genigames: A CoffeeScript repository from Concord Consortium

#GeniGames

Initial readme for the GeniGames project.

Initial setup of development environment

# assuming you have installed RVM and Ruby 1.9.3:
rvm --rvmrc --create use 1.9.3@genigames
gem install bundler
bundle install --binstubs

Now setup an Apache vhost as below. This is the easiest way to proxy the required backend services so that they can be accessed by the webapp. (Unfortunately, we haven't been able to proxy using Rack middleware, as rack-streaming-proxy causes a mysterious error in which the Biologica GWT servlet claims not have received the required X-GWT-Permutation header.)

Serving the project in development mode

This project is built from component files in app/ using rake-pipeline. This tool should have been installed by the bundle install step above.

To run the project on your local machine, run bin/rakep server in the root of the repository and visit http://gg.local/ in a web browser. This development server is built continuously, so to see the change after making a modification to a source file, you just reload your browser.

Compiling a built version of the project

The assets which make up the application can be built into the build/ directory by running bin/rakep build. If you have created a vhost with your build/ directory as its docroot, then you can visit the that server in a web browser.

If you are happy with the version in build, you can run ./build-and-deploy.sh [server] where [server] is one of 'dev' or 'production'. (Actually, at the time of this writing, only 'dev' is valid, but 'production' should work eventually.) This checks that your current branch has no uncommitted or unstaged changes and replaces the contents of the static directory in the deploy- dev (or deploy-production) branch with the contents of the build directory, makes a commit in the deploy branch noting the current SHA of the source branch, pushes the deploy branch, and, if the push is successful, pulls the branch into the appropriate place on the appropriate server.

For dev this server is http://genigames.dev.concord.org/

You can of course perform these same steps by hand, or checkout an earlier version of the deploy branch if desired.

Serving the project using Apache

To serve this project locally, you can create a local Apache vhosts to proxy the needed resources. In order to allow the portal's login cookie to be set correctly, the local server name should end with '.concord.org' (this will work fine, as the hosts file will be consulted first).

The server at http://gg.local.concord.org/ is for proxying the development server provided by rake-pipeline. The server at http://gg-build.local.concord.org is for viewing and verifying the latest statically-built version compiled by rake-pipeline.

Add the following to /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1       gg.local.concord.org
127.0.0.1       gg-static.local.concord.org

(Remember to use real tabs to separate the IP address and the name.)

Add the following to '/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf':

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName gg.local.concord.org

  ProxyPass        /biologica/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/biologica/
  ProxyPassReverse /biologica/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/biologica/

  ProxyPass        /portal/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/portal/
  ProxyPassReverse /portal/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/portal/

  ProxyPass        /resources/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/resources/ retry=1
  ProxyPassReverse /resources/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/resources/

  ProxyPass        /couchdb http://genigames.dev.concord.org/couchdb retry=1
  ProxyPassReverse /couchdb http://genigames.dev.concord.org/couchdb

  # Rackup
  ProxyPass         / http://127.0.0.1:9292/ retry=1
  ProxyPassReverse  / http://127.0.0.1:9292/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName gg-static.local.concord.org

  DocumentRoot "/path/to/build/folder"
  <Directory "/path/to/build/folder">
     AllowOverride all
     Options -MultiViews
     Order allow,deny
     Allow from all
     DirectoryIndex index.html
  </Directory>

  ProxyPass        /biologica/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/biologica/
  ProxyPassReverse /biologica/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/biologica/

  ProxyPass        /portal/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/portal/
  ProxyPassReverse /portal/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/portal/

  ProxyPass        /resources/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/resources/ retry=1
  ProxyPassReverse /resources/ http://geniverse.dev.concord.org/resources/
</VirtualHost>

Restart Apache:

$ sudo apachectl restart

Program structure

The project's source code can be found in the app/src directory, and is written in CoffeeScript. The CoffeeScript is then compiled into JavaScript, concatenated, and placed into the file build/js/app.js.

The project's stylesheets can be found in the app/style directory, and are written in Stylus. They are then compiled into CSS, concatenated, and placed into the file build/css/genigames.css.

Note that regular .css files can also go into the /style directory, and will be concatenated with everything else. Note also that vanilla CSS can be mixed in freely inside .styl files.

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