March 2017 Summaries

The blog post introduces the integration of Angular 2 and PubNub for building a real-time chat application, highlighting the transition from AngularJS to Angular 2, which offers improved syntax, component-based architecture, and TypeScript's increasing dominance. The post details the initial setup using the Angular 2 SDK for PubNub, emphasizing the PubNub JavaScript SDK's updates in its fourth release, such as isomorphic JavaScript and a new networking stack, which enhance performance across web and mobile platforms. It explains the creation of a basic chat app utilizing PubNub's Publish/Subscribe feature, message history storage, and the implementation of a straightforward user interface with minimal dependencies, using Angular 2 components to manage data and UI encapsulation. The guide further outlines incorporating multiple PubNub instances, event handling for messages, and using the PubNub JavaScript V4 API, while offering migration tips for developers transitioning from previous SDK versions. Finally, the post encourages engagement with future articles exploring advanced PubNub API features and invites feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Initial State offers a platform for creating real-time IoT data visualizations by streaming data from smart devices and connected applications, which can be integrated into live dashboards using its BLOCK feature in conjunction with the PubNub BLOCKS Catalog. The tutorial provides a detailed walkthrough of tracking and displaying IoT metrics using a real-time Angular2 web application, involving a concise 26-line JavaScript BLOCK and 92 lines of HTML and JavaScript code. The Initial State API simplifies large-scale monitoring and metrics analysis with a user-friendly interface, allowing users to track new metrics, create charts, and organize them into custom displays. To get started, users need PubNub publish/subscribe keys and an Initial State developer account. The PubNub JavaScript SDK, compatible with Angular2, facilitates seamless integration with the application by providing robust features for data streaming. The tutorial also outlines setting up the Initial State BLOCK and demonstrates the code required for both the BLOCK and user interface, highlighting the simplicity and efficiency of building a functional real-time UI with Angular2. Additional features of Initial State, such as customizable dashboards and time series analysis, are briefly mentioned, emphasizing the ease of starting with custom metrics using its API.

Geocoding is the process of converting addresses or place names into geographic coordinates and vice versa, and the Esri Geocoding Service facilitates this by offering features such as geosearch, reverse geocoding, and batch geocoding. With the Esri Geocoding BLOCK, developers can integrate real-time geocoding into applications on the PubNub network, which can be used for functionalities like mapping landmarks in a chat or tourism app. The article provides a tutorial on implementing basic geocoding in a real-time Angular 2 web application, highlighting the ease of enabling location-aware features using Esri APIs. It explains the setup process, including obtaining necessary developer keys and configuring the PubNub BLOCK for serverless cloud execution. Additionally, it discusses the simplicity of creating a user interface using Angular 2 and PubNub services, and points towards further capabilities of the Esri API, such as map customization, spatial analysis, and geo-enrichment, indicating the potential for deeper integration in future applications.

The article describes how to integrate Giphy's GIF search capabilities into a real-time chat application using PubNub's BLOCKS and JavaScript SDK. It explains the process of setting up the necessary PubNub and Giphy accounts to obtain developer keys, and details creating a serverless application that allows users to embed GIFs into chat messages with simple commands. The tutorial utilizes the Giphy API to access various GIF functionalities, emphasizing its simplicity and the wide range of expressions it offers. Additionally, the article showcases how to implement this integration using Angular2 to create a user interface that dynamically displays messages and their corresponding GIFs. The process is presented as efficient and straightforward, making it accessible for developers to enrich their applications with animated GIF features.

New Relic offers performance monitoring and insights for applications, facilitating quick tracking, display, and dissemination of metrics for rapid response and insight. It provides a user-friendly interface and API for tracking new metrics, creating charts, organizing dashboards, and querying dynamic data through New Relic Query Language. The New Relic BLOCK allows for data streaming from the PubNub network into New Relic Insights, enabling real-time tracking of activities such as customer journeys or IoT sensor readings. A tutorial guides users in setting up custom metrics tracking in a real-time Angular2 web application using the New Relic BLOCK, emphasizing the importance of monitoring technical and business metrics for large-scale applications. The integration process involves setting up a New Relic developer account, configuring application agents, and starting a trial of the Insights API, followed by using PubNub BLOCKS to create serverless code. The tutorial includes JavaScript and HTML code snippets to create and manage a simple user interface and Angular2 component for real-time application monitoring.

PubNub BLOCKS extends PubNub's functionality to allow executing functions on streaming data, which is well-suited for turn-based multiplayer games on web and mobile platforms. The tutorial guides users through creating a simple multiplayer Hangman game using Swift for the UI and PubNub's Hangman BLOCK to handle the game's logic. Users must set up a Swift application with multiple view controllers to manage different aspects of the game, such as setting the GameID, choosing the word, and playing the game. The tutorial explains how to configure the Hangman BLOCK to handle inputs and track game status, updating the app's UI with real-time feedback from the BLOCK, and enabling multiple players to join the same game by entering a shared GameID. The BLOCKS catalog offers various pre-designed modules, encouraging developers to explore and customize BLOCKS for their applications.