Getting Started

Want to get started with saywat? Read on.

Introduction

You will need these tools to run saywat locally:

• nodejs runtime - download
• MongoDB database as the backing store - download

I will refer to the folder D:\Tools\MongoDB\ where I have unzipped the contents of the MongoDB installer in the rest of this guide. You may have used a different location, but I highly recommend using a folder which requires non-administration rights as it needs write permissions to the directory.

Some other features of saywat:

• ExpressJS MVC framework read more
• Jade template engine - If you have seen HAML syntax it will probably feel familiar, but this may be a learning curve for people used to having angle brackets to guide their eyes. read more
• Mongoose - the MongoDB data access library read more

Local Dev

Once you have downloaded the tools and cloned the repository to your computer, you can run the app locally:

Start local MongoDB

• open an command prompt
• navigate to D:\Tools\MongoDB\ - you should see something like this:

    D:\Tools\MongoDB>ls

    Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
    ----                -------------     ------ ----
    d----         6/04/2012  11:36 AM            bin
    -a---        19/03/2012   3:22 PM      35181 GNU-AGPL-3.0
    -a---        19/03/2012   3:22 PM       1364 README
    -a---        19/03/2012   3:22 PM      10112 THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES

• create the data directory: mkdir data\db
• add a config file named saywat.txt to the directory. It should contain these settings:

    dbpath = .\data\db\
    bind_ip = 127.0.0.1
    noauth = true # use 'true' for options that don't take an argument
    verbose = true # to disable, comment out.

• start the MongoDB daemon with the config file: .\bin\mongod.exe --config saywat.txt
• to stop the server, press CTRL + C.

Start application

• open a command prompt
• navigate to the folder containing the code
• ensure the dependencies for the application are installed using npm: npm install
• run the application: node app.js
• point your browser at http://localhost:3000 to see the home page.

Running tests

• First you need to install the development dependencies using npm: npm install -d
• Then simply run npm test to run the tests defined in the /test folder
• You can also run jshint over the code with hint.cmd or node utils\hint which will help you spot bugs and ensure you are matching the coding style used in the rest of the site.

Then what?

Get a good editor

The syntax highlighting will definitely help:

• Notepad++
• Sublime Text 2

Browse the task board

Have a look at the Trello board for this week - some basic ideas up there based on the workflow and mockups discussed earlier but these will likely evolve over time.

Contact the people in the Code52 JabbR chatroom if you would like to get write access to the board and start working on features!