TreeKIT builds tools to help city dwellers measure, map, and collaboratively manage urban ecosystems. This is a mobile webapp for us to collect data about trees and treebeds one block at a time. We'll refer the app as Treekit in the docs below.
Treekit is a JavaScript app that does not require any special server-side technology like Rails or Django. As such, it can be hosted on any web server or GitHub Pages. The data is stored on CartoDB.
Treekit uses the Yeoman workflow for development.
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Install Node.js
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Install Yeoman
npm install -g yo -
Install Grunt Compass
gem update --system && gem install compass
From the command line interface, clone the repository from GitHub
git clone git@github.com:openplans/treekit.git
Navigate to the code
cd treekit
Install the build tools
npm install
bower install
All configuration items are located in app/scripts/config.js. This is where you can change map and CartoDB settings.
To test the app, you can start the development server and it will automatically open app on port 9000
grunt server
Part of the Yeoman workflow is merging and minifying client assets like JavaScript and CSS for production installs and puts them in the dist directory. Run
grunt
to check for errors and build the files in the dist directory.
Treekit is awesomely hosted on GitHub Pages. To deploy it, run grunt to build out the dist directory. Commit all of your updated files to git, including the dist directory. To deploy, simply run:
git subtree push --prefix dist origin gh-pages
You can learn more about deploying apps with Yeoman here.