First, install Meteor.
Second, create your own repository using code from https://github.com/rydery/digits
Third, go to your newly created repository, and click the "Clone or download" button to download your new GitHub repo to your local file system. Using GitHub Desktop is a great choice if you use MacOS or Windows.
Fourth, cd into the app/ directory of your local copy of the repo, and install third party libraries with:
$ meteor npm install
Once the libraries are installed, you can run the application by invoking the "start" script in the package.json file:
$ meteor npm run start
The first time you run the app, it will create some default users and data. Here is the output:
meteor npm run start
> meteor-application-template-react@ start /Users/philipjohnson/github/ics-software-engineering/meteor-application-template-react/app
> meteor --no-release-check --settings ../config/settings.development.json
[[[[[ ~/github/ics-software-engineering/meteor-application-template-react/app ]]]]]
=> Started proxy.
=> Started MongoDB.
I20180227-13:33:02.716(-10)? Creating the default user(s)
I20180227-13:33:02.742(-10)? Creating user admin@foo.com.
I20180227-13:33:02.743(-10)? Creating user john@foo.com.
I20180227-13:33:02.743(-10)? Creating default data.
I20180227-13:33:02.743(-10)? Adding: Basket (john@foo.com)
I20180227-13:33:02.743(-10)? Adding: Bicycle (john@foo.com)
I20180227-13:33:02.743(-10)? Adding: Banana (admin@foo.com)
I20180227-13:33:02.744(-10)? Adding: Boogie Board (admin@foo.com)
=> Started your app.
=> App running at: http://localhost:3000/
You will also get the following message when you run this application:
Note: you are using a pure-JavaScript implementation of bcrypt.
While this implementation will work correctly, it is known to be
approximately three times slower than the native implementation.
In order to use the native implementation instead, run
meteor npm install --save bcrypt
in the root directory of your application.
On some operating systems (particularly Windows), installing bcrypt is much more difficult than implied by the above message. Bcrypt is only used in Meteor for password checking, so the performance implications are negligible until your site has very high traffic. You can safely ignore this warning without any problems during initial stages of development.
Intermittently, you may see the following error message in the console when the system starts up:
MongoError: not master and slaveOk=false
at queryCallback (/Users/philipjohnson/.meteor/packages/npm-mongo/.3.1.1.1mmptof.qcqo++os+web.browser+web.browser.legacy+web.cordova/npm/node_modules/mongodb-core/lib/cursor.js:248:25)
at /Users/philipjohnson/.meteor/packages/npm-mongo/.3.1.1.1mmptof.qcqo++os+web.browser+web.browser.legacy+web.cordova/npm/node_modules/mongodb-core/lib/connection/pool.js:532:18
at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:131:7)
at process._tickDomainCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:218:9)
While irritating, this message appears to be harmless and possibly related to a race condition between the development instance of Mongo and Meteor. By harmless, I mean that in most cases, the console goes on to display App running at: http://localhost:3000/ and no problems occur during run time.
If all goes well, the template application will appear at http://localhost:3000. You can login using the credentials in settings.development.json, or else register a new account.
When you retrieve the app at http://localhost:3000, this is what should be displayed:
The next step is to use the Login menu to either Login to an existing account or register a new account.
Clicking on the Login link, then on the Sign In menu item displays this page:
Alternatively, clicking on the Login link, then on the Sign Up menu item displays this page:
Once you log in (either to an existing account or by creating a new one), the navbar changes as follows:
You can now add new Stuff documents, and list the Stuff you have created. Note you cannot see any Stuff created by other users.
After logging in, here is the page that allows you to add new contacts:
After logging in, here is the page that allows you to list all the contacts you have:
You click the "Edit" link to go to the Edit Stuff page, shown next.
After clicking on the "Edit" link associated with an item, this page displays that allows you to change and save it:
You can define an "admin" user in the settings.json file. This user, after logging in, gets a special entry in the navbar:
To provide a simple example of a "super power" for Admin users, the Admin page lists all of the contacts by all of the users:
Note that non-admin users cannot get to this page, even if they type in the URL by hand.