Re: GSoC: Adding a web interface similar to the Hydra web interface

[Tatiana Sholokhova]

Hi Ricardo,

I agree with your point of view on the interface implementation approaches. Indeed, the approaches are not supposed to be mutually exclusive. As you said the first approach is easier and I have started working closer to this approach. 

I have already created a small module implementing basic HTML templates in Scheme. Also, I have made an extension to the Cuirass Web API. It responds on the "/status" request and generates a page with a minimalistic HTML table displaying the list of specifications stored in the database. 

My login on Savannah is "TSholokhova". I am looking forward to making my first commit. I would be glad to receive comments on my code to be sure that I am moving in the right direction.

You have mentioned that many users would prefer an interface working without _javascript_ running. Am I right that we would like to have a non-interactive (js-free) interface working and also add some functionality (e. g. search tools for tables) via _javascript_? 

Also, I have a couple of questions regarding the frontend part. What frontend framework we would prefer? If I get it right, Hydra uses Bootstrap. For the frontend implementation, we need to include some static css&js files in the interface and serve them somehow. Is it a good idea to serve the static files by Cuirass web server in Scheme? 

Best regards,

Tatiana

2018-05-18 23:35 GMT+03:00 Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden>:

Hi Tatiana,

> I have started thinking about the type of web interface we want to have for
> Cuirass in this project. As far as I see, there are two options:
>
>    - a web application served by Cuirass web server;
>    - a standalone static site which sends queries to the Cuirass web API
>    (this is similar to Danny's application);
>
> I suppose that the first option has more benefits since it allows to choose
> the exact type of information required to be extracted from the database by
> a specific part of the web interface. What do think regarding these options?

You are free to extend the Cuirass web API to suit your application’s
needs.  Having a standalone site is a valid way of providing a web
interface, but it doesn’t have to be the only way of accessing the
information.

Even if you go for the first route, the HTML you serve could talk to the
API.  These two options don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

FWIW, I expect the first approach to be easier because you can use
Scheme for the most part; the pages it serves could be progressively
enhanced with _javascript_, if the client supports it.  I’m sure there are
many users who would prefer a system that would work fine even without
running _javascript_ in the browser.

> How will we organize the development process? More precisely, where
> should I place the implemented code in order to provide access to it
> for our team? In my experience, I have used to create the separate
> branch in the git repository. I would like to know which way of doing
> this you would prefer.

I forgot how we did this for past GSoC, but my preference is to do this
in a separate branch of the Cuirass git repository.  Do you have an
account on Savannah yet?  Once you do we could give you permissions to
push your work to a separate branch on the repository.

(You are free to host the code elsewhere as long as we have read
access via git.)

--
Ricardo