blog/source/docs/installing_embarkjs.md

title: Configuring EmbarkJS layout: docs

Embark includes in your Dapp the EmbarkJS library. This library abstracts different functionalities, so you can easily & quickly build powerful Dapps that leverage different decentralized technologies. Embark will automatically initialize EmbarkJS with the configurations set for your particular environment. You just need to connect it to a blockchain node, like explained below.

Connecting

Before using EmbarkJS and Contract functions, we need to make sure that Embark is connected to a blockchain node.

For that, EmbarkJS provides the Blockchain.connect() function that receives a configuration object. Luckily, Embark generates the necessary config by looking at your configuration files and outputs it in its generation folder. The default directory is embarkArtifacts/, but you can change that in embark.json by changing generationDir.

Let's see what that generated config file looks like at embarkArtifacts/config/blockchain.json:

{
  "dappConnection": [
    "$WEB3",
    "$EMBARK",
    "ws://localhost:8546"
  ],
  "dappAutoEnable": true,
  "warnIfMetamask": true,
  "blockchainClient": "geth"
}

Connection parameters:

• dappConnection: Copied from the contracts config. This is the list of connections Embark will try to connect to in order. For more information, look at the guide on EmbakJS.
• dappAutoEnable: Copied from the contracts config. This tells EmbarkJS to either automatically connect to Metamask (or Mist) or wait for the developper (you) to do it.
• Read more on it below
• warnIfMetamask: Is true when isDev is true in the blockchain config. Will warn you in the console if Metamask is detected, to make sure you connect Metamask correctly to the local node.
• blockchainClient: Copied from the blockchain config. This tells EmbarkJS which blockchain client it is connecting to and it will warn about the different problematic behaviours you could experience.

Utilities

EmbarkJS also includes a onReady function. This is very useful to ensure that your Dapp only starts interacting with contracts when the proper connection to web3 has been made and ready to use.

import EmbarkJS from 'Embark/EmbarkJS';
import SimpleStorage from 'Embark/contracts/SimpleStorage';

EmbarkJS.onReady((error) => {
  if (error) {
    console.error('Error while connecting to web3', error);
    return;
  }
  SimpleStorage.methods.set(100).send();
});

Provider

As of EIP1102, decentralized applications MUST request account access. Embark offers several options on how to implement this.

An Embark application's Smart Contract configuration file (typically located in config/contracts.js) comes with a dappAutoEnable property which controls whether or not EmbarkJS should automatically try to request account access:

...
  // Automatically call `ethereum.enable` if true.
  // If false, the following code must run before sending any transaction: `await EmbarkJS.enableEthereum();`
  // Default value is true.
  // dappAutoEnable: true,
...

By default, the value of dappAutoEnable is true which means that Embark will call ethereum.enable for you to request account access when the first page of the dapp is loaded.

If you want more control, you can set dappAutoEnable to false. Then, if you want to request account access, you can use the following code:

...
  try {
    const accounts = await EmbarkJS.enableEthereum();
    // access granted
  } catch() {
    // access not granted
  }
...

This will request account access and if the user grants access to his accounts, you will be able to make transaction calls.

Components

• EmbarkJS.Contract - To interact with smart contracts. Typically Embark automatically initializes all your deployed contracts with this. uses web3.js 1.2.1
• EmbarkJS.Storage - To interact with the configured decentralized storage. Includes bindings to save & retrieve data, upload & download files, etc..
• EmbarkJS.Communication - To interact with the configured decentralized messages system. Includes bindings to listen to topics and send messages.
• EmbarkJS.Names - To interact with the configured decentralized naming system such as ENS. Includes bindings to look up the address of a domain name as well as retrieve a domain name given an address.