The Viaduc project includes 6 code repositories. This current repository cmi-iiif-frontend is the IIIF viewer that allows the user to view digital content online in the browser. It is focused on tree views but also works with single manifests. It's based on the open-source project Archival IIIF Viewer.
The viewer uses services that are provided by the backend (cmi-iiif-backend).
The other repositories include the applications public access (cmi-viaduc-web-frontend) and the internal management (cmi-viaduc-web-management); both are Angular applications that access basic services of another Angular library called cmi-viaduc-web-core. The Angular applications are hosted in an ASP.NET container (see backend repository cmi-viaduc-backend) and communicate with the system via web API.
Note: A general description of the repositories can be found in the repository cmi-viaduc.
- Install Node.js
- Install yarn
- Install Node Version Manager (NVM)
nvm useto use the correct node version. Follow installation instructions, if the target node version is not installed yet.
yarnto install dependenciesyarn startto run the watch process based onwebpack-dev-server
!! Please read the chapter Environment Configuration first, to make sure you choose the right build task for your usecase. !!
This build has to be run, if we want the content of .env to be compiled into ./public/config.json
yarn build
This build job has to be run, if the environment configuration file needs to be left as it is. (see: ./public/config.json)
yarn build:generic
The configuration of an application usually changes depending on the environment it is running in.
To allow this flexibility, the package dotenv is often used. It allows the definition of dedicated .env files per environment. The values defined there are replacing the placeholders in the code during the watch and build process. This leads to hardcoded values throughout the codebase.
This approach is fine in most cases, but has the disadvantage that a build cannot be used across multiple environments.
In this project, however, it is required that a build can be installed on multiple environments.
Therefore, it's necessary:
- to decouple the environment variables from the code so that during the build they are not written directly to the source code.
- to provide a way for these variables to be written to the server at runtime.
- further, to provide the ability to conveniently set the environment variables via
.envso as not to make local development more complex than necessary.
To decouple the environment variables from the code, a logic was introduced that swaps the content of the .env variable into a config.json. This config.json is loaded via Ajax call when the application is loaded and is thus available in the JavaScript code at runtime.
The config.json should contain placeholders instead of actual values if required. These placeholders are then replaced with the actual values on the target environment.
GNU Affero General Public License (AGPLv3), see LICENSE
This repository is a copy which is updated regularly - therefore contributions via pull requests are not possible. However, independent copies (forks) are possible under consideration of the AGPLV3 license.
- For general questions (and technical support), please contact the Swiss Federal Archives by e-mail at [email protected].
- Technical questions or problems concerning the source code can be posted here on GitHub via the "Issues" interface.