ShareDrop is HTML5 clone of Apple AirDrop service. It allows you to transfer files directly between devices, without having to upload them to any server first. It uses WebRTC for secure peer-to-peer file transfer and Firebase for presence management and WebRTC signaling.

At the moment ShareDrop allows you to send files only to other devices in the same local network, i.e. devices with the same public IP address.

The main difference between ShareDrop and AirDrop is that ShareDrop requires internet connection to find devices, while AirDrop doesn't need one - it creates ad-hoc wireless network between them. On the other hand, ShareDrop allows you to send files between mobile (Android) and desktop devices.

Supported browsers

• Chrome (desktop and Android) 33+
• Opera (desktop and Android) 20+
• Firefox (desktop and Android) 28+ (though we suggest using Chrome or Opera for transferring larger files)

How to set it up for local development

1. Setup Firebase:
   1. Sign up for a Firebase account and create a database.
   2. Go to "Security Rules" tab, click "Load Rules" button and select firebase_rules.json file.
   3. Take note of your database URL and its secret, which can be found in "Secrets" tab.
2. Run npm -g install grunt-cli to install Grunt.
3. Run npm install to install NodeJS dependencies.
4. Run bundle install to install Ruby dependencies.
5. Run cp .env{.sample,} to create .env file. This file will be used by Grunt to set environemnt variables when running the app locally. You only need NEW_RELIC_* variables in production.
6. Run grunt serve to start the app.
7. Run grunt build to build production version of the app to dist directory.

Deployment

When deploying to Heroku, use multi buildpack.

For new apps:

heroku create myapp --buildpack https://github.com/ddollar/heroku-buildpack-multi.git

For existing apps:

heroku config:set BUILDPACK_URL=https://github.com/ddollar/heroku-buildpack-multi.git