chrome-apps-serialport

The chrome-apps-serialport JavaScript module is a
Chrome Apps-compatible implementation of the
node-serialport module used for serial communication.

This library was created to provide Chrome Apps (including NW.js) interoperability for libraries
already depending on the node-serialport module for serial communication (e.g. johnny-five,
firmata, etc.).

NW.js Support

The main use case for this library is to simplify usage of Johnny-Five and Firmata inside NW.js.
While node-serialport can be used within NW.js, it needs to be specifically recompiled. This can
prove to be troublesome. This library bypasses this problem by using the chrome.serial API which
is already available in NW.js (via the builtin support for the Chrome Apps APIs).

The chrome-apps-serialport module also fixes a
long-standing issue in NW.js that must be dealt with in
order to successfully use the serial port. This means that, if you use this module, you do not need
to bother importing the nwjs-j5-fix module. It will be
taken care of for you.

Installation

``
npm install chrome-apps-serialport
`

Basic Usage

`js
const SerialPort = require("chrome-apps-serialport").SerialPort;

let port = new SerialPort("/dev/tty-usbserial1", {
baudrate: 57600
});
`

Using the module with Johnny-Five

`js
const SerialPort = require("chrome-apps-serialport").SerialPort;
const Firmata = require("firmata-io")(SerialPort);
const five = require("johnny-five");

SerialPort.list().then(ports => {

const device = ports.find(port => {
return port.manufacturer && port.manufacturer.startsWith("Arduino")
});

const board = new five.Board({
io: new Firmata(device.path)
});

board.on("ready", () => {
console.log("Johnny-Five is ready!");
const led = new five.Led(13);
led.blink(500);
});

board.on("close", () => console.log("Closed!"));

});
`

History

The chrome-apps-serialport module is a repackaging of
browser-serialport (created by
Glen Arrowsmith). This module was working great until API changes were
introduced in version 8 of node-serialport. These changes forced dependent projects to update
which, in turnm broke compatibility with browser-serialport. Since browser-serialport has not
been updated in many years, I packaged chrome-apps-serialport to insure compatibility with the
latest version of node-serialport.

Compatibility

Unless you are using very specialized functionalities (see below), you should be able to use
chrome-apps-serialport wherever node-serialport v8.x+ is used. Obviously, this is only true if
you are executing the code within a Chrome App or NW.js.

Due to the underlying architecture (chrome.serial), there are a few differences that should be
noted:

* The connection options are a little bit different:

* __dataBits__: 7, 8
* __stopBits__: 1, 2
* __parity__: 'none', 'even', 'mark', 'odd', 'space'
* __flowControl__: 'RTSCTS'
* __highWaterMark__: ignored
* __lock__: ignored
* __xon__, __xoff__, __xany__: ignored

* Parsers are not implemented.

* The read() method is not implemented.

* The drain() method can be called but will not do anything. This also means that no drain
events are ever dispatched.

* Only UTF8 is supported when passing strings to the write()` method.

* Error messages differ.