Sails.js simple private messaging (pub/sub and models)

Question

My Goal:

Create a private messaging platform using Sails.js with the simplest code possible

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Assumptions of Best Practices:

• Use Sails.js Webockets for realtime notifications
• Use Sails.js PubSub for DB use with websockets
• Use Sails.js .watch() to get messages

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My Questions:

• Can I have a socket watch only certain new models (e.g. find where userid matches sender or recipient id) OR do I need to set up rooms? Selective watching seems much easier, but the documentation doesn't seem to support it.
• If any of my above assumptions or questions are not the best way to realize my goal, then what is the simplest way to implement private messaging using Sails?

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What I've Tried:

• Subscribing and watching a socket
• Reading the Sails.js documentation
• Looking at the sailsChat example (uses rooms)
• Searching StackOverflow and Google for sails chat examples

Answer 1

The simplest way I guess it is using the socket.io implemented in sails, if I remember correctly it is simply called socket.

All controllers can be called with socket.io (client side) IIRC. The approach that I took is to create a model called messages, and then simply create few endpoints for the messages. If you want to use the models (pub/sub) it is possible to subscribe just to the ones you want. you can subscribe every single user to just a single Model, even if you have plenty of them.

What I used to do is do it manually, when I receive one message, i would emit it to the right client straight away. But if you want to write less code probably you simply have to subscribe the users to your model Model.subscribe()( http://sailsjs.org/documentation/reference/web-sockets/resourceful-pub-sub/subscribe ) so when a message is added to the Database then you can send it to whoever you need to.

Here's another example of a chat built on top of sails.js: https://github.com/asm-products/boxychat-old