This project was created as easy to use Remote Procedure Call (RPC) in client-server object environment.
There are plenty of communication means and frameworks, but almost all of them requires us to communicate with server through keyhole. This library is response to my personal need to have a tool that allow me to have, at client, reflection of all obtained server objects. And use them in a way as if they were local, through network. So it's possible to:
- transfer an object from server to client,
- execute its methods,
- get and set its properties,
- subscribe to its events.
Sounds pretty easy? Under the hood it's little less, but still relatively simple.
The framework was created as part of TVPlay project, a TV play-out automation system. Therefore it does not have a big usage base. But its versatility made me to extract it to separate library, to use it in other projects as well.
Currently it works over TCP connections only (however initially was using WebSockets). It heavily relies on Newtonsoft Json and uses NLog. It was tested only on Windows .NET Framework.
To use it, it is reqired that all your persistent server classes were based on ServerObjectBase. I know, it's huge claim, but the class makes lot of work for us. It, for example, can notify all clients about changing its property values (using built-in INotifyPropertyChanged interface). Such a server class should also implement its interface (i.e. used by application GUI). The same interface must be implemented on client side.
Corresponding client classes currently should be written manually, but they are generally straightforward, simple implementations, and may be generated automatically in future. Client classes are derived from ProxyObjectBase.
We'll need also a server ServerHost and client RemoteCLient classes to maintain communication. And mapping between server and client classes, in a class that implements Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.ISerializationBinder. That's all.
A simple example of usage may be found in CollaborativeEditor project.