Lansite

Lansite is a web app made for smaller LAN parties. It is designed to be a simple, central information hub for all attendees.

Features

For the Attendees:

• Uses Steam accounts to login, so no registration required
• Attendees can read messages, vote in polls, and find people to play games with
• Find the Steam profiles of other attendees using the sidebar
• Request to post messages or votes using the buttons in the sidebar
• Find an opponent to play an in-browser Connect 4 game designed by myself and Kevin Shannon

For the Admins:

• Easy to install, configure and launch
• Requests from the attendees can be approved or denied from the Admin Stream to prevent spam
• Add messages or votes easily using the buttons in the sidebar
• If someone doesn't have a Steam account, or your LAN does not have internet, you can create one-time use login codes to give to each attendee

For programmers:

• Programmed with JavaScript and Bootstrap on the front end and NodeJS with Express, Socket.io, Handlebars, and Passport on the back end
• Fully modular plugin system that allows easy creation of custom plugins, called "Boxes"

Disadvantages

To make setup easy, Lansite does not use a database. This means that when the Lansite server is stopped, all data, including boxes and users, is lost. Also, Lansite is meant to be used on-site, at the LAN itself. Lansite would not be useful as an event planning/organization tool. If you are interested in LAN management software that does not have the disadvantages that Lansite has, I have listed a few of my favorites below.

Alternatives:

• Lanager
• LANREG
• LanHUB

Install

Prerequisites

• Node.js

Instructions

1. Clone this repo however you prefer.
2. Open CMD/Terminal/Bash in the directory in which you installed Lansite.
3. Run this command: npm install.
4. Make a copy of config.template.js called config.js.
5. Change the settings in config.js to your liking.
6. Finally, to open the server, run: npm start.
7. Visit localhost:PORT in your browser to test.

Config

• Web Address (string): url server will append to redirects.
• Port (int): Port in which the server will run off.
• Developer Mode (boolean): Enables features that may be insecure to run in a production situation. Features:
  • Non-Steam accounts for testing: When dev mode is enabled, just enter a username with no code on the login page.
  • More console messages
• Steam API Key (string): Allow your attendees to login to Lansite with their Steam account. Grab an API key for yourself here.
• Auto OP First User (boolean): Make the first user that logs into Lansite the admin
• Connect 4 Url (string): Should point to https://kevinshannon.dev/connect4/, or another instance of this repo.

Server Console Commands

• help: View a list of commands
• stop: Exit the server. Please note that all data is deleted once the server is closed. Users will have to relogin once restarted.
• add connect4box
• add matchbox
• add textbox [title];[text/HTML to display here]
• add votebox [question];[choice1];[choice2];[choice3]...
• generatelogincode: Generates a code that can be used by users to login. This maybe helpful if, for example, someone does not have a Steam account, or your LAN does not have internet.
• op [user id here]: Give admin rights to this user. A user's id can be found with the view users command.
• deop [user id here]: Remove admin privileges from this user.
• pm [on/off]: Enable or disable the private messaging system on the fly.
• view boxes: View all of the boxes in the stream.
• view codes: View all of the active login codes generated using the generatelogincode command. Codes are one-time use, and will be removed from this list after usage.
• view requests: View all of open requests. These are also displayed in the admin stream.
• view users: View all users.

Included Boxes

• VoteBox: Give your attendees a choice in what game to play next, what to eat, etc.
• TextBox: Give a quick notice to everyone.
• MatchBox: Allow your attendees to list games they want to play and find players.
• Connect4Box: A simple match-making system for an online Connect 4 game.

Custom Box Creation Instructions

1. Pick a name. This will be case-sensitive across all files. For this example, we'll call ours FooBox.
2. Copy Lansite/templates/_TemplateBox.handlebars and rename it to FooBox.handlebars. This will the HTML for our box.
3. Make sure to replace all instances of TemplateBox with FooBox and add your code where it says CUSTOM HTML HERE.
4. Copy Lansite/public/js/boxes/_TemplateBox.js and rename it to FooBox.js. This will be our client-side script.
5. Follow the instructions inside the template to get it setup, and add your code.
6. Copy Lansite/boxes/_TemplateBox.js and rename it to FooBox.js. This will be our server-side script.
7. Follow the instructions inside the template to get it setup, and add your code.
8. You can test your code by running the console command add FooBox [your arguments here] in the server console to add the box to all connected clients' streams.