Wrap a front-end library to control permissions for web UI elements like buttons

Node-Casbin is only for backend Node.js applications. It can run on frontend but some functionalities like file read/write, DB access will certainly be disabled. So we need a new library for front-end only. It should be:

1. Can communicate with backend servers (e.g, via Node-Casbin), sync policies into browser.
2. Enforce the policy locally inside a browser.
3. Add some friendly functions especially for web, like isButtonAllowedToBeClicked().

[Ishaan28malik]

@hsluoyz I already mentioned this above and let me know how do you want to proceed in this further? I am ready to work upon this.

[kingiw]

CASL is similar with Node-Casbin instead of Casbin.js. The core of CASL is to set the access rules and check the permissions. To be specific, Casbin.js should provide some functionalities that the CASL support at some popular frontend library. All the management work is left for the backend server.

For Casbin.js, model configuration is transparent. What Casbin.js concerns about are the actions and the objects. It doesn’t know if the developer are using RBAC or other access-control mechanism. So I believe the core API of Casbin.js should be quite simple as follows.

Some basic API for Casbin.js enforcer are:

setUser(user : string): void. 
Set the identity of the current user.

enforce(action: string, object: string) : boolean
Check if the user (previously set) are able to apply the action on the subject.

getActions() : Array<string>
Return all the actions that the user has.

getObjects(): Array<string>
Return all the objects that related to the user.

getActionsObjects(): Map<string, Array<string>>
Return all the actions and the corresponding applicable objects.

getObjectsActions(): Map<string, Array<string>>
Return all the objects and the corresponding actions applicable on that.

This enforcer’s APIs are the cores of Casbin.js. Only after we have finished this part can we going further to design other features serving for manipulating frontend operations (like controling the permissions for web UI elements).