ssb-suggest

Background

When a user is writing a post in Scuttlebutt, sometimes they may want to mention another user. In most ssb-clients which use markdown, @-mentions work via a hyperlink that wraps a user's ssb key in a markdown link like so:

Hey [@corlock](@sHFNLAao6phQ5AN17ecYNUbszDa4Qf6DhyQsjtQfdmY=.ed25519)! How are you?

Most likely, a user only know another person's alias (what you call them, or what they call themselves), and does not know their feedId.

Originally abstracted from Patchwork, this plugin provides a way to return a list of SSB users (with avatar, alias, feedId, etc) based on a query text for an user's alias. The primary use of this plugin is for auto-suggest in scuttlebutt clients, so when a user starts typing "@cor" in a message, they will be prompted with a visual list of suggestions that can be auto-completed to a functioning @-mention in ssb markdown.

Usage

ssb-suggest is a plugin for ssb-server. For documentation on how plugins work in Scuttlebutt, see here.

Requires other plugins :

• ssb-backlinks if not using ssb-db2
• ssb-about
• EITHER ssb-friends OR patchwork!

This module was extracted from patchwork, originally written by Matt Mckegg

Example usage

var Server = require('ssb-server')
  .use(require('ssb-server/plugins/master'))
  .use(require('ssb-suggest'))

var Config = require('ssb-config')

var server = Server(Config()) // just use default config

server.suggest.profile({ text: 'mi' }, (err, matches) => {
  if (err) console.log('OH no!', err)

  // do something with matches
})

API

SSB Plugin API

Adhering to the secret-stack plugin format, this module exposes the following standard plugin exports as an object with properties:

• name (string)
• version (string)
• init (function)
• manifest (object)

server.suggest API

When used as illustrated above, the plugin's init function is executed under the hood, and the returned object (as specified in the manifest object) is set as the value for server.suggest.

server.suggest.profile(opts, cb)

opts is an Object with properties:

• text (optional), the text you're searching profiles names by. If not provided, then, falls back to offering defaultIds (if provided) or a sample of the most recent message authors.

• defaultIds (optional, default=[]), an array of feedIds that are important in the current context. They could be people present in the current thread for example. These will be fallback matches, but also be prioritised in any matches to text.

• limit (optional), how many results you want back Default: 20

• cb is a callback with signature (err, matches) where matches is an Array of objects of form:

{
  id: FeedId,
  matchedName: String, // the name your search matched (within name / names)
  name: String, // the name you know this person by
  names: Array, // the names people you follow have given this person
  image: Blob,
  following: Boolean // whether you currently follow them
}