AsTeRICS

Tools and libraries

This chapter is about tools, libraries and technologies that are used in AsTeRICS Grid project:

  1. Tools
  2. Javascript libaries

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Tools

This section is about tools that are used for development, dependency management and releasing.

Node package manager (npm)

The node package manager (npm) is used for managing Javascript dependencies and running various tasks related to the project. The npm configuration file is package.json.

npm dependencies

The configuration file package.json includes the key dependencies which include dependencies that are used in order to run AsTeRICS Grid:

  • @sensu/superlogin: framework providing user management in connection to CouchDB, the database backend used by AsTeRICS Grid
  • cors: CORS handler for HTTP requests, used by superlogin
  • morgan: logger for HTTP requests, used by superlogin
  • superlogin-client: Javascript client for a superlogin instance running on a server

The other listed dependencies are Javascript libraries.

npm dev-dependencies

The configuration file package.json includes the key dev-dependencies which include dependencies that are used for development of AsTeRICS Grid. These are the most important ones:

  • webpack: framework using for bundling javascript, vue and css resources
  • webpack-dev-server: local http server for development of the application
  • babel-core: framework for transpiling Javascript sources with newer language features to Javascript that is compatible with older browsers.
  • jest: Unit testing framework for javascript

Webpack

Webpack is used in order to bundling the Javascript sources to a single and minified bundle file. The configuration file for webpack is webpack.config.js. It may seem complicated at first sight, but basically it’s configuring 3 things:

  1. Bundling of all sources from the src/ folder to one minified file in app/build/ and app/build_lecagy. This bundling is configured by the two objects configNormal and configLegacy that are returned at the end of the script.
  2. Generating the appcache.manifest file for offline support. This is done by using the appcache-webpack-plugin and listing all needed resources in it’s configuration.
  3. Configuring the development webserver: this is done by the property object returned in the function getDevServer()

Javascript libraries

This section is about Javascript libraries that are used within the AsTeRICS Grid project. They can be found in two locations:

  1. As dependency listed within dependencies in the package.json configuration file
  2. As external library included in the app/lib/ folder

These are the Javascript libraries that are used:

  • file-saver: library for downloading files within a web-application
  • lz-string: library for string compression, used for imported default dictionaries*
  • navigo: javascript routing library based on URL hash
  • predictionary: javascript word prediction library
  • vue: javascript single-page application framework
  • dom-i18n: easy to use DOM-internationalization library
  • jQuery: library for document traversal and manipulation, needed for jQueryUI
  • jQueryUI: library for user interface interactions, needed for jQuery contextMenu and GridList
  • jQuery contextMenu: jQuery plugin for right-click context menus, used in AsTeRICS Grid e.g. for edit menu of a grid element
  • GridList: jQueryUI based library for creation of a dynamic, draggable grid
  • loglevel: javascript logging library
  • ObjectModel: library for dynamic type checking, see data models in src/js/model/
  • PouchDB: library for accessing IndexedDB and synchronization with a remote CouchDB
  • sjcl: crypto library published by Stanford University that is used for encryption of user configuration

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