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PlanScore Front-Facing Website

Totally separate from the back-end code, this is the public-facing website.

Site URL

https://planscore.org/

Data CSVs

The datasets which power the site, are under the WEBSITE_OUTPUT/data/ folder. Most of WEBSITE_OUTPUT is gitignored, with the exception of this folder and static images.

Data dictionary for bias CSVs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aBffpd3Fv0tCvz6waMk2fGhyV3ZfSSUaWyJKrzi-HL8/edit#gid=1340292617

Quick Build

  1. Use Docker to cover for Mac/Linux case-sensitive sed, with Circle CI image matching Node version used in test/deploy script:

    docker pull circleci/node:lts

  2. Install required Node packages:

    docker run --rm -it -v `pwd`:/vol -w /vol circleci/node:lts yarn install

  3. Build content of WEBSITE_OUTPUT and serve it locally at http://0.0.0.0:8000 (this step may take time to build):

    docker run --rm -it -v `pwd`:/vol -w /vol -p 8000:8000 circleci/node:lts npm run serve

  4. Update raw data in WEBSITE_OUTPUT/data directory.

Development and Code Layout

Babel, SASS/SCSS, Webpack.

Upon initial setup on your system, run nvm use and yarn install to set up build tools.

npm run serve will run a HTTP server where you may see your edits. This will automagically reload when files are changed. This webserver runs on http://localhost:8000*

Each page is its own folder, and your edits would be made to each folder's index.src.html index.scss index.js6 Note that the individual states are special; see below.

The State Pages Are Special

Do not edit the index.* files for the 50 states. There are 50 directories and thus pages for Alabama, Alaska, ... etc. But we do not maintain 50 separate index.js6 index.scss index.src.html files!

Instead, you'll want to make edits to the _statetemplate files (state_template.js6, state_template.scss, state_template.src.html). Then run npm run states to copy these template files into the 50 target folders.

If you are running webpack-dev-server, it will automagically detect the files having changed, and will trigger a rebuild and reload as usual. Note that this takes a moment; be patient.

While working within the _statetemplate/ content, some notes of interest:

  • state_template.src.html -- You may insert the phrase STATE_NAME into the HTML. When the template is copied into the state folder, this will be replaced with the state's Properly Capitalized Name. STATE_SLUG in the HTML will be replaced with the URL-friendly name of the state, which is useful for per-state references like OpenGraph images.
  • All states will receive exactly the same programming, stylesheet, and HTML template (except for the STATE_NAME tag), so they should "detect" their state based on the URL string, if they will need to filter data or otherwise configure custom behavior.

NOTE FOR MAC USERS If you run npm run states out of the box without making a single change to the code, you may see git changes with all your user-visible state names showing as lowercase. This breaks the site since data keys are assuming proper capitalization of state names. The cause is that the sed REGEX commands in npm run states rely on GNU utilities that are not present in MacOS's default BSD version of sed. Here's some info on that. You can solve the issue by installing gnu-sed as outlined in this StackOverflow post. If you do npm run states after that install and before making changes, you should see no uncommitted changes in your repo, which is expected. Now you can edit the template files and do npm run states and see only the changes you meant to make.

Static Content

The WEBSITE_OUTPUT/ directory is where the compiled website output will be placed (see Deployment section).

It is also where "truly static" files are hosted, e.g. the data/ and images/ folders, which are needed by the live site and which also are served from webpack-dev-server.

For more details, see this folder's .gitignore file, and the Deployment section of this document.

Shared Content / Partial Views

Some content is shared between pages, such as the sitewide navbar, the footer, and some of the HTML HEAD content. These are called "partial views".

To use them in the HTML templates, simply use the following tags. They will be substituted when npm run build is done, or when the webpack-dev-server is restarted.

<!--[include_headtags]-->
<!--[include_navbar]-->
<!--[include_footer]-->

Note that webpack-dev-server will not reload these when they are modified. If you are making changes to these common elements, you will need to stop and restart the webpack-dev-server.

If you need to define some new partial views, the following will be useful:

  • These are defined in the htmlpartials/ folder. Each one defines a JavaScript variable containing a block of HTML, e.g. the navbar.
  • The webpack.config.js defines HTML_PARTIALS by loading those files.
  • The webpack.config.js then uses StringReplacePlugin to perform the above-mentioned substitutions, e.g. <!--[include_footer]--> as the .src.html templates are processed.

Deployment

Running npm run build will compile the js6/scss/src.html files for all of the subfolders, and will place their respective outputs into the WEBSITE_OUTPUT/ directory.

The result is:

  • A set of folders for each page + state, with each folder containing the CSS/JS/HTML files for the page.
    • These build artifacts are not in version control.
  • The data/ and images/ folders of static content.
    • These were there all along, and are in version control.
  • The index.html file which redirects visitors from / to /home/ when they land on the site.
    • This was there all along, and is in version control.

Adding New Pages To The Site

To add a new page to the site:

  • Copy the _pagestarter folder as your new page-folder, e.g. cp -rp _pagestarter/ voting/
  • List the new folder's index.js6 file in the webpack.config.js file.
    • If you are using webpack-dev-server, you will need to restart it for it pick up the newly-listed page-folder.
  • Get hacking on the three files, as described in the Development section. Fill in HTML content, JavaScript code, and page-specific SCSS.