VDB

VDB is web service for card search, deck building & inventory management for Vampire the Eternal Struggle (VTES) collectible card game.

Public instance is available at https://vdb.im.

COMPONENTS

VDB consist of two components communicating with each other.

FRONTEND

Serve the UI for the modern browsers using:

   ReactJS (v18)
   Tailwind CSS

BACKEND

Store user accounts (decks/inventory), generate proxy cards, using:

   Python (v3.10+)
   Flask

INSTALLATION

FOR DEVELOPMENT

Below is local deployment for test/development for Linux. On Windows and MacOS commands may be different (I recommend using WSL on Windows, it works well with commands below).

    git clone https://github.com/smeea/vdb.git
    cd vdb

Start backend:

    cd backend
    python -m venv venv                                  # ONLY ON FIRST RUN
    source venv/bin/activate
    python -m pip install -r requirements.txt            # ONLY ON FIRST RUN
    flask db init                                        # ONLY ON FIRST RUN
    flask db migrate                                     # ONLY ON FIRST RUN
    flask db upgrade                                     # ONLY ON FIRST RUN
    flask run

Start frontend:

    cd frontend
    npm install                                          # ONLY ON FIRST RUN
    npm run start

Now go to http://localhost:5173 in the browser and you are ready to go.

FOR PRODUCTION

For production, in addition to the steps above, you should at least:

setup web-server instead of npm run start (vite) embedded server
setup wsgi-server instead of flask run embedded server
build frontend for production (npm run build)
change app.config['SECRET_KEY'] in backend/config.py

For reference: Public instance at https://vdb.im runs from master branch without any changes using gunicorn (gunicorn wsgi:app) and nginx (sample configuration is in misc/nginx.conf).

MAINTENANCE

UPDATE CARDS, RULINGS, TWD, IMAGES

To update with new Set/Precons edit the following files:

    vim misc/cards-update/generate_precons.py            # ADD SET/PRECONS
    vim frontend/src/assets/data/setsAndPrecons.json     # ADD SET/PRECONS

To update with new Playtest add resources and edit the following files:

    cp $NEW_PRECONS misc/cards-update/precon_decks/
    cp $NEW_CRYPT_FILE.csv $NEW_LIB_FILE.csv misc/cards-update/
    vim misc/cards-update/generate_playtest_precons.py   # ADD PLAYTEST PRECONS

Download source files from upstream and create new resources (it will copy files where necessary):

    cd misc/cards-update
    python -m venv venv                                  # ONLY ON FIRST RUN
    source venv/bin/activate
    python -m pip install -r requirements.txt            # ONLY ON FIRST RUN
    ./download_resources.sh
    ./create_resources.sh
    python download_card_images.py                       # ONLY ENGLISH

Other than English languages and card scans from different sets only updated manually in ~/frontend/dist/images/cards/.

PASSWORD CHANGE

    cd backend
    source venv/bin/activate
    python change_password $ACCOUNT_NAME x               # RANDOM PASWORD
    python change_password $ACCOUNT_NAME $PASSWORD       # PASSWORD OF YOUR CHOICE

PLAYTESTING ACCESS

Playtesting of new cards enabled by Playtest Admins from web interface. To toggle Admin status for account:

    cd backend
    source venv/bin/activate
    python change_playtest_admin.py $ACCOUNT_NAME

SUPPORT / HELP

If you need support/help don't hesitate to fill Issue or send me an email to smeea@riseup.net.

CONTRIBUTION

Contributions in both frontend and backend parts are welcome, but please create an issue first to discuss if the feature/fix (and its particular implementation) are confirmed before spending any resources.

There are no coding style or test requirements established.

LICENSE

MIT for everything, except:

Card texts, card images and game-related icons in frontend/public/images/, which are copyrighted by Paradox Interactive AB and used under Dark Pack agreement.