Chitter Prototype

Chitter allows developers to share useful information quickly and informally using a social, micro-blogging approach.

The main task of the project is to develop prototype that will be present to the rest of the Asidua (Chitter) group so group can decide which prototype to move forward with to develop Chitter Application.

Click here to see it in action!

Development Principles

Chitter will be developed using responsive web design techniques
Chitter will be developed using suitable JavaScript and CSS frameworks
Chitter will be developed in a manner that does not tie it to one specific database type
Chitter will be developed in line with modern web architectural patterns
Chitter will be developed in a manner that will support the addition of mobile clients in the future
Chitter will be developed using Behaviour Driven Development (BDD)
Chitter will be developed using Continuous Integration, Delivery & Deployment
Chitter will be developed in a manner that will support public cloud deployment
Chitter will be developed using freely available tools and frameworks (no Asidua licenses will be required)
Chitter will be developed using tools and frameworks that are not tied to a single platform (e.g. Windows)

Technologies Used

Client Side:
- AngularJS
- HTML5
- CSS3
- Bootstrap 3
- underscoreJS
Server Side:
- NodeJS
- ExpressJS
- MongoDB
Development & Deployment:
- Grunt
- Travis CI
Test:
- Jasmine
- Karma

Architecture Diagram

Installation

Platform & tools

You need to install Node.js and then the development tools. Node.js comes with a package manager called npm for installing NodeJS applications and libraries.

Install node.js (requires node.js version >= 0.8.0)
Install Grunt as global npm modules (requires node.js version >= 0.8.0):
```
npm install -g grunt-cli
```

Client App

Our client application is a straight HTML/Javascript application but our development process uses a Node.js build tool Grunt.js. Grunt relies upon some 3rd party libraries that we need to install as local dependencies.

Install local dependencies (navigate to chitter-prototype directory):
```
cd client
npm install
cd ..
```

(Note: If you are getting error with github try this "git config --global url."https://".insteadOf git://")

Server App

Our backend application server is a NodeJS application that relies upon some 3rd Party npm packages. You need to install these:

Install local dependencies (navigate to chitter-prototype directory):
```
cd server
npm install
cd ..
```

Running

Start the Server

There are two options how to run application (command line or Intellij IDEA)

####From command line

Run the server (the command will automatically opens web browser)
```
node server/server.js    
```
Browse to the application at [http://localhost:3000]

####From Intellij IDEA Install Node plugin for your Intellij and then go to Edit -> Edit Configurations and set details as it show below

Development

Continuous Building

The watch grunt task will monitor the source files and run the default build task every time a file changes (it will refresh browser for you).