CommunicationsFramework

Formally named PacketAPI. This was originally a small wrapper to connect Clients <-> Servers using the java.net library (non NIO) I wrote to aid me in writing some private projects, it quickly evolved into a very neat API to allow listeners and hooks for different packets and events. java.net was quickly replaced with the superior Netty (using NIO) and many improvements were made. This project was also I way for me to learn how to use the Netty API and it has been very fun. I do not claim to be an experienced with Netty so I may have made some mistakes.

Features

Easy persistent Client <-> Server connections.
Secure connections with a key.
Create your own packets with ease.
Listen for connection events (such as connected, lost connection, reconnect and more to be added).
Automatic handling of reconnects.
Packet queue system which allows packets to be queued for sending when the connection currently isn't available (waiting for connection or reconnecting).
Graceful disconnecting, no more exception spams when one side disconnects for whatever reason.
Heartbeats which allow us to determine if the other side has disconnected quickly.
Fully documented frontend, no need to deal with confusing internals (just make sure you only use classes within the "api" package).

Coming Soon

Better way of handling very simple packets

Usage

JavaDoc

Examples are included in the "example" package.

Contributing

Install the Java 7 JDK if you haven't already.
Install Maven 3.
Fork this repo and make your changes.
To compile: mvn clean install.
Submit the PR

Code Requirements

No tabs; please use 4 spaces instead.
No trailing whitespaces
No CRLF line endings, LF only, set your Gits 'core.autocrlf' to 'true'.

Eclipse: http://stackoverflow.com/a/11596227/532590 NetBeans: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1866385/532590 IntelliJ IDEA: http://stackoverflow.com/a/17597851/1870318
No 80 column limit or 'weird' midstatement newlines.
Changes made in the "api" package should have appropriate documentation.
New line at the end of every file.
Each PR should only have one attached commit and it should briefly explain what has been changed.
Must compile with JDK 7.

FAQ

My connection(s) won't connect but I don't get any errors

Make sure your calling clientConnection.connect() or serverConnection.bind() depending on the type of connection your using. If that still doesn't solve it, check each connections hostname and port is setup correctly.

Licensing

We're GPL v3, for more details, see here

keir-nellyer / CommunicationsFramework