56 lines
3.9 KiB
Org Mode
56 lines
3.9 KiB
Org Mode
#+title: Nitinol
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#+options: toc:nil
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Nitinol is a framework for building user-malleable web applications and tools, specifically PWAs, built on top of [[https://mithril.js.org/index.html][Mithril.js]] and [[https://lips.js.org/][LIPS scheme]].
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It provides all the tools necessary to make a full application stack that the user is easily able to modify; both for themselves or others, and ephemerally or persistently.
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#+begin_quote
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Nitinol is an alloy of Nickel and Titanium that has shape memory and superelasticity.
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#+end_quote
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This README includes all the documentation you need to use Nitinol to it's fullest.
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If you're not sure how to read ~org~ files, you can convert this file to Markdown with pandoc using the following command:
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#+begin_src shell
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pandoc -f org -t makrdown README.org
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#+end_src
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#+toc: headlines 2
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* Design Philosophy
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Nitinol is heavily inspired by Emacs in terms of extensibility and self-documentation.
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Instead of treating the application as a standalone application, it should be treated as a construction on top of a powerful Lisp core.
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This core can then be modified by the user in real time --- allowing them to almost entirely change application behaviour --- or inspected to easily understand the inner workings.
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A number of approaches already exist on the web for achieving malleability, but they are nothing compared to the power of a proper scripting engine.
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- Settings only allow the user to modify the application in ways made legal by the original developer.
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- Plugins also have limits in their ability to modify aspects of the application, while also generally being difficult to develop.
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- Extensions can inject CSS or HTML but cannot modify server-side behaviour, and can also be annoying to develop and share.
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- Open source projects typically lack sufficient internal documentation for non-developers to modify the internals, and often require additional (possible painful) setup steps.
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Nitinol seeks to address all these problems by providing a Scheme environment in the web browser, and tools for building full applications.
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- A live REPL allows the user to modify the application in real time.
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- REPL inputs can be saved to a cached configuration file, which can be shared to other users of the application.
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- Code is self-documenting via doc string macros and source code links, allowing easy introspection.
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- Both the front-end and back-end can be modified (within security and access control constraints).
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* Using Nitinol
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Nitinol is a project template, you can use it simply by cloning this repo and modifying its content.
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If you're new to Node.js development, start with ~npm i~ to install all dependencies.
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You may also wish to install LIPS globally with ~npm -g install lips~, which will allow you to run a local repl with the ~lips~ command.
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This is not required to use this framework, but is recommended.
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The Nitinol libraries are included in this template as a git submodule under ~lib/nitinol~.
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You can pull it in when cloning this template with ~git clone --recurse-submodules~, or ~git submodule update --init~ if you have already cloned the repository.
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Then, the command ~npm run preview~ will start the backend and frontend.
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* Getting Started
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** Project Structure
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There are 3 main folders in this template that you should pay attention to.
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- ~app~ contains all frontend application code, including HTML, CSS, and manifest/JS code necessary for a PWA.
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- ~app.scm~ in the ~app~ directory is the entry point for the Nitinol application - i.e. the script that is loaded by the HTML template.
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- The Nitinol libraries are made automatically available to ~app.scm~ via a script tag in the HTML template.
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- ~server~ contains all backend server code, with the ~server.scm~ file being the entry point used to start the backend.
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- ~lib~ contains libraries potentially shared between the front and back end, as well as [[https://git.cyan.sh/BirDt/nitinol][Nitinol]] LIPS libraries included as a git submodule.
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