RCWeb Notepad App

The RCWeb Notepad App (app/notepad) is a massively simplified, real-time shared text editor. Engineered on the Symmetric Pattern, it enforces peer-to-peer data syncing so any participant in a virtual room can collaborate on a single plain-text document.

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What it does

• Real-Time Text Syncing: Any user can type into the provided text area. Their entire text block is seamlessly transmitted and duplicated on the screen of every other peer almost instantly.
• Discoverability via QR: Automatically renders a QR Code of the current URL, letting users in the same physical space immediately pull the document up on their phones by scanning the screen.
• Optimistic Joining: When a new participant connects to a pre-existing room, the application politely queries active peers to blast their most recent document states backward to it so it catches up instantaneously.

How it works

The application script.js relies strictly on raw HTML <textarea> polling paired with debounced RCWeb string payloads.

• Payload Sync Mechanics: The app binds to the native DOM input event (addEventListener("input", maybeSendNotes)). When triggered, it grabs the raw value of the textarea, escapes newline (\n) and quote markers (\'), and forcefully builds an rc.send proxy transmission designed to execute notepad.updateNotes indiscriminately on all active peers in the session.
• Debounced Transmission: Constantly evaluating the input tree would drown the WebSocket router in fragmented packets. The maybeSendNotes mechanism uses window.setTimeout(sendNotes, 50) to coalesce and debounce multiple keystrokes hit within 50 milliseconds into a single decisive network operation block.
• Peer Discovery Integration: Listens to server loop rc.onUpdateNetworkStatus; upon full connection, fires notepad.requestRefresh(). Remote clients counter this by running notepad.refresh(), forcing out a debounced notepad.sendNotes() response back to the newly attached device so there are no disparate text states across peers.

Launch RCWeb App