explicu

repository for explicu project

You can view the production version of the site at http://www.explicu.com. It has an intuitive user inference and the usage is self-explanatory. There are also instructions on the site for how to proceed. There is a navigation bar at the top of the webpage which includes links to any component of the project, from any given page of the site. All visualizations on there have an interactive component. Please follow instructions laid out on the web page to proceed.

We implemented an extensive javascript back end in order to launch a web server to host the site. If you still wish to install the software, follow the instructions.

Most of the code base can be generated with npm / express-generator, see the following tutorial.

Instructions for setting up and running

install node.js as well as node package manager (npm). You can both of those (npm comes pre-packaged with nodejs) that here:
```
 https://nodejs.org/en/download
```
If you are on Ubuntu, you can do the following:
```
 $ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
 $ sudo apt-get install npm
```
If you are using Mac OSX, you can either use Homebrew or download directly from the Node.js official website via the link above.
Next, clone this repository (or download, unzip it and navigate to the folder in the command line):
```
 $ git clone https://github.com/rchenmit/explicu.git
 $ cd explicu
```
Since node modules may have been updated since the time this repo was published, update the packages to the most recent version:
```
 $ rm -rf node_modules/
 $ npm cache clean
 $ npm install
```
To start the web service, do the following:
```
 $ npm start
```
This launches on port 8080. You can change the port via the /bin/www file which has the code for launching the web service with express. Replace 8080 with the desired port.
```
app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 8080);
```
To view the website, navigate to http://localhost:8080/

Implementation Details

Implementation details below.

Templating

Currently using Jade. There are many other choices as well:

https://colorlib.com/wp/top-templating-engines-for-javascript/

Front end

Viz: D3.js, morris.js, viz.js
Bootstrap

API

Code for API calls are in /routes/index.js.

Database

The database this is currently connected to is a mongodb database:

var mongo_conn="mongodb://readonly:readonly@ds049631.mongolab.com:49631/heroku_app33408747";
var MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;

If you want to connect your own, simply replace the database address.

If using other types of databases, you may find these helpful:

Requests

Inside /routes/index.js, the API functions, for fetching data fraom the DB and rendering it on the front end, can be found lines 43-end.

rchenmit/explicu