Coding with Chrome

Coding with Chrome is an Educational Development Environment built around two core philosophies:

1. Offer a stand-alone, offline app experience which allows people anywhere to learn how to build useful computer programs: * A basic IDE able to support real programming work * A tutorial system that poses a challenge, checks the solution and provides feedback.

2. Allow educators to put together a custom curriculum made up of various components like: * input languages (blockly, javascript, coffeescript) * output modules (turtle graphics, javascript output, connected robots) * Flexible UI where elements can be easily added, modified or removed * Tutorial engine for self learning

Licensing

Apache License, Version 2.0 see LICENSE.md

Installing Coding with Chrome

If you only want to install Coding with Chrome, you could use the pre-compiled version on the Chrome store.

1. Visit the Chrome Web Store
2. Click Add to Chrome
3. Go to chrome://apps and launch Coding with Chrome

What you need to build your own Coding with Chrome App

In order to build the Coding with Chrome App, you only need to have Node.js/npm. If you want to clone/copy the Coding with Chrome App repo, you need git as well.

Each build is cross platform compatible. Which mean if you build the Coding with Chrome App for e.g. on Windows you could use the generated code genfiles/ folder on the other platforms as well.

Windows

Install Node.js from the official web page at https://nodejs.org

• Optional
  • Install git from the official web page at https://git-scm.com/
  • Install Java JRE

Mac OS X

Install Node.js from the official web page at https://nodejs.org

• Optional
  • Install git from the official web page at https://git-scm.com/
  • Install Java JRE

Linux/BSD

Use your package manager to install Node.js, or build from source.

• Optional
  • Use your package manager to install git, or build from source.
  • Install Open JDK or Java JRE

How to build your own Coding with Chrome App

Get the sources

Download the source files manual from GitHub or with git by running:

git clone --recursive git://github.com/google/coding-with-chrome.git

Init / update submodules

In some cases you need to init and update the submodules manually by:

git submodule init
git submodule update

Get required packages

Enter the "coding-with-chrome" directory and get the required packages by:

npm install

Build and run the actual app

To compile and run the Chrome app use the following command:

npm run fast-build

This will automatically build and start the application on Mac OS, Linux or Windows.

Build the actual app

To compile the Chrome app run the build script:

npm run build

The build version will be put in the genfiles/ directory, together with all required packages and files.

How to load Coding with Chrome App manual in the Chrome Browser

Enable developer mode

Visit chrome://extensions in your browser (or open up the Chrome menu by clicking the icon to the far right of the Omnibox (three horizontal bars) and select Extensions under the Tools menu to get to the same place).

Ensure that the Developer mode checkbox in the top right-hand corner is checked.

Add the app

On the same page click Load unpacked extension… to pop up a file-selection dialog.

Navigate to the directory in which your genfiles/ files live, and select it.

Alternatively, you can drag and drop the directory where your genfiles/ files live onto chrome://extensions in your browser to load it.

Launch the app

On the same page click Launch next to Coding with Chrome or visit chrome://apps in your browser and click on the Coding with Chrome icon.

Supported hardware and system

Supported hardware

Computers and Laptops with Chrome OS or any OS which is able to run the Desktop Chrome Browser are supported. For additional features Bluetooth and/or USB are required.

Supported systems

The following operating systems are supported by Coding with Chrome:

• Chrome OS
• Mac OS
• Windows OS
• Linux (without Bluetooth support / USB supported)

Report Issues

For any issues or feature requests, we would really appreciate it if you report them using our issue tracker.

Contributing

Contributing to Coding with Chrome is subject to the guidelines in the CONTRIBUTING.md file, which, in brief, requires that contributors sign the Individual Contributor License Agreement (CLA).

Rebuild the app

If you change something in the source code, you will need to re-compile it by:

npm run rebuild

After this you only need to reload the Chrome App to see your change in action.

Update dependencies

Run the following command to update the dependencies to the latest version:

npm run update

After this you only need to reload the Chrome App to see your change in action.

Translation

For translation instruction, please check doc/I18N.md.

Google Drive support (experimental)

To enable the experimental Google Drive support add your application key and your api key to the app/manifest.json file:

…
  "description": "Coding with Chrome.",
  "key": "MIIBIjANBgkqhki…",
…
  "oauth2": {
    "client_id": "958…",
    "scopes": [
      "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive",
      "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile"
    ]
  },
…

Since this feature is experimental, although problems are unlikely we can not guarantee this code is error free. Please make sure that you back up your Google Drive data, or only use test accounts without critical files or data.

See: https://developer.chrome.com/apps/app_identity

Debugging

For debug instruction, please check doc/DEBUG.md.

Credits

Coding with Chrome is made possible by other open source software.