Onionr/onionr/static-data/www/ui/README.md

Onionr UI

About

The default GUI for Onionr

Setup

To compile the application, simply execute the following:

python3 compile.py

If you are wanting to compile Onionr UI for another language, execute the following, replacing [lang] with the target language (supported languages include eng for English, spa para español, and zho为中国人):

python3 compile.py [lang]

FAQ

Why "compile" anyway?

This web application is compiled for a few reasons:

1. To make it easier to update; this way, we do not have to update the header in every file if we want to change something about it.
2. To make the application smaller in size; there is less duplicated code when the code like the header and footer can be stored in an individual file rather than every file.
3. For multi-language support; with the Python "tags" feature, we can reference strings by variable name, and based on a language file, they can be dynamically inserted into the page on compilation.
4. For compile-time customizations.

What exactly happens when you compile?

Upon compilation, files from the src/ directory will be copied to dist/ directory, header and footers will be injected in the proper places, and Python "tags" will be interpreted.

How do Python "tags" work?

There are two types of Python "tags":

1. Logic tags (<$ logic $>): These tags allow you to perform logic at compile time. Example: <$ import datetime; lastUpdate = datetime.datetime.now() $>: This gets the current time while compiling, then stores it in lastUpdate.
2. Data tags (<$= data $>): These tags take whatever the return value of the statement in the tags is, and write it directly to the page. Example: <$= 'This application was compiled at %s.' % lastUpdate $>: This will write the message in the string in the tags to the page.

Note: Logic tags take a higher priority and will always be interpreted first.

How does the language feature work?

When you use a data tag to write a string to the page (e.g. <$= LANG.HELLO_WORLD $>), the language feature simply takes dictionary of the language that is currently being used from the language map file (lang.json), then searches for the key (being the variable name after the characters LANG. in the data tag, like HELLO_WORLD from the example before). It then writes that string to the page. Language variables are always prefixed with LANG. and should always be uppercase (as they are a constant).

I changed a few things in the application and tried to view the updates in my browser, but nothing changed!

You most likely forgot to compile. Try running python3 compile.py and check again. If you are still having issues, [open up an issue](https://gitlab.com/beardog/Onionr/issues/new?issue[title]=Onionr UI not updating after compiling).