/dawn-v0

(archived; now in PiECentral) Dawn is a cross-platform frontend for the Pioneers in Engineering robotics control system.

Primary LanguageJavaScript

Overview

NOTE: This readme is a brief overview. For more in-depth docs on any specific component, refer to the wiki.

Dawn is a cross-platform frontend for the PiE robotics control system. It is the applications students will see and use when programming and testing their robots.

Dawn is a desktop app, but it is written with web technologies and packaged via Electron.

Development Quickstart

  1. Install Required Software:
    • Install the latest NodeJS
    • Once npm is installed, install electron: sudo npm install -g electron
  2. Get code and dependencies
    • Pull the latest code: git clone https://github.com/pioneers/dawn.
    • Get the submodules: git submodule update --init --recursive
    • This should create a dawn directory wherever you typed this command. Enter the dawn directory: cd dawn.
    • Install dependencies with npm: npm install. Remember to do this step whenever you pull changes!
  3. Start developing (assuming you are in the dawn directory):
    • Start webpack in watch mode: npm run-script watch
      • Leave this terminal window running: webpack compiles your code, and automatically recompiles it when it detects changes.
      • This also runs a code linter, which will check for errors and incorrect code style.
      • Note: npm run-script build does a similar thing to npm run-script watch, but it does not watch for changes, and it builds for production, not development. Use watch for development and build when you are about to package an app for production.
    • Launch the application: npm start.
      • Leave this terminal window running also. Dawn should open.
    • When you make a change, the webpack watcher should automatically recompile your code. To see your changes, you can refresh by pressing Debug > Reload from the menu bar.

Packaging Dawn

This is only relevant(if you are releasing for production. If you are just developing you can ignore this.

  1. Install electron-packager: npm install -g electron-packager

  2. Build for production: npm run-script build (as opposed to npm run-script watch during production).

  3. Package app:

    • Packaging Dawn is done via a release script. To build for all platforms, run the following from the dawn folder:
    node release.js

    You can build for a specific platform and arch by adding --platform=<PLATFORM> --arch=<ARCH>, where <PLATFORM> is one of {win32, darwin, linux} and <ARCH> is one of {ia32, x64}. To build without pruning (which removes your devDependencies) add --noprune.

Experimental builds:

These are experimental builds for internal PiE use, and contain the latest features. For the latest stable release, download from here.