laddr

Laddr -- pronounced "ladder" and named after the essential tool for fire brigades -- is an online homebase for your local Code for America Brigade. It is designed to be cheap-to-host and easy-to-hack platform for civic hacking groups to maintain an online presence and automate support for their real-world operations.

Getting started

There are three ways to get started with Laddr:

• Request free hosting of a copy for your brigade, courtesy of Code for Philly
• Clone laddr to work on and contribute to its core, shared functionality
• Extend laddr to create a workspace for customizing a copy of laddr for your brigade without forking the whole thing

Dependencies

Install recent versions of Habitat and Docker on your Linux, Mac, or Windows workstation.

Clone Laddr

cd ~/Repositories/laddr # or wherever you cloned this rep

# expose port 7080 (http) and 3306 (mysql) from any Docker container started by Habitat
export HAB_DOCKER_OPTS="-p 7080:7080 -p 3306:3306"

# launch and enter a Habitat studio
hab studio enter

# once the studio has finished loading, start all services with a local database
start-all

# clone a production instance's database
load-sql https://codeforphilly.org

# build and load the site, then wait for file changes
watch-site

At that point you should be able to see an instance at http://localhost:7080 and any edits should be reflected live

Extend Laddr

For a permanent instance of laddr, you might want to consider deploying an extending project rather than laddr itself. CodeForPhilly.org for example, is deployed from a repository that only contains a layer of customization that gets applied on top of laddr's repository. This gives you a place to change things like your brigade's logo or add new features without forking your own whole version of laddr.

To start a new extending project, initialize a new repository and copy the .holo/ tree from the codeforphilly repository as a starting point. Replace codeforphilly with an identifier of your choice for your own project (maybe the repository name) in .holo/config.toml and rename .holo/branches/emergence-site/_codeforphilly.toml to match.

Then follow the same steps above to launch the project inside a container.

Support

• Laddr forum/wiki
• #laddr channel in Code for Philly's Slack
• #laddr channel in Code for America's Slack
• laddr issues on GitHub
• Emergence forum/wiki

Features

• Projects Directory
  • Each project can have a users URL, developers URL, markdown README
  • Projects can be tagged by topic, tech, and event
  • Projects list available via dynamic CSV for linking to CfAPI
• Members Directory
  • Members can upload photos, write a bio in markdown, and tag themselves with topic and tech tags
• Meetup.com integration
  • Upcoming events pulled from meetup.com API for homepage sidebar
  • Current and next event highlighted
  • Members can checkin to current event and optionally pick what project they're working on
• Project Updates
  • Any project member can post markdown-formatted "updates" to a project
  • Updates show up on the project's page, the home page, the global updates feed
  • RSS feeds for global and per-project updates
• Project Buzz
  • Any site member can log a media article about a project
  • Attach photo and an exerpt
  • Buzz shows up on the project's page, the home page, and the global buzz feed
• Big Screen
  • A live status page for display during events
  • Latest member checkins to event
  • Markdown box for announcements
• Localizable
  • Language selector in the footer for visitors and configurable site-wide default language
  • English and Spanish translations available
  • Croatian and Korean translations in progress

Brigades using Laddr

• Code for Philly
  • Extending repository
• Code for Dayton
• Code for Croatia
• Creative Commons Korea
• Code for Cary
• Code for Durham
• Code for Raleigh
• Open Charlotte Brigade