Offline Referencing Tool using Web Technologies

Project Unit Code: CDA600

Project tutor: Nick Whitelegg

Licence: See LICENCE.md

Folder Structure

Currently, the project is broken into:

• server
  • server.js
  • get_references.js
  • get_user_id.js
  • delete_folder.js

• client

Both a "server" and a "client" are needed in order to make sure that referencing is handled correctly.

Setup

You need to:

• Install MongoDB binary

• npm install, which should bring down all of the necessary components

  • The packages babel-cli, babel-preset-es2015, whatwg-fetch, uuid, dexie will need to be downloaded onto your machine
  • You may need to follow their installation instructions in order to create a working configuration.
  • e.g. for MongoDB, sudo npm install -g mongodb; sudo npm link mongodb was used to set up the MongoDB Node.js driver.
  • You will need to have valid HTTPS certificates in order to make use of Service Worker. Therefore, you may need to purchase, aquire or generate some self-signed certificates.
  • To use the Offline Referencing Tool on a local development server, you can generate self-signed certificates using simplehttp2server. On the first run of the program, it will generate two files: key.pem and cert.pem. These files are already preconfigured for use with the Offline Referencing Tool.

• You may need to change the IP_ADDR, PORT and URL_ADDR for the hosting environment of your choice.

• In order to run the server, type: node server.js. This will start the server, and the website can be browsed from there.

File Structure

As there is little to no file structure, the files belong to each component:

• Server

  • get_user_id.js, used when the user first browses the site
  • delete_folder.js, used to delete the folder from the server side and to return a HTTP status code
  • get_references.js, used to return the folder from the server side.
  • index.html, which is returned to the user if they request the root "/" or "index.html" from server.js, and contains the core framework for the application
  • test_web_services.html, a rudimentary page that offers a small testing platform. Separate code may be needed in order to test the web services.
  • server.js, the main server-side script that runs the offline referencing tool, and processess any requests that are made from the client-side to the server-side

• Client

  • dexie.js, used for IndexedDB manipulation
  • ort.css, for the basic style of the site
  • ort.js, the compiled version of ort_es6.js
  • ort_es6.js, which handles the client-side functionality, including registering the Service Worker, handling IndexedDB, and other duties
  • ort_service_worker.js, this is the Service Worker which is registered if the user has a supported browser