AppSuite:GettingStarted 7.4.2

Getting Started

Hello and welcome to OX App Suite development. This document will get you started to develop your first own app for OX App Suite with a minimal setup. We will look at the steps necessary but will also tempt you to learn more by linking you to some more in-depth documentation about these topics. Depending on how you wound up reading this page, you will probably have already completed some of the steps below.

Installing

First, you need to install some tools which are necessary for UI development. For now, the simplest way is to download the source of the OX App Suite UI. Since the source code is kept in a Git repository, the source is downloaded using git:

$ git clone --depth 1 -b releae-7.4.1 https://code.open-xchange.com/git/wd/frontend/web

This downloads the latest version and unpacks it into a subdirectory web in the current directory. To simplify calling of scripts contained in the ui/bin directory, you should add it to your $PATH:

$ export PATH="$PATH:$(pwd)/web/ui/bin"

Preparing

Create Workspace

In order to have a proper space for your app/plugin create a workspace prospectivly containing all your code. This folder should contain the subfolder apps. The following article is written assuming, you're working in your workspace directory. In this example we will create our own workspace called example-workspace and add the suiteable subdirectory apps for our code:

  $ mkdir example-workspace
  $ cd example-workspace
  $ mkdir apps

Packaging

To keep written plugins/apps easy-to-distribute OX uses the UI Build System packaging new components. Before writing your first lines of code initialize the package to gather information about the app/plugin you're writing:

  $ build-appsuite init-packaging package=example-app

  Build path: build
  Build version: 0.0.1-1.20130424.123835
  
  Version [0.0.1]: 
  
  Maintainer (Name <e-mail>): Maintainer <maintainer@example.com>
  
  Copyright line [2013 Open-Xchange, Inc]: 
  
  License name [CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0]: 
  
  Short description: Hello World app

The task presents a number of interactive prompts to get the necessary information about the generated packages. The entered values should follow the Debian Maintainer's Guide. Some or even all prompts can be skipped by explicitly specifying the information as a build variable. The list of variable names is available in the reference of init-packaging.

After the task is finished, the generated files can be customized manually to account for any additional packaging requirements.

Writing

As an example, let's create a small app and build it. It requires only two files: example-workspace/apps/com.example/main.js for the source code of the app

 
define('com.example/main', function () {
    'use strict';
    var app = ox.ui.createApp({ name: 'com.example' });
    app.setLauncher(function () {
        var win = ox.ui.createWindow({
            name: 'com.example',
            title: 'Hello World App'
        });
        app.setWindow(win);
        win.nodes.main.append($('<h1>').text('Hello, World!'));
        win.show();
    });
    return { getApp: app.getInstance };
});

and example-workspace/apps/com.example/manifest.json for the manifest:

{ title: 'Hello World App' }

While developing always keep in mind, that there is an article about debugging the user interface which helps you avoiding and fixing typical errors.

Building

This step will process your app, checking the source code for syntax errors and compressing it, to make it run error-free and fast. Calling this command will also write the processed source to the a subdirectory called build in your workspace, containing also the apps-directory with the original source code.

While you're in the folder containing apps-subdirectory example-workspace, using the the UI Build System makes building the app is as easy as calling:

$ build-appsuite app

Running

Hosting the app

For quickest round-trip times, the directory with the generated files in build-folder should be made available via the appserver tool, which is also part of the installed SDK. Your OX App Suite installation will use appserver use as upstream server, Assuming you are calling appserver from your workspace, and using ox.io as server:

$ appserver --server=https://www.ox.io/appsuite/ build

This command will host your app locally. Once you started it, it will always have to run in the background, making all changes within the given build-directories visible. To add the build path of an other workspace, stop appserver and run the upper command again appending the other directory after a white space.

WARNING: Take care that build variables like builddir or manifestDir are not set during development. Otherwise, you will have to specify their directories manually for appserver. Also, the clean task will delete these directories and all their contents! In general, don't point builddir or any other *Dir variables at existing directories.

Testing the app

Once made your app available, you can access OX App Suite opening your browser with this address:

http://localhost:8337/appsuite

Then simply run this command in your browser's javascript console to open the hello world application:

ox.launch("com.example/main")

Development cycle

Once successfully tested your first app, you will probably continue developing it. Keep in mind that after writing your code, you will always need to build the app and have your Appserver running.

Further Reading

• You just build your first app for OX App Suite, keep in mind that there quite a few options how you can develop for OX App Suite.
• It's highly recommended to gain more knowledge about all the benefits the UI build system and the Appserver are providing you for developing OX App Suite.
• If you're stuck somewhere, the article about debugging the UI might help you.
• Get a better overview about developing the user inferface.