Introduction

Abp.Web.SignalR nuget package makes it easily to use SignalR in ASP.NET Boilerplate based applications. See SignalR documentation for detailed information on SignalR.

Installation

Server Side

Install Abp.Web.SignalR nuget package to your project (generally to your Web layer) and add a dependency to your module:

[DependsOn(typeof(AbpWebSignalRModule))]
public class YourProjectWebModule : AbpModule
{
    //...
}
			

Then use MapSignalR method in your OWIN startup class as you always do:

[assembly: OwinStartup(typeof(Startup))]
namespace MyProject.Web
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
        {
            app.MapSignalR();

            //...
        }
    }
}

Note: Abp.Web.SignalR only depends on Microsoft.AspNet.SignalR.Core package. So, you will also need to install Microsoft.AspNet.SignalR package to your Web project if not installed before (See SignalR documents for more).

Client Side

abp.signalr.js script should be included to the page. It's located in Abp.Web.Resources package (It's already installed in startup templates). We should include it after signalr hubs:

<script src="~/signalr/hubs"></script>
<script src="~/Abp/Framework/scripts/libs/abp.signalr.js"></script>
			

That's all. SignalR is properly configured and integrated to your project.

Connection Establishment

ASP.NET Boilerplate automatically connects to the server (from the client) when abp.signalr.js is included to your page. This is generally fine. But there may be cases you don't want to it. You can add these lines just before including abp.signalr.js to disable auto connecting:

<script>
    abp.signalr = abp.signalr || {};
    abp.signalr.autoConnect = false;
</script>

In this case, you can call abp.signalr.connect() function manually whenever you need to connect to the server.

ASP.NET Boilerplate also automatically reconnects to the server (from the client) when client disconnects, if abp.signalr.autoConnect is true.

"abp.signalr.connected" global event is triggered when client connects to the server. You can register to this event to take actions when the connection is successfully established. See javascript event bus documentation for more about client side events.

Built-In Features

You can use all power of SignalR in your applications. In addition, Abp.Web.SignalR package implements some built-in features.

Notification

Abp.Web.SignalR package implements IRealTimeNotifier to send real time notifications to clients (see notification system). Thus, you users can get real time push notifications.

Online Clients

ASP.NET Boilerplate provides IOnlineClientManager to get information about online users (inject IOnlineClientManager and use GetByUserIdOrNull, GetAllClients, IsOnline methods for example). IOnlineClientManager needs a communication infrastructure to properly work. Abp.Web.SignalR package provides the infrastructure. So, you can inject and use IOnlineClientManager in any layer of your application if SignalR is installed.

PascalCase vs. camelCase

Abp.Web.SignalR package overrides SignalR's default ContractResolver to use CamelCasePropertyNamesContractResolver on serialization. Thus, we can have classes have PascalCase properties on the server and use them as camelCase on the client for sending/receiving objects (because camelCase is preferred notation in javascript). If you want to ignore this for your classes in some assemblies, then you can add those assemblies to AbpSignalRContractResolver.IgnoredAssemblies list.

Your SignalR Code

Abp.Web.SignalR package also simplifies your SignalR code. Assume that we want to add a Hub to our application:

public class MyChatHub : Hub, ITransientDependency
{
    public IAbpSession AbpSession { get; set; }

    public ILogger Logger { get; set; }

    public MyChatHub()
    {
        AbpSession = NullAbpSession.Instance;
        Logger = NullLogger.Instance;
    }

    public void SendMessage(string message)
    {
        Clients.All.getMessage(string.Format("User {0}: {1}", AbpSession.UserId, message));
    }

    public async override Task OnConnected()
    {
        await base.OnConnected();
        Logger.Debug("A client connected to MyChatHub: " + Context.ConnectionId);
    }

    public async override Task OnDisconnected(bool stopCalled)
    {
        await base.OnDisconnected(stopCalled);
        Logger.Debug("A client disconnected from MyChatHub: " + Context.ConnectionId);
    }
}

We implemented ITransientDependency to simply register our hub to dependency injection system (you can make it singleton based on your needs). We property-injected the session and logger.

SendMessage is a method of our hub that can be used by clients. We call getMessage function of all clients in this method. We can use AbpSession to get current user id (if user logged in) as you see. We also overrided OnConnected and OnDisconnected, which is just for demonstration and not needed here actually.

Here, the client side javascript code to send/receive messages using our hub.

var chatHub = $.connection.myChatHub; //get a reference to the hub

chatHub.client.getMessage = function (message) { //register for incoming messages
    console.log('received message: ' + message);
};

abp.event.on('abp.signalr.connected', function() { //register for connect event
    chatHub.server.sendMessage("Hi everybody, I'm connected to the chat!"); //send a message to the server
});

Then we can use chatHub anytime we need to send message to the server. See SignalR documentation for detailed information on SignalR.