A beautiful client for the Gopherdon network, built from Hyperspace

The Gopherdon apps are the official means of accessing the Gopherdon network at Goucher College. Built from Hyperspace, it aims to provide a beautiful and easy-to-use interface for any Mastodon instance, including Gopherdon.

Changes that overall benefit Hyperspace will be made upstream, and Gopherdon will be in-sync with upstream changes from Hyperspace.

Build instructions

Prerequisites

To develop Gopherdon, you'll need the following tools and packages:

• Node.js v10 or later

Installing dependencies

First, clone the repository from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/gopherdonapp/app

Then, in the app directory, run the following command to install all of the package dependencies:

npm install

Pulling changes from upstream (hyperspacedev/hyperspace)

It is recommended that you make these changes to both the upstream and master branches, accordingly.

Run the following commands to copy the latest Hyperspace code to Gopherdon in upstream:

git fetch upstream
git checkout upstream
git merge upstream/master

If any conflicts arise, check the files and review the changes before fully merging. After merging, make a pull request to the master branch to apply the upstream changes.

Note: Do not delete the upstream branch. This is necessary to get changes from Hyperspace and to submit new changes to Hyperspace itself.

Testing changes

Run any of the following scripts to test:

• npm start - Starts a local server hosted at https://localhost:3000.
• npm run electrify - Builds a copy of the source code and then runs the app through Electron. Ensure that the location key in config.json points to "desktop" before running this.
• npm run electrify-nobuild - Similar to electrify but doesn't build the project before running.

The location key in config.json can take the following values during testing:

• https://localhost:3000: Most suitable for running npm start or running via react-scripts.
• desktop: Most suitable for when testing the desktop application.

Note: Gopherdon v1.1.0-beta3 and older versions require the location field to be changed to "https://localhost:3000" before running.

To run a development version of Gopherdon, either run the start task from VS Code or run the following in the terminal:

npm start

Building a release

To build a release, run the following command:

npm build

The built files will be available under build as static files. These files should get hosted to a web server.

If you are aiming to make an update to the official Gopherdon site, just push your changes to either the master (unstable) or release (stable) branches.

Building desktop releases

You can run any of the following commands to build a release for the desktop:

• npm run build-desktop: Builds the desktop apps for all platforms (eg. Windows, macOS, Linux). Will run npm run build before building.
• npm run build-desktop-win: Builds the desktop app for Windows without running npm run build.
• npm run build-desktop-darwin: Builds the desktop apps for macOS (eg. disk image, Mac App Store) without running npm run build. See the details below for more information on building for macOS.
• npm run build-desktop-linux: Builds the desktop apps for Linux (eg. Debian package, AppImage, and Snap) without running npm run build.
• npm run build-desktop-linux-select: Builds the desktop app for Linux without running npm run build. Target is required as a parameter.

The built files will be available under dist that can be uploaded to your app distributor or website.

Building for macOS

More recent version of macOS require that the Gopherdon desktop app be both digitally code-signed and notarized (uploaded to Apple to check for malware). Gopherdon includes the tools necessary to automate this process when building the macOS version either by npm run build-desktop or by npm run build-desktop-darwin.

Make sure you have your provisioning profiles for the Mac App Store (embedded.provisionprofile) and standard distribution (nonmas.provisionprofile) in the desktop directory. These provision profiles can be obtained through Apple Developer. You'll also need to create entitlements files in the desktop directory that list the following entitlements for your app:

• com.apple.security.app-sandbox
• com.apple.security.files.downloads.read-write
• com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write
• com.apple.security.allow-unsigned-executable-memory
• com.apple.security.network.client

For the child ones (inherited entitlements.mas.inherit.plist):

• com.apple.security.app-sandbox
• com.apple.security.inherit
• com.apple.security.files.downloads.read-write
• com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write
• com.apple.security.allow-unsigned-executable-memory
• com.apple.security.network.client

⚠️ Note that the inherited permissions are the same as that of the parent. This is due to an issue where the hardened runtime fails to pass down the inherited properties (see electron/electron#20560). This might change in future versions of macOS.

It is also recommended to add the com.apple.security.applications-groups entry with your bundle's identifier. You'll also need to create an info.plist in the desktop directory containing the team identifier and application identifier and install the developer certificates on the Mac you plan to build from.

You'll also want to modify the notarize.js file to change the details from the default to your App Store Connect account details and app identifier.

⚠️ Warning: The package.json file also includes the build-desktop-darwin-nosign script. This script is specifically intended for automated systems that cannot run notarization (Azure Pipelines, GitHub Actions, etc.). Do not use this command to build production-ready versions of Hyperspace.

Licensing and Credits

Gopherdon is licensed under the Non-violent Public License v4+, a permissive license under the conditions that you do not use this for any unethical purposes and to file patent claims. Please read what your rights are as a Gopherdon user/developer in the license for more information.

Gopherdon has been made possible by the React, TypeScript, Megalodon, and Material-UI projects and our contributors on GitHub.

The Gopher icon used for Gopherdon is registered property of Goucher College.

Contributing

Gopherdon is currently adopting the contribution guidelines and Code of Conduct from the main Hyperspace project.