Tutorial Server

Hi everyone!

This is a standalone server for the javascript tutorial https://javascript.info.

You can use it to run the tutorial locally and translate it into your language.

Windows, Unix systems and macOS are supported. For Windows, you'll need to call scripts with ".cmd" extension, that are present in the code alongside with Unix versions.

Installation

1. Install Git and Node.js.

   These are required to update and run the project. For Windows just download and install, otherwise use standard OS install tools (packages or whatever convenient).

   Please use Node.js 10+.

   (Maybe later, optional) If you're going to change images, please install ImageMagick.

2. Install global Node modules:

   npm install -g bunyan gulp@4

3. Create the root folder.

   Create a folder /js for the project. If you use another directory as the root, adjust the paths below.

4. Clone the tutorial server into it:

   cd /js
   git clone https://github.com/javascript-tutorial/server
   git clone https://github.com/javascript-tutorial/engine server/modules/engine

   Please note, there are two clone commands. That's not a typo: modules/engine is cloned from another repository.

5. Clone the tutorial text into it.

   The repository starts with the language code, e.g for the French version fr.javascript.info, for Russian – ru.javascript.info etc.

   The English version is en.javascript.info.

   cd /js
   git clone https://github.com/javascript-tutorial/en.javascript.info

6. Run the site

   First, install local modules:

   cd /js/server
   npm install

   Run the site with the ./edit command with the language argument. Above we cloned en tutorial, so:

   ./edit en

   This will import the tutorial from /js/en.javascript.info and start the server.

   Wait a bit while it reads the tutorial from the disk and builds static assets.

   Then access the site at http://127.0.0.1:3000.

   To change the port, set the PORT environment variable:

   # Runs the server at http://127.0.0.1:8080
   PORT=8080 ./edit en

   For Windows, read the note about environment variables below.

7. Edit the tutorial

   As you edit text files in the tutorial text repository (cloned at step 5), the webpage will reload automatically.

Windows: Environment variables

For Windows, to pass environment variables, such as PORT, you can install npm i -g cross-env and prepend calls with cross-env, like this:

cd /js/server
cross-env PORT=8080 ./edit en

In the examples below, the commands are without cross-env, prepend it please, if you're on Windows.

Alternatively, you can use other Windows-specific ways to set environment variables, such as a separate set PORT=8080 command.

Change server language

The server uses English by default for navigation and design.

You can set another language it with the second argument of edit.

E.g. if you cloned ru tutorial, it makes sense to use ru locale for the server as well:

cd /js/server
./edit ru ru

Please note, the server must support that language. There must be corresponding locale files for that language in the code of the server, otherwise it exists with an error. As of now, ru, en, zh, tr and ja are fully supported.

Translating images

The text in SVG pictures can be translated as well.

There's a special script for that. The translated strings should be in the images.yml file in the repository root, such as https://github.com/javascript-tutorial/ru.javascript.info/blob/master/images.yml. The script replaces strings in all svgs according to images.yml.

Here are the steps to translate images.

Step 1. Create images.yml with translations in the repository root.

The file format is "YAML", it's quite easy to understand:

code-style.svg:  # image file name
  "No space":    # English string
    text: "Без пробелов" # translation
    position: "center" # (optional) "center" or "right" - to position the translated string

Step 2. Setup git upstream (if you haven't yet) and pull latest changes:

cd /js/zh.javascript.info # in the tutorial folder
git remote add upstream https://github.com/javascript-tutorial/en.javascript.info
git fetch upstream master

Step 3. Run the translation task:

cd /js/server # in the server folder
# adjust NODE_LANG to your language
NODE_LANG=zh npm run gulp -- engine:koa:tutorial:figuresTranslate

This script checks out all SVG images from upstream and replaces the strings according to images.yml.

Now images in the tutorial folder are translated, but not committed yet.

Step 4. Then you'll need git add/commit/push the translated SVGs, as a part of the normal translation flow.

You may want to open the translated SVGs directly in the browser to take a look at them before committing. Just to make sure that the translation looks all right. If an image is untranslated on refresh, force the browser to "reload without cache" (hotkeys).

To translate a single image, use the --image parameter of the script:

# replace strings only in try-catch-flow.svg
NODE_LANG=zh npm run gulp -- engine:koa:tutorial:figuresTranslate --image try-catch-flow.svg

Positioning

By default, the translated string replaces the original one, starting in exactly the same place of the image.

Before the translation:

| hello world

After the translation (你 is at the same place where h was, the string is left-aligned):

| 你好世界    

Sometimes that's not good, e.g. if the string needs to be centered, e.g. like this:

     |
hello world
     |

(The "hello world" is centered between two |).

The position: "center" in images.yml centers the translated string, so that it will replace the original one and stay "in the middle" of the surrounding context:

   |
你好世界
   |

The position: "right" makes sure that the translated string sticks to the same right edge:

hello world |
    你好世界 |

P.S In order for positioning to work, you need to have ImageMagick installed: https://imagemagick.org/script/download.php (or use packages for Linux or homebrew/macports for MacOS).

Helper script: extract strings

The task to get all strings from an image as YAML (for translation, to add to images.yml):

cd /js/server
NODE_LANG=zh npm run gulp engine:koa:tutorial:imageYaml --image hello.svg

The "overflowing text" problem

The replacement script only operates on strings, not other graphics, so a long translated string may not fit the picture. Most pictures have some extra space for longer text, so a slight increase doesn't harm, but sometimes that happens.

Usually, you should adjust the translated text, make it shorter to fit.

If your translated string absolutely must be longer and doesn't fit, let me know, I can adjust the picture.

Dev mode

If you'd like to edit the server code (assuming you're familiar with Node.js), not the tutorial text, then there are two steps to do.

First, run the command that imports (and caches) the tutorial:

cd /js/server
NODE_LANG=en TUTORIAL_ROOT=/js/en.javascript.info npm run gulp engine:koa:tutorial:import

For Windows: npm i -g cross-env and prepend the call with cross-env to pass environment variables, like this:

cd /js/server
cross-env NODE_LANG=en...

In the code above, NODE_LANG sets server language, while TUTORIAL_ROOT is the full path to tutorial repo, by default is /js/$NODE_LANG.javascript.info.

Afterwards, call ./dev <server language> to run the server:

cd /js/server
./dev en

Running ./dev uses the tutorial that was imported and cached by the previous command.

It does not "watch" tutorial text, but it reloads the server after code changes.

Again, that's for developing the server code itself, not writing the tutorial.

Troubleshooting

Please ensure you have Node.js version 10+ (node -v shows the version).

If it still doesn't work – file an issue. Please mention OS and Node.js version.

Please pull the very latest git code and install latest NPM modules before publishing an issue.

Linux: inotify and monitored files

The server's tools use inotify by default on Linux to monitor directories for changes. In some cases there may be too many items to monitor.

! Samples code below work correctly for Ubuntu.

You can get your current inotify files watch limit by:

$> cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches

When this limit is not enough to monitor all files, you have to increase the limit for the server to work properly.

You can set a new limit temporary by:

$> sudo sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288
$> sudo sysctl -p

It is very important that you refer to the documentation for your operating system to change this parameter permanently.

--
Yours,
Ilya Kantor
iliakan@javascript.info