Skip to content

Home

Jump to bottom
Pranav edited this page Aug 11, 2023 · 15 revisions

Introduction

Before developing make sure you know how to use the app by reading the user guide first. It will make coding much easier. This guide will try to teach you about how the tool’s code works. It is a shi- boatload* of information, so don’t worry if you can’t understand it in one go, the best way to understand how it works is to actually work on the code. A couple of pointers:

  • At the time of writing this handover document, it isn’t clear what every function does as there aren’t comments for everything.
  • As you work on the tool, always make sure that what you’ve written will make sense to other developers. This means writing docstrings/comments, and naming things properly.

Setup

Electron

This app is built using electron, which essentially allows you to turn a website into a desktop application. This means that the app is built using HTML, CSS, and JS. You should have an intermediate understanding of these languages before starting.

Prerequisites

Refer here for a complete guide: https://www.electronjs.org/docs/latest/tutorial/tutorial-prerequisites

There are several tools you will need to install before you can get started. You’ll need to get the local/portable versions of nodejs/npm and git if you don't have admin persmissions.

  • Code editor

VScode is recommended as its extensions will make development a lot faster.

  • Git + Github

You’ll need Git and a Github account. Github desktop is highly recommended as it will make it easier to clone repositories and switch branches.

  • node.js + npm

Building and Editing the code

Fork this repository, and clone your fork using a git client such as GitHub desktop (recommended) or the command line.

Open a terminal window in the folder of your repository and run npm install. If using VScode, you can use the built in terminal to do this. This command will install all dependencies.

To build the app, run npm start. After you make an edit, use ctrl+r to refresh the page. If you make an edit to files outside of the "renderer" folder, you may need to run rs and fully restart the app to see your changes.

Clone this wiki locally