Hello Custom Services

This presents a walkthrough creating a simple service in NetsBlox! This assumes you are using OSX or linux.

Create the service

First, set up a local development environment (see Installation).

Creating the server support for a simple service can be done as follows (assuming *nix shell starting at the project root):

cd src/server/services/procedures
mkdir hello-world
touch hello-world/hello-world.js

Next, open hello-world/hello-world.js and add the following code:

const HelloService = {};

HelloService.hello = function() {
    return 'world';
};

module.exports = HelloService;

Finally, start your NetsBlox server with DEBUG=netsblox:* npm start.

Use it from the browser!

Open a browser and navigate to your NetsBlox server address (default is http://localhost:8080). Switch to the Network tab and create a call block.

Click on the first dropdown menu and you should see HelloWorld as one of the options. Next, select the second menu and you should receive a list of all valid actions for the rpc, in our case just hello. After selecting these, click on the block and you should see a dialog responding with world!

Congrats, you have made your first custom service in NetsBlox!

Next Steps

Now that you have created your own minimal service, check out the Best Practices for NetsBlox Services to make it a much more feature-rich and robust service!