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Table of Contents

Child pages

UI Development

Set up the Maven Build

  1. Fork the Sage-Bionetworks SynapseWebClient repository into your own GitHub account: https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo

  2. Clone the SynapseWebClient project down to your computer: git clone https://github.com/[YOUR GITHUB NAME]/SynapseWebClient.git
  3. Follow the instructions on the Platform Bootstrap.
  4. Change the synapse.version tag to develop-SNAPSHOT.
    1. The synapse.version tag in root pom.xml has the form 2012-08-06-3e90a85-44, it has the date (2012-08-06) and the first 7 chars of the commit hash, 3e90a85.
  5. Now, from an up-to-date clone of Synapse-Repository-Services on your local box:
    1. mvn clean install -Dorg.sagebionetworks.database.drop.schema=true
    2. cd integration-test
    3. mvn cargo:run

    4. Verify the services are running correctly by visiting http://localhost:8080/services-repository-develop-SNAPSHOT/repo/v1/version you should see something like this:

      Code Block
      {"version":"develop-SNAPSHOT"}
  6. Now, in your up-to-date clone of SynapseWebClient:
    1. mvn gwt:run
    2. A GWT Development Mode log window should pop-up.
  7. Now try to open the web-app from the Dev Mode window.  You should be prompted to install the GWT Dev Mode plugin (assuming your browser is supported).

Set up the Eclipse Build

...

  1. Internal Sage developers will be added as a developer on the project and will be able to push directly
  2. External contributors should fork the repository and submit GitHub Pull Requests for code inclusion

...

Set up Git: https://help.github.com/articles/set-up-git

...

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Child pages

UI Development

Prerequisite software to install

  • Java (Corretto JDK 11+ recommended)

  • Maven 3

  • Docker

  • pnpm v9

Set up your GitHub fork and a local repository

  1. Create a GitHub user account if you don't already have one.

  2. Set up your local git environment according to /wiki/spaces/IT/pages/802881544

  3. Fork the Sage-Bionetworks SynapseWebClient repository into your own GitHub account: https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo

  4. Clone your fork of SynapseWebClient project to your local machine and enter the project root directory

    Code Block
    languagebash
    git clone https://github.com/[YOUR GITHUB NAME]/SynapseWebClient.git
cd SynapseWebClient

  5. If you didn't set up the global pre-commit hook in step #2, set up a local pre-commit hook to detect secrets (do this for all repos that you clone in the future!):

    Code Block
    git secrets --install
git secrets --register-aws

  6. Set up upstream with

    Code Block
    git remote add upstream https://github.com/Sage-Bionetworks/SynapseWebClient

  7. Fetch and merge changes from the Sage Bionetworks repo, which was named upstream: 

    Code Block
    git fetch upstream

  8. Configure or update your Maven configuration settings.xml

    1. The file needs to placed in $HOME/.m2/settings.xml (e.g. jane/.m2/settings.xml)

    2. This should be the content of this file:

      settings.xml

      Code Block
      languagexml
      <settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
                      http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
  <localRepository/>
  <interactiveMode/>
  <usePluginRegistry/>
  <offline/>
  <pluginGroups/>
  <servers/>
  <mirrors/>
  <proxies/>
  <profiles>
    <profile>
      <id>dev-environment</id>
      <activation>
        <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
      </activation>
      <properties>
		<org.sagebionetworks.portal.endpoint>http://127.0.0.1:8888/Portal.html</org.sagebionetworks.portal.endpoint>
        <org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>https://repo-prod.prod.sagebase.org/repo/v1</org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>
        <!-- insert properties described below here -->
        <!-- If you want to point to a different stack (staging, dev), comment out the above and uncomment one of the below -->
        <!-- <org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>https://repo-staging.prod.sagebase.org/repo/v1</org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint> -->
        <!-- <org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>https://repo-dev.dev.sagebase.org/repo/v1</org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint> -->
        <!-- Uncomment the property below to limit GWT permutations and speed up build time -->
        <!-- <gwt.module.suffix>Debug</gwt.module.suffix> -->
      </properties>
    </profile>
  </profiles>
  <activeProfiles/>
</settings>

  9. Verify you can build the project and run the unit tests:

    Code Block
    mvn clean install

Development

You may use an IDE of your choice. Instructions for setting up IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse can be found below.

Running SynapseWebClient in development mode requires many different services, including the GWT Codeserver, a Vite codeserver, a Java servlet (Tomcat), and the Sage Bionetworks Account site (required to sign in via UI). For convenience, we maintain a few different ways to run SWC in development mode.

Expand
titleRunning all services in Docker containers (docker compose) [PREFERRED]

To run the app in development mode in a set of Docker containers, you can run pnpm start:<stack>, where stack is one of development,staging,production. This will invoke docker compose to instantiate a container for each service required to run the app in development mode. The latest version of the accounts site (SageAccountWeb) will also be launched on port 3000 as a convenience.

Expand
titleDevelopment mode using native Java/Maven installation

To run the app in development mode, run pnpm install then pnpm dev. This will launch three processes:

  • The GWT Codeserver, which compiles Java to JavaScript, and watches for source changes

  • The Vite codeserver, which bundles JavaScript assets and watches for source changes

  • A file watcher that monitors changes to static assets, and copies them to the deployed web application directory when they change

  • An Apache Tomcat Docker container that will host the web application

Note that this does NOT run the Sage account management application (SageAccountWeb), which is separate from SWC. If you want to log in through the UI, you must run SageAccountWeb on port 3000. You can either run SageAccountWeb in synapse-web-monorepo, or you can run the latest Docker image for SageAccountWeb.

Running the local version of SageAccountWeb

SynapseWebClient delegates authentication and account management to a separate web application. In order to sign in to a local instance of SynapseWebClient, you must also start a local instance of the account management application. Set up the synapse-web-monorepo project and run the following command.

Code Block
 pnpm nx run SageAccountWeb:start --port=3000 --host --mode=development

If your portal instance is configured to use to a different backend stack, you will need to configure SageAccountWeb to also use the same stack (i.e. --mode=production or --mode=staging).

Running the accounts site in a Docker image

You can run the latest version of the accounts site (synapse-web-monorepo/main) with the following command:

Code Block
docker run -it --rm -d -p 3000:80 --name SageAccountWeb ghcr.io/sage-bionetworks/sage-account-web:latest-development

If you want the site to point to staging/production, change development in the image tag to the stack you want to point to.

Alternative ways to run SynapseWebClient in development mode

Instead of running pnpm dev, you can alternatively directly use the GWT Maven plugin (e.g. mvn gwt:run) or an IDE integration. Please note that depending on your IDE/plugin configuration, your environment may be subtly different than the production system (e.g. many GWT plugins deploy a Jetty server, when we use Tomcat in production), which can result in subtle differences in behavior.

Once the service is started, you should be able to see the app at http://127.0.0.1:8888/ .

As you make changes to the source code and static assets, changes will be picked up in the app when you refresh the page.

JavaScript dependency development

If you have made changes to a JavaScript dependency (e.g. synapse-react-client), you can see those changes in your local development environment by “linking” the projects. As an example, we will link the synapse-react-client project.

  1. In the SynapseWebClient directory, run

    Code Block
    pnpm link ../path/to/synapse-web-monrepo/packages/synapse-react-client

    This will create a symlink on your machine so the node_modules/synapse-react-client directory points to your local synapse-react-client directory.

  2. Make desired changes in the synapse-react-client project

  3. Rebuild the JavaScript artifacts for synapse-react-client (in synapse-web-monorepo, run pnpm nx run synapse-react-client:build)

  4. If you’re running pnpm dev, the changed JavaScript file should automatically be picked up. Refresh your browser window to see the changes (you will likely need to open your browser dev tools → Network → Disable Cache, and leave the browser devtools open)

Info

If you’re using Docker Compose to run the development server, you must add your locally-linked package as a volume on the container. Instructions on how to do this are in compose-link.yml.

When you want to unlink synapse-react-client, in the SynapseWebClient directory you can run pnpm unlink synapse-react-client.

Note

Linking a package updates the lockfile to reference the local repository, so you must unlink the package before you commit changes to the lockfile.

IDE Setup Instructions

This section contains instructions for setting up various IDEs to develop SynapseWebClient.

Expand
titleSetup with Eclipse

  1. Install the latest Eclipse (for Java Development)

  2. Install the Google Plug-in for Eclipse.  Do not include GWT SDK in the install (GWT SDK will be installed by the maven install).  Do not install the Google App Engine Maven Integration.

  3. Import the project as a maven project

    1. File → Import → Maven → Existing Maven Projects

    2. Next, in Root Directory enter the local path to your repository clone

...

    2. Next,

...

    1. Finish 

  2. You need to make sure the GWT xml files are on the classpath. All of these resources can be found in src/main/resources and src/test/resources directories. 

    1. Right-click on portal (project name

...

    1. ) → Build Path → Configure Build Path...

    2. Remove the "Exclude" filter from the source tab on the src/main/resources and src/test/resources directories.

  2. We need to tell the GWT Eclipse-plugin that this is a GWT project. Do this by Right-Clicking on the project in the package explorer and select: Google

...

  1. → Web Toolkit Settings...

    1. From the resulting dialog make sure the "Use Google Web

...

    1. Toolkit" check box is selected.

    2. Also make sure you are using

...

  1.  From the tree on the left of the dialog navigate to Google->Web Application
  2. Check the the check box: "This project has a WAR directory"
  3. With the "Browse" button, select "src/main/webapp"
  4. UN-CHECK the "Launch and deploy from this directory"  This is very important, if you keep this checked then Maven will not be able to generate a clean WAR file.  If you see "GWT needs to recompile" when you deploy your WAR then you probably have this box checked.

...

  1. Right-Click on the project from the package explorer.
  2. Select Google->Web Toolkit Settings...
  3. Under the "entry point modules" you should see "Portal - org.sagebionetworks.web",  if not, then add it with the add button.

...

    1. the GWT SDK from your local maven repository (.m2/repository/com/google/gwt)

  2. Verify GWT can compile your code

    1. Right-Click on the project from the package explorer.

    2. Select Google→GWT Compile...

    3. Under the "Entry Point Modules" you should see "PortalDebug - org.sagebionetworks.web",  if not, then add it with the add button.

    4. Remove the "Portal - org.sagebionetworks.web" entry.

    5. The first time you run this you will be asked to select the output directory where GWT will compile the code. You want this to match the Maven WAR output directory, so use "target/portal-<VERSION>-SNAPSHOT"

    6. If you get compilation errors from the JavaScript validator (i.e. NullPointerException), navigate to the project's properties → JavaScript → Include Path → Source, and exclude all files from the source. If an OutOfMemoryError was thrown while compiling, you can click the "Advanced" tab towards the bottom of the Google → GWT Compile window and add "-Xms512M -Xmx1524M" to the VM arguments to increase heap space.

  3. If the GWT Compile successfully compiled, then you're ready to run the application.

    1. Right-Click on the project in the package explorer

...

  1. Right-Click on the project in the package explorer
  2. Select: Run As->Web Application
  3. Double-click on the link provided in the Development Mode window to view the portal in your browser.  If you get asked what page to start on choose Portal.html
  4. If you get a 404 error, you may need to navigate to the project root directory and "mvn clean install".

Setup GWT SuperDevMode

As of Chrome version 39, the old GWT Development Mode is no longer available.
Using Super Dev Mode (SDM) means running two servers, one for the web application and one for the Code Server that compiles classes for SDM when the compile button is pushed on the web page or in the bookmark.

First thing to do is to make sure that your Google Plugin for Eclipse is up to date (version >=  3.8.0.v201410302155-rel-r42).
NOTE: After we update to GWT v2.6 or greater, this section needs to be rewritten (can be a single launch configuration if using GWT 2.6).

  • In your existing web application Portal launch configuration (created in the previous section above), add the following to the VM Arguments: "-Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -Dgwt.codeserver.port=9876"

Now it's time to create a new Run Configuration for the Code Server:

  • From the Run Configurations window, add a new Java Application, named "Portal GWT Super Dev Mode Code Server" (for example).
  • Set the Project to the Portal project.
  • Set the Main Class to com.google.gwt.dev.codeserver.CodeServer
  • Set the Program Arguments to "-src <SynapseWebClient_root_directory>/src/main/java -port 9876 org.sagebionetworks.web.Portal"

You should now be ready to launch the Code Server.  Here are a couple of common problems...

  • Missing jars in your WEB-INF/lib directory (the maven dependencies)?  Go to the command line and run: "mvn eclipse:eclipse -Dwtpversion=2.0" to automatically add these libraries to the Deployment Assembly.  After running this command, you may get this error in Eclipse: "Java compiler level does not match the version of the installed Java project facet." If so, bring up the Portal project Properties, select Project Facets from the list, and fix the Java version.
  • Serialization problems? Due to this known issue that applies to GWT v2.5.1, you should always run the Code Server first, then start the Portal web application once the code server is available. We now copy over gwt.rpc files on servlet init as a workaround until we upgrade to GWT v2.6.

Eclipse Workspace Settings

Set file encoding to UTF-8 and the line-endings (for new files) to Unix, so that text files are saved in a format that is not specific to the Windows or Mac OS and most easily shared across heterogeneous developer desktops:

  • Open Preferences
  • Navigate to the Workspace preferences: General->Workspace
  • Change the Text File Encoding to UTF-8
  • Change the New Text File Line Delimiter to Other and select Unix from the drop-down

...

When the root pom.xml's version changes (upon each sprint's release), your dev mode will be broken (giving either a 404 or a 503 error when you try to view the page at http://127.0.0.1:8888/Portal.html?gwt.codesvr=127.0.0.1:9997. To fix this you can try the following things:

  • Remove all of your PLFM projects, check out a fresh copy of the PLFM project and start from the beginning of this document.
  • Performing a Maven update.
  • Alternatively, you can just rebuild your Eclipse's Portal project and keep your files in place:
  1. Git pull update to the newest version
  2. Delete your project from Eclipse (leave "Delete project contents on disk" UNCHECKED)
  3. Go to the project root on your file system and delete .classpath, .project and the .settings/ folder
  4. Go to Step 7 in "UI Development above"

If this still doesn't work, or your dev mode is broken for another reason, there are some further steps you can take.
(Check out this site for more information: http://www.eclipsezone.com/eclipse/forums/t61566.html)

  1. Use the '-clean' argument.
    1. One way to do this is to add -clean on its own line as the first line on the eclipse.ini file, and restart Eclipse.
  2. Use a new workspace.
    1. I followed the instructions in the site linked above. The gist of it is:
      1. Export your preferences to somewhere outside your Eclipse environment environment (Export -> General -> Preferences. Make sure that 'Export All' is checked.)
      2. Switch to a new workspace. (Switch Workspace -> Other, then name your new workspace.)
      3. Import your preferences into this new workspace (Import -> General -> Preferences, make sure 'Import All' is checked.)
      4. Import trunk as usual.

Technologies used

There are several technologies that we are currently utilizing in the portal. The following is a list of primers for each:

 

...

    2. Select: Run As → GWT Development Mode with Jetty, and select Portal.html

    3. Double-click on the link provided in the Development Mode window to view the portal in your browser. 

  2. To run the unit tests:

    1. Right-Click on the project from the package explorer.

    2. Select: Run As → JUnit Test

Eclipse Workspace Settings verification:

Set file encoding to UTF-8 and the line-endings (for new files) to Unix, so that text files are saved in a format that is not specific to the Windows or Mac OS and most easily shared across heterogeneous developer desktops:

  • Open Preferences

  • Navigate to the Workspace preferences: General → Workspace

  • Change the Text File Encoding to UTF-8

  • Change the New Text File Line Delimiter to Other and select Unix from the drop-down

Troubleshooting

  • Check your exclusion filters through configure build path in Eclipse to assure nothing is excluded, then refresh and clean the SWC project.

  • (git) Pull the latest changes from the upstream repository.

  • Try to rebuild your Eclipse's Portal project and keep your files in place.

  • Perform a Maven update.  

  1. Delete your project from Eclipse (leave "Delete project contents on disk" UNCHECKED)

  2. Go to the project root on your file system and delete .classpath, .project and the .settings/ folder

  3. Go to "Set up with Eclipse"

Verify the web app directory is correct. Right-click on the project in the package explorer and select Properties:

  1.  From the tree on the left of the dialog navigate to Google → Web Application

  2. Check the the check box: "This project has a WAR directory"

  3. With the "Browse" button, select "src/main/webapp"

  4. UN-CHECK the "Launch and deploy from this directory"  This is very important, if you keep this checked then Maven will not be able to generate a clean WAR file.  If you see "GWT needs to recompile" when you deploy your WAR then you probably have this box checked

If this still doesn't work, or your dev mode is broken for another reason, there are some further steps you can take.

  1. Use the '-clean' argument.

    1. One way to do this is to add -clean on its own line as the first line on the eclipse.ini file, and restart Eclipse.

  2. Use a new workspace.

    1. I followed the instructions in the site linked above. The gist of it is:

      1. Export your preferences to somewhere outside your Eclipse environment environment (Export → General → Preferences. Make sure that 'Export All' is checked.)

      2. Switch to a new workspace. (Switch Workspace → Other, then name your new workspace.)

      3. Import your preferences into this new workspace (Import → General → Preferences, make sure 'Import All' is checked.)

      4. Import trunk as usual.

Expand
titleSetup with Intellij IDEA

  1. Download IntelliJ IDEA 

    1. The community edition is free

    2. The Ultimate edition requires purchasing a license. It includes enhanced support for GWT, but it’s not necessary for development. 

  2. Import the SynapseWebClient project into IntelliJ by File → New Project From Existing Sources... <Select Path to SWC Location>

  3. Set up IntelliJ to directly call pnpm dev

    1. Run → Edit Configurations…

    2. Click “Add New Configuration” → npm

    3. Set the following options

      • Command: run

      • Script: dev

      • Package manager: pnpm

Technologies used

There are several technologies that we are currently utilizing in the portal. The following is a list of primers for each:

End-to-end testing

Instructions on running end-to-end tests are included in this README.

How to point to a local instance of the Synapse backend

  1. Follow the instructions on the Platform Bootstrap to set up a local backend stack. 

  2. Build and launch a local backend stack.  From an up-to-date clone of Synapse-Repository-Services on your local box:

    1. Build the local stack by running mvn clean install -Dorg.sagebionetworks.database.drop.schema=true.

    2. Now launch it:

      Code Block
      cd integration-test
mvn cargo:run

    3. Verify the services are running correctly by visiting http://localhost:8080/services-repository-develop-SNAPSHOT/repo/v1/version. You should see something like this:

      Code Block
      {"version":"develop-SNAPSHOT"}

  3. In the SWC project root pom.xml, change the synapse.version tag to develop-SNAPSHOT, so that Maven utilizes artifacts that were built by running on your local stack.

  4. Update the repository endpoint property in your maven settings.xml file:

    Code Block
    <org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>http://localhost:8080/services-repository-develop-SNAPSHOT/repo/v1</org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>

  5. Restart the Portal app to load these properties from settings.xml.

Emails will not be sent when pointing to a local repo, the SynapseEmailService will instead write files to the devdata.sagebase.org s3 bucket in format <to_email_address>.json

How to point to a remote stack

Set the repository endpoint parameters in your maven settings.xml file. 

To point to the development stack set:

Code Block
<org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>https://repo-dev.dev.sagebase.org/repo/v1</org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>

To point to staging set:

Code Block
<org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>https://repo-staging.prod.sagebase.org/repo/v1</org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>

To point to production set:

Code Block
<org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>https://repo-prod.prod.sagebase.org/repo/v1</org.sagebionetworks.repositoryservice.endpoint>

Restart the Portal app to load this property from settings.xml.

Documenting complicated UI in the code

To get the big picture of widget relationships, sometimes it is helpful to have a picture.  We are testing the use of tools like https://mermaid.js.org/ to help in these situations.

Compile Report

To generate a compile report, set enableClosureCompiler to false in the root pom.xml