Developer Guidelines

Getting Started

• The Basics
• Understanding the Domain
• Tutorial

Development Enviroment

• Install a Development Enviroment
• Git Version Control
• Eclipse debugger

Development Process

We define requirements:

• Projects
• BluePrints

Designs should focus on Usability:

• Usability

Designs should fit within our overall architecture:

• Architecture

We write Tests:

• Testing

We keep code conventions to maximise readability & consistency:

• Code Conventions

Code should be documented:

• Documentation

Code should be able to perform well at scale:

• Optimisation

Debugging Tips:

• FAQ
• Python
• JavaScript

Framework

• Sahana Eden Framework: S3
  • S3 API Guide
  • DataTables

• Database Synchronization
• GIS - Mapping
• Internationalization
• DeveloperGuidelines/Libraries
• Menus
• Messaging
• DeveloperGuidelines/Popup
• PrePopulate- initialising the database with lookup lists &/or demo data
• SVG - One way of producing Charts
• Templates for instance configuration
  • CustomPages
  • DeveloperGuidelines/DeploymentSettings
• Themes
• Save Search and Subscription
• Scheduler
• Search
• DeveloperGuidelines/UserManagement
• DeveloperGuidelines/WebServices

Modules

• DeveloperGuidelines/Logistics
• DeveloperGuidelines/Organisations
• DeveloperGuidelinesSurvey
• DeveloperGuidelines/WebSetup

Deployment

Browsers default to only downloading 2 files from the same origin at a time, so many files is very slow on high latency links.

We therefore consolidate into fewer, larger files when running in Production mode.

Although, note that iPhone 3.x cannot cache files larger than 15kb and in iPhone 4 the limit is 25kb. And this is the size before gzipping.

Since GIS is a specialised app which requires many files, it's JS is loaded separately when required.

The build script is static/scripts/tools/build.sahana.py

It needs to be run as a web2py script:

python web2py.py -S eden -M -R applications/eden/static/scripts/tools/build.sahana.py

There is also a convenience wrapper for Windows to run this: static/scripts/tools/build.cmd

You must have an internet connection to run the build script unless you have a local version of the Compiler.

Our build process is based on the one used by OpenLayers

• ​http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/Profiles

This uses Google's Closure compiler to compress the JS. This is done using their web service, however for OpenLayers itself we need to download the jar file & place in the tools folder since this is over 1Mb:

• ​http://closure-compiler.googlecode.com/files/compiler-latest.zip

ToDo: Investigate using other options instead:

• ​http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/compressor/
• ​http://www.crowproductions.de/repos/main/public/packer/jspacker.py

ToDo: Download/execute scripts asynchronously:

• Projects/Advanced/Optimisation

Mobile

• Android - Android clients

XSLT

• XPath: ​http://www.w3schools.com/xpath/default.asp
• XSLT: ​http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/default.asp
• ​lxml Tutorial
• XSLT - Stylesheets for XML & JSON Import/Export

Other Resources

• Tips - useful links to explore

Translations

These are Translated versions of the documentation, which may be outdated compared to the English originals

• German