Installs, stages, and builds the client-side scripts necessary for running the Galaxy webapp. There's no need to use this system unless you are modifying or developing client-side scripts, or are running the development branch of Galaxy.
The base dependencies you will need are Node.js and Yarn. On OSX the easiest
way to get set up is using homebrew and the command brew install nodejs yarn.
More information including instructions for other platforms is available at
nodejs.org and yarnpkg.com.
The Galaxy client build has necessarily grown more complex in the past several years, but we're still trying to keep things as simple as possible for developers (everyone, really). If you're having any trouble with building the client after following the instructions below please create an issue on GitHub or reach out for help directly on Gitter at https://gitter.im/galaxyproject/Lobby.
There are many moving parts to the client build system, but the entrypoint for most people is the 'client' rule in the Makefile at the root of the Galaxy repository. Execute the following to perform a complete build suitable for local development, including dependency staging, style building, script processing and bundling. This is a development-specific build which includes extra debugging features, and excludes several production optimizations made during the build process.
make client
For a production build, suitable for deploying to a live server, use the following:
make client-production
And, lastly, if you want a production build that includes sourcemaps to allow for inspection of live javascript to facilitate debugging, use:
make client-production-maps
Important Note: The development branch of Galaxy does not include client script artifacts, and these should not be committed. When issuing a PR to a stable branch, please run "make client-production-maps", and include those artifacts. Or, if you'd rather, include only the /client source changes and build artifacts can be added by maintainers on merge.
When you're actively developing, it is sometimes convenient to have the client automatically rebuild every time you save a file. You can do this using:
make client-watch
This will first stage any dependencies (yarn-installed packages like jquery, etc), and then will watch for changes in any of the galaxy client source files. When a file is changed, the client will automatically rebuild, after which you can usually force refresh your browser to see changes. Note that it is still recommended to run 'make client' after you are finished actively developing using 'make client-watch'.
The CSS and styling used by Galaxy is also controlled from this directory. Galaxy uses LESS, a superset of CSS that compiles to CSS, for its styling. LESS files are kept in client/galaxy/style/less. Compiled CSS is in static/style/blue.
As mentioned above, 'make client' will also rebuild styles. If you only want
to run the style task, use the following command from the client directory:
yarn run style