URPG InfoHub
This document is intended for members of the Pokemon URPG's technical team. It is written for an audience with some technical experience, but the team welcomes members who are interested in learning about website and software development. If you find yourself overwhelmed by technical language with which you're unfamiliar, please feel free to reach out to Elrond for help.
This document explains the process of setting up your own development environment. Once you have completed this process, you will be able to make local code changes to the pokemonurpg.com website frontend, henceforth known as InfoHub. You will learn how to push these changes into a special repository intended for quality assurance testing and code review. The QA process, as well as final deployment to production, will be managed by Elrond.
Technology Requirements
Shortly, you will learn how to install and use the following software in order to test changes to the InfoHub. If you are already familiar with a piece of software equivalent to one listed below, please feel free to substitute your preferred software where appropriate.:
- Eclipse IDE, for development
- XAMPP Control Panel, which includes an embedded web server, PHP, and MySQL database
- Git and Git Bash, for source control
- WordPress, which allows for editing of static content. Note: In this developer role, you likely will not need to use the WordPress control panel, as static content is primarily managed by URPG staff. The installation is nevertheless integral to displaying the website properly for layout development.
Installing Eclipse IDE
- Navigate to www.eclipse.org/downloads/.
- Under "Get Eclipse Photon", click on the "Download" button. On the next page, click the "Download" button again.
- Run the downloaded .exe file.
- The "eclipseinstaller" window will open, allowing you to select from a number of Eclipse products. Select "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers".
- Accept the defaults for the installation process and allow it to finish. Then you can open Eclipse automatically once it's finished.
- The first time Eclipse opens, it will ask you to specify a "workspace." This is the file location on your computer where Eclipse will keep its files. You can specify whatever location you'd like.