Mpad - A Decentralised Local Multiplayer Text Pad

Mpad is a desktop app (mobile/web clients planned!) which allows you to share a simple text pad with other users on a local network:

Any changes you make on one mpad instance are instantly reflected to all other pcs using a CRDT for conflict resolution via multicast.

It was borne out of a frustration to have a shared clipboard between a few laptops around the office.

Compilation

Requires rust & gtk installed (for gtk-rs), then simply:

cargo build --release

From Path

cargo install --path .

Or from Cargo:

cargo install mpad

Typing mpad in a terminal will bring up a window. Bring it up on each computer to have them participate.

Uses a slimmed down version of the existing ditto CRDT library (with an extra function or two added).

The multicast.rs does all the heavy lifting here!

Users type something
Updates its local CRDT using a diff
If there are changes, submits them in partial chunks to a multicast address (currently hardcoded to 239.1.1.1:1111)
Receives updates from the multicast address
Merges the remote state with the local CRDT

This is exposed by a channel so it should be easy-ish to plug it into other frontends:

rust pub fn setup_channels() -> Result<(Sender<String>, Receiver<String>), Error>;

Where sender is where you send updates from your text pad, and receiver is where you receive updates from the wire.