This guide explains how to install and setup your Link-SF.
Link-SF is designed to be free to setup and free to run. Since hosting files is cheap, we've decided to build a static site.
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Firebase: Firebase is the only required account, and it's completely free. It will provide everything we need to get up and running, including database storage, authentication, and hosting.
Note Every administrator on your account will need to be created under the Authentication panel in your new Firebase Console. You won't be able to adjust your production data from the app without it!
The following accounts are optional:
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics captures useful events like user agent information and traffic data.
Download the source (via git or .zip file).
If you have an existing project hosted with Parse, you can use our migration tool to copy all of your data into Firebase.
To see more about how your data is structured and what it means, read our Management documentation
In the project root, you will find three configuration files:
.firebasercconfig.js.env.example
In .firebaserc and config.js, you will need to replace all instances of [PROJECT_ID] with your own Project ID, which can be found in your Firebase Console general settings.
Make copies of .env.exmaple and call them .env.dev and .env.prod in the same directory. They will probably look something like this:
FEEDBACK_EMAIL_ADDRESS=xxxxxxx
Keep your .env.dev and .env.prod files secret (out of source control, etc).
If you are working from a Unix system with Bash, you can use the pre-written boostrap script, which will complete all remaining steps in this doc.
./script/bootstrap
Otherwise follow the steps below for your system.
- Install the current node version
If you are using a version manager such as nvm, run nvm install, otherwise download and install the current version from .nvmrc from the node website.
- Install our package manager (npm)
Follow the installation instructions from the npm repository.
- Install Firebase Tools
Follow the installation instructions from the Firebase Tools repository.
Using npm, we can install all dependencies with one command.
npm install
The following steps will use Firebase Tools to authenticate and set up your local Link-SF copy in preparation to deploy.
- Login
Just use your Google credentials and go with the flow.
firebase login
- Add your Firebase project
This will configure which project we deploy to. Choose the correct one at the prompt and give it a nickname.
firebase use --add
From the project root (and with the command line tools outlined above installed):
npm start
If everything worked, you should have Link-SF open and running in your browser. If you migrated data from Parse, you should see everything show up here. If not, you will need to add data using the administrator interface by visiting /admin.
Making changes to the site is pretty simple. webpack will build the site and watch for changes. Most the time you should not even have to refresh your browser to see a change! (That's called "hot reloading").
We use http://fontello.com to generate an icon bundle. Here's a guide on how to add or change icons.
Link-SF uses Formspree to send emails from the static site.
If you'd like to use a feedback form:
- Add the email address where you would like feedback form submissions to be sent to the
.env.xxxfiles on theFEEDBACK_EMAIL_ADDRESSline (see example .env.xxx file). - Deploy your new changes and navigate to the feedback page (you'll find the feedback link on the footer of the home and detail pages).
- On the feedback page, make sure to submit the form once. This will send an email asking you to confirm your email address. Confirm your email address and submit the form once more to make sure everything is working smoothly. You're all set!