In this blog I will be describing some of the recent improvements made to the Loklak apps site. A new utility script has been added to automatically update the loklak app wall after a new app has been made. Invalid app query in app details page has been handled gracefully.

A proper message is shown when a user enters an invalid app name in the url of the details page. Tests has been added for details page.

Developing updatewall script

This is a small utility script to update Loklak wall in order to expose a newly created app or update an existing app. Before moving into the working of this script let us discuss how Loklak apps site tracks all the apps and their details. In the root of the project there is a file names apps.json. This file contains an aggregation of all the app.json files present in the individual apps. Now when the site is loaded, index.html loads the Javascript code present in app_list.js. This app_list.js file makes an ajax call to root apps.json files, loads all the app details in a list and attaches this list to the AngularJS scope variable. After this the app wall consisting of various app details is rendered using html. So whenever a new app is created, in order to expose the app on the wall, the developer needs to copy the contents of the application’s app.json and paste it in the root apps.json file. This is quite tedious on the part of the developer as for making a new app he will first have to know how the site works which is not all directly related to his development work. Next, whenever he updates the app.json of his app, he needs to again update apps.json file with the new data.

This newly added script (updatewall) automates this entire process. After creating a new app all that the developer needs to do is run this script from within his app directory and the app wall will be updated automatically.

Now, let us move into the working of this script. The basic workflow of the updatewall script can be described as follows. The script loads the json data present in the app.json file of the app under consideration. Next it loads the json data present in the root apps.json file.

if __name__ == '__main__':

    #open file containg json object
    json_list_file = open(PATH_TO_ROOT_JSON, 'r')

    #load json object
    json_list = json.load(json_list_file,  object_pairs_hook=OrderedDict)
    json_list_file.close()

    app_json_file = open(PATH_TO_APP_JSON, 'r')
    app_json = json.load(app_json_file,  object_pairs_hook=OrderedDict)
    app_json_file.close()

    #method to update Loklak app wall
    expose_app(json_list, app_json)

When we are loading the json data we are using object_pairs_hook in order to load the data into an OrderedDict rather than a normal python dictionary. We are doing this so that the order of the dictionary items are maintained. Once the data is loaded we invoke the expose method.

def expose_app(json_list, app_json):
    #if app is already present in list then fetch that app
    app = getAppIfPesent(json_list, app_json)

    #if app is not present then add a new entry
    if app == None:
        json_list['apps'].append(app_json)
        update_list_file(json_list)
        print colors.BOLD + colors.OKGREEN + 'App exposed on app wall' + colors.ENDC

    #else update the existing app entry
    else:
        for key in app_json:
            app[key] = app_json[key]
        update_list_file(json_list)
        print colors.BOLD + colors.OKGREEN + 'App updated on app wall' + colors.ENDC

The apps.json file contain a key called apps. This value of this key is a list of json objects, each object being the json data of an individual app’s app.json file. In the above function we iterate over all the json objects present in the list. If we are unable to find a json object whose name value is same as that of the newly created app then we simply append the new app’s app.json object to that list. However if we find an object containing the same name value as that of the newly created app, then we simply update its properties. In short, if the app is a new one, its data gets added to apps.json otherwise the corresponding app data is updated.

Handling invalid app names in the URL of details page

The url of the app details page takes the app name as parameter. If any user wants to see the store listing of an app then he has to use the following url.

https://apps.loklak.org/details.html?q=<app_name>

Here app name is a url parameter used to load the store listing information. Now if anyone enters an invalid app name, that is an app which does not exists, then a proper error message has to be shown to the user. This can be done by checking whether the given app name is present in the root apps.json file or not. If not present if simply set a flag so that the error message can be conditionally rendered.

$scope.getSelectedApp = function() {
        for (var i = 0; i < $scope.apps.length; i++) {
            if ($scope.apps[i].name === $scope.appName) {
                $scope.selectedApp = $scope.apps[i];
                $scope.found = true;
                $("nav").show();
                break;
            }
        }
        if ($scope.found == false) {
            $scope.notFound = true;
        }
    }

In the above snippet if the app is not found then we set notFound to true. This causes the error message to appear on the page.

<div ng-if="notFound" class="not-found">
        <span class="brand-and-image">
          <img src="images/loklak_icon.png">
          <span class="loklak-brand"> <span class="loklak-header">
            loklak </span> <span>apps</span>
          </span>
        </span>
        <span class="error-404">
          Error: Requested app not found
        </span>
        <span class="go-back">
          <a href="/"> Go Back to Home Page >> </a>
        </span>
      </div>

The code renders the error message if notFound is set to true.

Writing tests for store listing page

Almost the entire content of the store listing is loaded dynamically by Javascript logic. So it is very important to write tests for store listing page. Protractor framework has been used to write automated browser test. The tests make sure that for a given app, the content of the middle section is loaded correctly.

it("should have basic information", function() {
    expect(element(by.css(".app-name")).getText()).toEqual("MultiLinePlotter");
    expect(element(by.css(".app-headline")).getText()).toEqual("App to plot tweet aggregations and statistics");
    expect(element(by.css(".author")).getText()).toEqual("by Deepjyoti Mondal");
    expect(element(by.css(".short-desc")).getText()).toEqual("An applicaton to visually compare tweet statistics");
  });

The above tests make sure that the top section is loaded properly. Next we check that getting started section and app use section are not empty.

it("main content should not be empty", function() {
    expect(element(by.css(".get-started-md")).getText()).not.toBe("");
    expect(element(by.css(".app-use-md")).getText()).not.toBe("");
  });

Apart from these, two more tests are performed to check the behaviour of the side bar menu items on click event and the functionality of the Try now button.

Future roadmap

There is still a lot of scope for the site’s improvement and enhancement. Some of the features which can be implemented next are given below.

• Add more tests to make the site stable and add tests to travis build.
• Make the apps independent. Work on this has already been started and can be viewed here – issue, PR
• Optimise the site for mobile using services workers and caching (making a progressive web app).
• Add a splash screen and home screen icon for mobile.

Important resources

• Using Protractor APIs for testing – Protractor references – http://www.protractortest.org/#/api
• Writing tests using Jasmine framework – Jasmine documentation – https://jasmine.github.io/1.3/introduction.html#section-Matchers
• View Loklak API documentation here
• Writing AngularJS unit testing using Jasmine – Bradley Braithwaite – http://www.bradoncode.com/tutorials/angularjs-unit-testing/
• Writing end to end tests with protractor – ramonvictor – http://ramonvictor.github.io/protractor/slides/#/
• Tutorial on testing using Protractor – Deshansh – http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/protractor-testing-tutorial/
• Using AngularJS to build applications – W3schools – https://www.w3schools.com/angular/
• Understanding AngularJS concepts – AngularJS docs – https://docs.angularjs.org/tutorial