galaxy/client/README.md

# Client Build System

Installs, stages, and builds the client-side scripts necessary for running the
Galaxy web client. When started through `run.sh` or any other method that
utilizes `scripts/common_startup.sh`, Galaxy will (since 18.09) _automatically_
build the client as a part of server startup when it detects changes unless that
functionality is explicitly disabled.

The base dependencies used are Node.js and Yarn. Galaxy includes appropriate
versions of these in the virtual environment, and they can be accessed by
activating that with `. .venv/bin/activate` from the Galaxy root directory.

If you'd like to install your dependencies external to Galaxy, on OSX the
easiest way to get set up is using `homebrew` and the command `brew install
nodejs yarn`. More information, including instructions for other platforms, is
available at [https://nodejs.org](https://nodejs.org) and
[https://yarnpkg.com/](https://yarnpkg.com).

The Galaxy client build has necessarily grown more complex in the past several
years, but we are still trying to keep things as simple as possible for
everyone. If you're having any trouble with building the client after following
the instructions below, please create an issue on GitHub or reach out for help
directly on Gitter at
[https://gitter.im/galaxyproject/Lobby](https://gitter.im/galaxyproject/Lobby).

## Complete Client Build

There are many moving parts to the client build system, but the entry point for
most people is the 'client' rule in the Makefile at the root of the Galaxy
repository. Execute the following to perform a complete build suitable for local
development, including dependency staging, style building, script processing,
and bundling. This is a development-specific build that includes extra debugging
features and excludes several production optimizations made during the build
process.

    make client

For a production build, suitable for deploying to a live server, use the
following:

    make client-production

And, lastly, if you want a production build that includes sourcemaps to allow
for inspection of live javascript to facilitate debugging, use:

    make client-production-maps

Important Note: The Galaxy repository does not include client script artifacts,
and these should not be committed.

## Automatic Rebuilding

When you're actively developing, it is convenient to have the client
automatically rebuild every time you save a file. You can do this using:

    make client-dev-server

Or, with the package scripts from this `client` directory:

    yarn run develop

This will start up an extra client development server running on port 8081. Open
your browser to `http://localhost:8081` (instead of the default 8080 that Galaxy
would run on), and you should see Galaxy like normal. Except now, when you
change client code it'll automatically rebuild _and_ reload the relevant portion
of the application for you. Lastly, if you are running Galaxy at a location
other than the default, you can specify a different proxy target (in this
example, port 8000) using the GALAXY_URL environment variable:

    GALAXY_URL="http://localhost:8000" make client-dev-server

Sometimes you want to run your local UI against a remote Galaxy server. This is
also possible if you set the `CHANGE_ORIGIN` environment variable:

    CHANGE_ORIGIN=true GALAXY_URL="https://usegalaxy.org/" make client-dev-server

You can also specify a particular port to bind the dev server to:

    WEBPACK_PORT=8083 yarn run develop

## Running a Separate Server

When developing the client it can be helpful to run a local server for the
client to connect to, and run the client separately with one of the above
commands. This command will run galaxy without building the client:

    make skip-client

Or by setting the following environment variable and running Galaxy however you
prefer:

    GALAXY_SKIP_CLIENT_BUILD=1 ./run.sh

## Changing Styles/CSS

Galaxy uses Sass for globally applied styling, which is a superset of CSS that
compiles down to regular CSS. Most Galaxy styling source (.scss) files are kept
in `client/src/style/scss`. Many components will also have local style blocks
containing styles that are particular to that individual component and do not
apply site-wide.

On build, the compiled css bundle is served at `/static/dist/base.css`.

As mentioned above, `make client` will rebuild styles as a part of the webpack
build. For iterative development, "Watch Mode" rebuilds as described above do
include style changes.

## Client-Side Unit Testing

Galaxy's client is undergoing an extensive refactoring and modernizing process.
As part of this initiative, we would like to request that all new client-side
code submissions come with accompanying javascript unit-tests for the
developer-facing API of your new code.

### Testing Technologies

[Galaxy uses Jest](https://jestjs.io/) for its client-side unit testing
framework.

For testing Vue components, we use the [Vue testing
utils](https://vue-test-utils.vuejs.org/) to mount individual components in a
test bed and check them for rendered features. Please use jest-based mocking
for isolating test functionality.

### Running the tests

#### At Build-Time

To simply run all the javascript unit tests, you can use make from the root
directory. This is what happens during a complete client build.

     make client-test

#### During Development

During client-side development, it is more convenient to have granular testing
options. The various testing scripts are defined inside package.json within the
client folder and are called with `yarn` as demonstrated in the following
commands.

This is what CI is going to run, and also what 'make client-test' invokes,
executing all the client tests:

     yarn test

##### Watch and rerun jest unit tests every time a source file changes

This is incredibly handy, and there are a host of options in the interactive
terminal this starts for executing Jest tests.

     yarn run jest-watch

##### Run only specified test files when a source file changes

    yarn run jest-watch MyModule

    yarn run jest-watch Dialog

    yarn run jest-watch workflow/run