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Confab Development⚓︎

This section of the documentation is intended for developers

Setting Up Dev Environment⚓︎

1. Backend⚓︎

  1. Clone the main Confab repo (and submodules) with git clone https://github.com/nextguyover/Confab.git --recursive
  2. Initially compile email templates with python3 Confab/email_designs/compile.py
  3. Open Confab/Confab.sln in Visual Studio
  4. Open appsettings.json and set ConfabParams:ExternalUrl to "localhost", and enter an email address in UserRoles:Admin
  5. Start the program. If everything worked correctly, Swagger UI should be available at http://localhost:2632/swagger/index.html

2. ConfabUI⚓︎

  1. cd to the ConfabUI submodule directory
  2. Create a .env file in this directory and add the following 
    PUBLIC_API_URL="http://localhost:2632"
  3. Start the dev server with npm install && npm run dev

3. First Login⚓︎

  1. Navigate to the frontend dev server URL (Default is http://localhost:5173/)
  2. Since current location has not yet been initialised, Confab will display an error. Ignore this and click "Go to login" in the top right of the widget.
  3. Enter the email that you entered under UserRoles:Admin previously
  4. Since SMTP probably hasn't been configured yet, you can instead find the login code printed out to the Confab console. Use this to login.
  5. Once successfully logged in, open the Admin Panel and initialise commenting at the current location.

Building Confab⚓︎

Prerequisites⚓︎

  • .NET 6.0 SDK (1)

    1. Install on Ubuntu with the following command: 
      sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-6.0

  • NodeJS (1)

    1. For Ubuntu, Fast Node Manager (fnm) usually works well, install via the following commands: 
      curl -fsSL https://fnm.vercel.app/install | bash
source /home/ubuntu/.bashrc
fnm install 20.10.0

  • Python (1)

    1. Python is necessary to run build scripts, but isn't strictly necessary for a fully manual build

Download the project files by cloning the Github repository: git clone https://github.com/nextguyover/Confab.git --recursive

Option 1 - Build Script⚓︎

Confab comes with a build script that automates the build process. 

python3 ./Confab/confab-builder.py # (1)!

  1. CLI Options: 
    usage: confab_builder [-h] [-m {ui,backend,full}] [-c] [-p PLATFORM] [-b]

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -m {ui,backend,full}, --mode {ui,backend,full}
                        Choose whether to build UI, backend, or both
  -c, --clean           Clean build
  -p PLATFORM, --platform PLATFORM
                        Compile .NET backend for specific platform (leave empty for current platform).
  -b, --bundle-runtime  Bundle .NET runtime (will run without requiring .NET runtime to be installed, but will increase build size)

Option 2 - Build Manually⚓︎

Step 1: Build Confab UI⚓︎

  1. Change bash shell directory to the Confab UI folder (Confab/ConfabUI)
  2. Run UI build script 
    python3 build.py
  1. Change bash shell directory to the Confab UI folder (Confab/ConfabUI)
  2. Install dependencies 
    npm install
  3. Build UI 
    npm run build
  4. Move build files 
    mv ./dist/* ../Confab/wwwroot

Step 2: Compile Email Templates⚓︎

  1. Change bash shell directory to the Email template folder (Confab/email_designs)
  2. Run UI build script 
    python3 compile.py
  1. Change bash shell directory to the Email template folder (Confab/email_designs)

  2. Install dependencies 

    npm install

  3. Compile email templates 

    ./node_modules/.bin/mjml ./templates/*.mjml -o ../Confab/App_Data/email_templates/  --config.minify true --config.beautify false

Step 3: Compile Confab Backend⚓︎

  1. Change bash shell directory to the backend folder (Confab/Confab)
  2. Build Confab 
    dotnet publish --configuration Release --output ../App
  3. Move scripts to build directory 
    mv ../scripts/* ../App

🎉 That's it! 🎉

Your build of Confab should now be found at Confab/App.