Ruto is a lightweight(4KB), fast and easy-to-use JS library that streamlines the communication between parent and child window(iframe/popup). Under the hood it is postMessage on steroids.
It uses client-server design pattern to communicate between parent and child window. Any window can become the client or the server depending on who wants to send. It abstracts out the complications of postMessage API and provides a simple API to send and receive messages.
- Parent window wants to send a message to child window and wants to wait for the response from the child window.
- Parent window wants to send a message to child window and expects a reply within x seconds.
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/rajnandan1/ruto/dist/ruto.min.js"></script>npm i @rajnandan1/rutoThe library exposes two methods send and receive.
The send method is used to send a message from parent window to child window or vice versa. It returns a promise which resolves with the response from the child window.
send(route: string, node: Window | HTMLIFrameElement, message: string, options: WindowMQOptions): Promise<string>The route is a unique identifier for the message. It has three parts
- origin: The origin of the child window. Example if iframe or popup is located at http://example.com/iframe.html, then the origin will be http://example.com
- type: The type of the window communication
- parent-to-iframe: When you want to send a message from parent to iframe
- parent-to-window: When you want to send a message from parent to popup
- iframe-to-parent: When you want to send a message from iframe to parent
- window-to-parent: When you want to send a message from popup to parent
- topic: The topic of the message. Can be any string
Example: http://example.com/parent-to-iframe/sometopic
The node is the child window to which the message is to be sent. It can be either a window object or an iframe element.
Example: document.getElementById('iframe') or window.open('popup.html', 'popup', 'width=600,height=400)
The message is the data that is to be sent to the child window. It has to be a string. If you want to send JSON, you have to stringify it before sending.
The options is an object that can have the following properties. It is optional
- timeout: The time in milliseconds to wait for the response from the child window. If the response is not received within the timeout, the promise will be rejected with a timeout error.
Example:
{timeout: 5000}
The receive method is used to receive a message from a window. It is used by the child window to receive messages from the parent window. It can also be used by parent to receive message from child window. It is a callback function that is called when a message is received.
receive(subpath: string, node: Window | HTMLIFrameElement, callback: (res: Response, message: string) => void)The subpath is a unique identifier for the message. It has two parts
- type: The type of the window communication
- parent-to-iframe: When you want to send a message from parent to iframe
- parent-to-window: When you want to send a message from parent to popup
- iframe-to-parent: When you want to send a message from iframe to parent
- window-to-parent: When you want to send a message from popup to parent
- topic: The topic of the message. Can be any string
Important
The subpath should be the same as the route of the sender. If the subpath is different, the message will not be received. It does not need the origin part of the route.
Example: parent-to-iframe/sometopic
The node is the window from which the message is to be received. It can be
- iframe element
- popup window reference
- window.parent
- window.opener
Example: document.getElementById('iframe') or window.parent
The callback is a function that is called when a message is received. It has two parameters
- response: The response object that is used to send a response back to the sender using
response.send - message: The message that is sent by the sender. It is a
string.
Example:
ruto.receive('http://localhost:3000/parent-to-iframe/sometopic', window.parent, (response, message) => {
const newMessage = message + ' edited by child';
return response.send(newMessage);
});//<iframe id="http://localhost:3000/somePath/someiframe.html" src="iframe.html" width="100%" height="800" frameborder="0"></iframe>
const options = {
timeout: 5000,
};
ruto.send('http://localhost:3000/parent-to-iframe/sometopic', document.getElementById('iframe'), 'Your message', options)
.then((response) => {
console.log(response); //Your message edited by iframe
})
.catch((error) => {
console.log(error);
});ruto.receive('/parent-to-iframe/sometopic', window.parent, (response, message) => {
const newMessage = message + ' edited by iframe';
return response.send(newMessage);
});//const popup = window.open('popup.html', 'popup', 'width=600,height=400');
const options = {
timeout: 5000,
};
ruto.send('http://localhost:3000/parent-to-window/sometopic', popup, 'Your message', options)
.then((response) => {
console.log(response); //Your message edited by popup
})
.catch((error) => {
console.log(error);
});ruto.receive('/parent-to-window/sometopic', window.opener, (response, message) => {
const newMessage = message + ' edited by popup';
return response.send(newMessage);
});const options = {
timeout: 5000,
};
ruto.send('http://localhost:3000/iframe-to-parent/sometopic', window.parent, 'Your message', options)
.then((response) => {
console.log(response); //Your message edited by parent
})
.catch((error) => {
console.log(error);
});ruto.receive('/iframe-to-parent/sometopic', window.parent, (response, message) => {
const newMessage = message + ' edited by parent';
return response.send(newMessage);
});const options = {
timeout: 5000,
};
ruto.send('http://localhost:3000/window-to-parent/sometopic', window.opener, 'Your message', options)
.then((response) => {
console.log(response); //Your message edited by parent
})
.catch((error) => {
console.log(error);
});ruto.receive('/window-to-parent/sometopic', window.opener, (response, message) => {
const newMessage = message + ' edited by parent';
return response.send(newMessage);
});