>

<section id="about" class="container content-section text-center">
    <div class="row">
        <h4>actionhero also lets you perform tasks in the background...</h4>
{% highlight javascript %}
// actionhero generateTask --name=sendEmail
// File: tasks/sendEmail.js
exports.task = {
    name:        'sendEmail',
    description: 'send an email to users after they sign up'
    queue:       'default',
    frequency:    0,
    run: function(api, params, next){
        // email sending stub
        api.users.sendEmail(params.userId, function(error, done){
            next(error);
        });
    });
};
{% endhighlight %}
        <h4>... and you can invoke the task from anywhere in the framework, including actions.</h4>
{% highlight javascript %}
// api.tasks.enqueue(nameOfTask, args, queue, callback)
api.tasks.enqueue("sendEmail", {to: 'evan@evantahler.com'}, 'default', function(err, toRun){
  // enqueued!
});
{% endhighlight %}
    </div>
</section>

<section id="about" class="container content-section text-center">
    <div class="row">
        <h4>actionhero enables clients to talk to each other.</h4>
    </div>
{% highlight javascript %}
// client 1
var client1 = new ActionheroClient;
client1.connect(function(error, details){
    client1.roomAdd("myChatRoom", function(err){
        client1.say('myChatRoom', 'hello from client 1');
    });
});

// client 2
var client2 = new ActionheroClient;
client2.connect(function(error, details){
    client2.roomAdd("myChatRoom", function(err){
        client2.on('say', function(message){
            console.log(message);
        });
    });
});
{% endhighlight %} 
</section>

<section id="about" class="container content-section text-center">
    <div class="row">
        <h4>actionhero can do all of this, and it can work on one server or hundreds (actionhero is cluster-ready from the get-go).</h4>
    </div>
{% highlight bash %}
# start 1 instance
./node_modules/.bin/actionhero start
# start a cluster
./node_modules/.bin/actionhero startCluster
{% endhighlight %} 
</section>

<section id="about" class="container content-section text-center">
    <div class="row">
        <h1><a href="/learn-more">Click here to read more</a></h1>
        <h3><a href="/docs">Or jump in to the documention</a></h3>
        <h3>or</h3>
    </div>
</section>