dashboard

Hi!

This is my private dashboard. The goal of this project is to have a place to collect my web applications, independently on the technology.

The Dashboard itself is built in React, but each application might be built with other frameworks (like Vue) and the backend can be different for every application.

Install and run

Clone dependency repositories:

# Assuming you are in your ~/repositories folder, clone

# dashboard-ui-style (mandatory)
git clone git@github.com:vittoriozamboni/dashboard-ui-style.git
cd dashboard-ui-style
yarn link
cd ../

# dashboard-finance (optional)
git clone git@github.com:vittoriozamboni/dashboard-finance.git
cd dashboard-finance
yarn link
cd ../

From main folder of this repository, now install all global dependencies and link local ones:

# Install packages
yarn

# Local packages
yarn link "@vzamboni/dashboard-ui-style"

# Start development, by default listening on 3000
yarn start

# Create production bundle
yarn build

To test build package, user a local web server. One easy way is to use http-server package:

# Install the node package, globally or locally
sudo npm install http-server -g

# Run from main directory
http-server build/

This will create a local server listening on port 8080.

3rd-party libraries

Dashboard is based on React v16.8 and create-react-app, with ejected configuration. It uses standard PropTypes for props validation. Redux v4 is the store manager, and scss the preferred way of using stylesheets.

Other React related libraries:

• react-router v5;
• react-redux v6;
• react-virtualized v9;
• formik v1.5;
• react-color v2;

JS libraries:

• highlight.js v9;

CSS libraries:

• flexboxgrid v6;

For specific versions, see package.json file.

Dashboard blocks

DashboardMenu

DashboardMenu component allows to create menus in the dashboard header. There are few blocks used:

-- container (class: dashboard-menu__container) --------------------
| -- header (class: dashboard-menu__header) ---------------------- |
| | -- header block (class: dashboard-menu__header-block) ------ | |
| | | -- block item (class: dashboard-menu__header-item) ------| | |
| | |----------------------------------------------------------| | |
| |--------------------------------------------------------------| |
| -- body (class: dashboard-menu__body) -------------------------- |
| |--------------------------------------------------------------| |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

DashboardMenu accepts three block props, whose names are defined in constants file: left, center and right. Each of them defines a specific part of the header, and accepted properties must be valid React nodes or strings, or an array of any of them. Based on the passed props, the size of each blocks is calculated in percentages: for example, if only left and right are passed, each of them is 50%. Plus, text align is set as the name of the property itself.

import { DashboardMenu } from 'components/dashboard-menu/DashboardMenu';

const RightComponent = () => {
    return <span>Hello User!</span>;
};

function Header() {
    return <DashboardMenu
        left={['Menu Item 1', 'Menu Item 2']}
        center='Dashboard'
        right={<RightComponent />}
    />
}

Dashboard Menu has a special section called body. It represents an invisible (until opened) section that can be filled with a component. In order to be used, a special type of object should be passed in a block. It must have at least two keys, headerLabel and bodyItem. The first is a string or a component that will be rendered in the header; when headerLabel is clicked the second will be rendered inside the body (the hidden part). This should extend DashboardItem component, which will receive few props from DashboardMenu itself.

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { DashboardMenu, DashboardItem } from 'components/dashboard-menu/DashboardMenu';

const RightComponent = () => {
    return <span>Hello User!</span>;
};

class Applications extends DashboardItem {
    render() {
        const { query } = this.props;

        return <div>
            This will be the list of installed applications! Query: {query}
        </div>;
    }
}

export class Header extends Component {
    render() {
        return <header>
            <DashboardMenu
                left={[{ headerLabel: 'Applications', bodyItem: Applications }, 'Menu Item 2']}
                center='Dashboard'
                right={<RightComponent />}
            />
        </header>;
    }
}

Store

Store management is implemented by using redux. An empty store is created inside store/store.js file with a mechanism to add reducers dynamically by using the following command:

store.registerReducer(STORE_KEY, REDUCER_FUNCTION);

Whenever a new reducer is registered, the store will replace all the reducers using replaceReducer method adding the new one as well.

Example used in the application:

store.registerReducer('authentication', authReducers.authentication);

Libs

Requests

requests is a module based on fetch that simplifies calls by adding headers and payload conversion facilitations. There are two shorthands: get and post.

For a more detailed description, see README.md file in libs/requests folder.

Exceptions

Provides a simple error class called Exception that takes an object when instanciated and stores it in errorData. This can be retrieved by using getErrorData method.

Authentication

authentication module helps to authenticate the user on server. The idea is to have a valid token and store it locally after a successfull login by using localStorage. When the page is loaded the first time and a token is set, the authentication module will attempt to auto-login with that token. If the token is no longer valid, it will be deleted.

When a new token is obtained or after the successfull auto-login, it's added to common headers in requests module.

For a more detailed description, see README.md file in libs/authentication folder.

Internal Depencency Tree

Libs talks to each other, as well as with store, generating the following tree.

       exceptions ----|
           |          |
store      |       requests
 |-- authentication --|

Config

Few configuration variables can be customized. They can be defined inside config folder in two files:

• serverConfig.dev.json;
• serverConfig.prod.json;

The two files are not saved in the repository.

The content will be loaded accordingly. Keys of the JSON file will be used to create configuration constants in config.js file.

Key	Default	Description
BACKEND_URL	http://localhost/	Base URL used by requests module.

For example, to override BACKEND_URL in Dev mode, you can use the following serverConfig.dev.json:

{
    "BACKEND_URL": "http://localhost:8091/"
}

Custom react-script and Webpack configuration

Following the tutorial of this video, I have forked create-react-app. Instead of ejecting and maintaining all the configurations, I changed the create-react-app / react-scripts to parse a file called dashboardWebpack.config.js and apply the modify function in a similar way of razzle's createConfig.js.

In this way, it's easy to change the Webpack configuration without ejecting!

Keeping the forked repository up-to-date

When changes are pushed to the official create-react-app they should be merged into the forked repository.

After cloning the fork locally, I've launched the following command:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app.git

Now, to keep it updated:

git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/master

Test changes

Uninstall the custom package and then install using 'file' prefix:

yarn remove @vzamboni/react-scripts

Copy this to package.json into dependencies section:

"@vzamboni/react-scripts": "file:~/repositories/create-react-app/packages/react-scripts",

Then, reinstall:

yarn install

# After installation, run
yarn start

Credits

Main developer: Vittorio Zamboni.