Play!ing with #WebSockets

Development Stack

Server: Play 1.2.4, WebSocket
Client: jQuery, Boostrap
Tested with: Safari 5.0.5 (on Win XP)
On: Localhost

Inspired by a Blog-Post from Lucas Jellema I have done a similar demo with Play!.

The nice thing is that it was really easy to setup and deploy into the cloud. So everyone can test the websocket app - eeehm that was my initial plan (Actually it does not work currently, see why below). Further I took the chance to get in touch with git and published the source code on github. So feel free to test and fork.

https://github.com/multikoop/play-push-imgsel

Since there are some great cloud services arosed in the past I wanted to give it a try. So here are my experiences:

Deployment@Heroku

Prerequisite: install heroku CLI, git client (Please google for it how to set app.  I only post the interesting stuff here)

C:\play\apps\play-push-imgsel>heroku login
C:\play\apps\play-push-imgsel>heroku create -s cedar play-push-imgsel
Creating play-push-imgsel... done, stack is cedar
http://play-push-imgsel.herokuapp.com/ | git@heroku.com:play-push-imgsel.git
Git remote heroku added

C:\play\apps\play-push-imgsel>git push heroku master
Counting objects: 46, done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (40/40), done.
Writing objects: 100% (46/46), 110.54 KiB, done.
Total 46 (delta 6), reused 0 (delta 0)

-----> Heroku receiving push
-----> Play! app detected
-----> WARNING: Play! version not specified in dependencies.yml. Default version
: 1.2.4 being used....
-----> Installing Play! 1.2.4.....
-----> done
-----> Installing ivysettings.xml..... done
-----> Building Play! application...
~        _            _
~  _ __ | | __ _ _  _| |
~ | '_ \| |/ _' | || |_|
~ |  __/|_|\____|\__ (_)
~ |_|            |__/
~
~ play! 1.2.4, http://www.playframework.org
~
1.2.4
Building Play! application at directory ./
Resolving dependencies: .play/play dependencies ./ --forceCopy --silent -
Duser.home=/tmp/build_jxh1de2j7wc9 2>&1
:: loading settings :: file = /tmp/build_jxh1de2j7wc9/.ivy2/ivysettings.x
ml
~ Resolving dependencies using /tmp/build_jxh1de2j7wc9/conf/dependencies.
yml,
~
~
~ No dependencies to install
~
~ Done!
~
Precompiling: .play/play precompile ./ --silent 2>&1
Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 8000
10:26:55,430 INFO  ~ Starting /tmp/build_jxh1de2j7wc9
10:26:56,387 INFO  ~ Precompiling ...
10:27:03,224 INFO  ~ Done.
-----> No Procfile found. Will use the following default process:
play run --http.port=$PORT $PLAY_OPTS
-----> Discovering process types
Procfile declares types -> (none)
Default types for Play! -> web
-----> Compiled slug size is 26.6MB
-----> Launching... done, v5
http://play-push-imgsel.herokuapp.com deployed to Heroku

To git@heroku.com:play-push-imgsel.git
* [new branch]      master -> master

C:\play\apps\play-push-imgsel>heroku open
Opening http://play-push-imgsel.herokuapp.com/

C:\play\apps\play-push-imgsel>

This is an awesome and easy to use stack!!!!! #PGH => Play, Git, Heroku!

Deployed at: http://play-push-imgsel.herokuapp.com/

Application is accessible but WS request are not working (oops).

C:\play\apps\play-push-imgsel>heroku logs
...
...
2012-01-14T10:36:29+00:00 heroku[router]: Error H12 (Request timeout) -> GET pla
y-push-imgsel.herokuapp.com/ap... dyno=web.1 queue= wai
t= service=30000ms status=503 bytes=0

=> Feature Request has been filed at Heroku. http://support.heroku.com/tickets/40910

Deployment@Cloudbees

Since WebSocket is currently not supported (according to: http://www.jamesward.com/2011/12/11/tutorial-play-framework-jpa-json-jquery-heroku) I decided to give cloudbees a try. Same here

Deployed at: http://play-push-imgsel.multikoop.cloudbees.net/

Same issues here:

... 20:27:42,952 WARN ~ 404 -> GET /application/pushimgsel/process (GET /application/pushimgsel/process) ...

=> Request #2383 "HTTP 404 on WebSocket Reque..." created. https://cloudbees.zendesk.com/tickets/2383

Conclusion

The cloud is not ready for WebSocket applications in early 2012! ;-)

If you want to see the demo live, all you need to do is

-Install Play 1.2.4

-Get push-imgsel Sourcecode: https://github.com/multikoop/play-push-imgsel


-Test with Safari (Other modern browsers currently not working, cause WebSocket Implementation in Play 1.2.4 cannot handle the newest Sec-WebSocket-Version Headers. Hopefully it will be fixed in 1.2.5 at least in 2.0.

Have fun!