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1:- :~ navhome/'/docs/'

2 navuptwo/'true'

3 next/'true'

4 sort/'8'

5 title/'Web (Eyre)'

6 ==

7;>

9# Web (Eyre)

11;div(class "row")

12 ;div(class "col-md-8")

14Your Urbit runs its own webserver, Eyre, that handles all things HTTP. Here

15we'll cover the features of Eyre that most resemble a traditional web server.

17By default Eyre uses *Tree*. Tree is a simple ui for browsing the contents of

18the filesystem, statically publishing a blog or any kind of content and for

19running single-page apps.

21Tree was built primarily to display both our documentation and the contents of

22`urbit.org`. If you're interested in doing anything complex, it's worth

23checking out the [docs source](https://github.com/urbit/docs) and the

24[urbit.org](https://github.com/urbit/urbit.org) source.

26We ship `tree` as compiled JavaScript on your Urbit, but the source lives in its

27own repo [here](https://github.com/urbit/tree).

29 ==

30==

32## Quickstart

34Your urbit runs a web server and can be found locally at

35`http://localhost:8080/` This is the fastest and easiest way

36to find your urbit's web server. Note that the port that a given urbit uses

37might be `8081`, `8082`, or so on if you're running other processes that might

38be occupying `8080`, such as another urbit. Upon the starting of a ship, it will

39print a message telling you which port it's using.

41Your urbit's web server can be accessed remotely at

42`http://your-urbit.urbit.org/`. You'll need to enter a code to access it in this

43way, one that is generated by running the `+code` command in the Dojo.

45_(Make sure you have a desk mounted to unix, as covered in the

46[setup section](/../../using/setup))._

48##### Serving

50The `/web` directory of the `%home` desk is served by default. You can change

51which desk you're serving by using the command `|serve` in the Dojo.

53Let's create a desk for development called `%sandbox`.

55Use `|merge` to create the new desk containing the contents of `%home`:

57```

58~your-urbit:dojo> |merge %home our %sandbox

59```

61And use `|sync` to continuously update based on changes to `%home`:

63~your-urbit:dojo> |sync %home our %sandbox

65Now let's mount it to unix so that we can save files to it:

67```

68~your-urbit:dojo> |mount /=sandbox=

69```

71And now, to switch the desk you're serving from:

73```

74~your-planet:dojo> |serve %sandbox

75```

77##### Hosting files

79To host a file on the web, save the following in `/sandbox/web/test.umd` in your

80ship's pier through unix.

82```

83# Hello

85This is a simple Urbit markdown file.

86```

88Our Tree system allows for pages to be designated as children of other pages.

89To do this for any given page, simply make a new folder in the directory that

90contains the page that will be the parent, and give that directory the same

91name. So, the children of a page `/home/web/foo.umd` will live in a directory

92called `/home/web/foo.umd`.

94Let's continue our with our `test.umd` example. Create `/sandbox/web/test/` and

95add two more Urbit Markdown files in `/sandbox/web/test/daughter.umd`

96`/sandbox/web/test/son.umd`, respectively. Make sure that they contain valid

97Urbit Markdown!

99> NOTE: Due to a bug in Urbit, you may have to create the directory and the file

100 in it in rapid succession using something like `mkdir sandbox/web/test && touch

101 sandbox/web/test/first.md`.

103Now modify `/sandbox/web/test.umd` to list the children using `;list;`:

105```

106# Hello

108This is a simple markdown file.

110;list;

111```

113To view your file rendered using tree:

115```

116http://localhost:8080/test/

117```

119To view your file as raw `umd`:

121```

122http://localhost:8080/test.umd

123```

125To view your file as raw `html`:

127```

128http://localhost:8080/test.html

129```

131Now navigate to the "daughter" file that you created:

133```

134http://localhost:8080/test/daughter.umd

135```

137In Urbit, there is no distinction between a directory and a file. So, if you're

138adding files directly from unix, simply `mkdir test` and Urbit will treat the

139file and directory as the same entity.

141You can use this feature to change your homepage at `your-urbit.urbit.org` with

142the page `/home/web.umd`, where `home` is the current mounted desk. By default,

143`web.umd` will display some info about your urbit, but you can customize it to

144your heart's content.

147## Manual

149## `/web`

151This is the equivalent of a `public_html` directory. Your Urbit looks in this

152directory to serve content to the world. You can change what desk you're serving from using `|serve`.

154Switch to the `%sandbox` desk:

156```

157|serve %sandbox

158```

160Let's quickly step through the default contents of `web/`:

162- `404.hoon` - The default 404 page.

163- `dojo.hoon` - Page body that loads the `dojo` React module.

164- `lib/css/bootstrap.css` - The Urbit-flavored bootstrap

165- `lib/css/codemirror.css` - Syntax highlighting

166- `lib/css/fonts.css` - The Urbit custom fonts

167- `lib/js/hoon.js` - Hoon syntax highlighting

168- `lib/js/sole.js` - `dojo` operational transformation JS

169- `lib/js/urb.js` - Base Urbit JS library. Handles AJAX and polling.

170- `static.umd` - Sample static file

171- `talk/` - Talk compiled JS / CSS

172- `talk.hoon` - Page body that loads the `talk` React module.

173- `testing.umd` - Guide to writing unit tests in Urbit

174- `tree/` - Tree compiled JS / CSS

175- `tree.hoon` - Page body that loads the `tree` React module.

176- `unmark/` - Used for testing `.umd`.

177- `womb/` - Womb compiled by JS/CSS

178- `womb.hoon` - Used for issuing planets on the test network.

180## Tree

182Tree is a simple publishing tool for files that live on your Urbit. You're

183probably reading this file using Tree right now. The main driving use-case for

184Tree has been for us to host our own documentation and the surrounding

185discussion. Tree remains a pretty simple and flexible tool for getting content

186online. It resembles a cross between [Jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/),

187[Kirby](https://getkirby.com/) and macOS's Finder. We think it's pretty great.

189Tree is also the basic UI for browsing the filesystem. We take it one step

190further and make it possible to write modules (tiny little apps), like Talk and

191Dojo, that can be run directly inside of Tree.

193In the browser Tree is a [React](https://facebook.github.io/react/) /

194[Flux](https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/05/06/flux.html) app that uses

195a slightly modifed version of [Bootstrap](http://getbootstrap.com/). On your

196Urbit Tree is a renderer that translates data in `%clay`, our filesystem, into

197JSON / JSX that can be read by the client.

199Your Urbit comes with a pre-built copy of the tree (as a single `.js` file). If

200you're interested in helping to develop tree or learning about how it works, it

201has its own GitHub repo [here](https://github.com/urbit/tree). We have our own

202fork of Bootstrap, which lives [here](https://github.com/urbit/bootstrap).

204## `/web/pages`

206To render content without the Tree put it in `/web/pages`. Files in this

207directory aren't wrapped by Tree.

209## Publishing files

211Publishing files in Tree is simple. Try dropping a file in `/web` (as covered

212in the Quickstart) and navigating to it.

214The best example of more complicated usage of Tree is covered by the Urbit docs

215themselves. See anything while perusing the docs that you'd like to use

216yourself? The docs are all on GitHub [here](https://github.com/urbit/docs).

218## Frontmatter

220Most `.umd` files begin with some frontmatter, which determines the title and

221other settings for rendering the file correctly. E.g.:

223```

224:- :~ navhome/'/home/'

225 next/'true'

226 sort/'1'

227 title/'Example Frontmatter Title'

228 ==

230```

232Here are the fields we support:

234##### title

236String. Example: `title/'Tree manual'`.

238This sets the title in the nav or in lists as distinct from the filename.

240##### next

242Boolean. Example: `next/'true'`

244Adds a 'next' link at the bottom of the page that links to the next item as decided by the sort order.

246##### sort

248Integer. Example: `sort/'7'`

250User-defined sort. Indicates the sort order as distinct from alphabetical sort.

251These numbers should not be overlapping.

253##### hide

255Boolean. Example: `hide/'true'`

257Whether or not to hide the item from the tree.

259##### date

261Urbit date. Example: `date/'~2016.2.22'`

263Used for sorting posts by date.

265##### Arbitrary Frontmatter

267Any arbitrary category can be used as long as it's given data of valid types.

268Arbitrary categories can be used with the ones mentioned above. Below is

269valid front matter:

271```

272:- :~ date/~2018.9.12

273 author/~lodleb-ritrul

274 music/'rad'

275 ==

276```

278## Using components

280Tree is built using React with a small library of components that you can add to your pages using [JSX](https://facebook.github.io/jsx/) tags.

282If you don't know anything about JSX that's okay: basically we just give you a few custom HTML tags that you can use to create components on the page.

284For those familiar with React / Flux each JSX tag corresponds to a component in [the source](https://github.com/urbit/tree/tree/master/js/components).

286### `<list>`

288Example: `<list src="/posts" titlesOnly="true" />`

290Creates a list of children at a path. Defaults to the current path.

292Optional properties:

294- `src`: Path to load kids from.

295- `titlesOnly`: Only show the 'title' which is either the filename or the first h1.

296- `sortBy`: Can be `date` if items have a `date` YAML.

297- `className`: Class to be assigned to the container.

299### `<kids>`

301Example: `<kids src="/posts" />`

303Includes all the children at the specified path separated by `<hr>` tags.

305Optional properties:

307- `src`: Path to load kids from.

308- `className`: Class to be assigned to the container.

310### `<toc>`

312Example: `<toc noHeader="true" />`

314Creates a table of contents from the `h1` - `h6` tags on the page.

316Optional properties:

318- `match`: Tag name to match. If you wanted to only match `h2` tags it could be `match="h2"`

319- `noHeader`: By default we add a 'Table of Contents' header to the top. Remove it with `noHeader="true"`.

321## Implementation

323On the frontend Tree is mostly just a standard Flux app: components generate actions that get dispatched to stores which are picked up by components. If you're not familiar with Flux, [this overview](https://facebook.github.io/flux/docs/overview.html) is a good place to start.

325As a file browser Tree does a simple job: it fetches data and keeps a cache of what it has seen. To do this simple job we do three fancy things: `manx` to JSON encoding, the Async component and Modules.

327### `manx` to JSON format

329Since we want to use React to manage our DOM lifecycle we actually transfer the DOM structure of each page as JSON over the wire, and 'reactify' it on the client side.

331On the Urbit side we have a type for html: `++manx`. Our wire format for sending HTML as JSON is really similar to a `++manx`. If you're not interested here's what the json looks like:

333```

334"string" || {gn:"string", ga:{key:"string", [...]}, c:[...]}

335```

337To make this clearer let's look at some HTML and its JSON representation:

339```

340<div class="blue">

341 <h1>Title</h1>

342</div>

343```

345```

346{gn:"div", ga:{className:"blue"}, [

347 {gn:"h1", ga:null, "Title"}

349```

351To see the mechanics of how this is handled on the frontend, checkout

352`components/Reactify.coffee` in the `urbit/tree` repo.

354### Async component

356Each of our components (even those we fetched from the server) can depend on

357data that may not exist in our stores, so we wrap our components in a

358general-purpose Async component. You can find the component in

359`components/Async.coffee` in the `urbit/tree` repo.

361When we say that we just fetch HTML as JSON it's actually slightly more

362complicated. When we fetch a node in the filesystem we might not want to fetch

363its entire contents. Sometimes we just get the title as a part of a list of

364children, sometimes we might get a snippet (in a list with previews), and

365sometimes we get the whole thing. On the Urbit side these results are provided

366by `ren/tree/json`.

368From the perspective of the frontend we just send queries on a path that obey a

369simple API. To see this in action, here's our `BodyComponent`:

371```

372query {

373 body:'r'

374 name:'t'

375 path:'t'

376 meta:'j'

377 sein:'t'

379```

381Here we're asking for the body, name, path, metadata and parent of the current

382path. When it loads that data gets passed to our component as props.

384### Module basics

386A module is a special component that can kind of 'take over' the page. It can

387change properties of the nav bar as well as load custom scripts / css.

389Talk, for example, looks like this:

391```

392<module nav_title="Talk" nav_no-dpad="" nav_no-sibs="" nav_subnav="talk-station">

393 <script src="/~~/~/at/lib/js/urb.js" />

394 <script src="/talk/main.js" />

395 <link href="/talk/main.css" rel="stylesheet" />

396 <talk />

397</module>

398```

400A module will first download all the scripts and styles that it specifies before

401trying to load any contained components. This means that you can define React

402components in external scripts and a module can be entirely self contained.

403The `<talk>` component isn't a part of Tree — it's loaded first before it's

404executed.

406If you're interested in seeing how a module works you can check out the source

407for Talk [here](https://github.com/urbit/talk). Dojo also ships on your Urbit,

408its source is [here](https://github.com/urbit/sole).

410## `urb.js`

412The most basic interface between your browser and your Urbit is `urb.js`. This

413small library provides the basic utilities for sending and receiving messages

414from an Urbit.

416### `window.urb.appl`

418Each JSON message sent to your Urbit needs an app endpoint. Can be set as a

419global `window.urb.appl` or set on a per-request basis in the payload to

420`send()`.

422### `window.urb.oryx`

424CSRF token. Written to the page by Eyre, our webserver, when logged in.

425Required part of any authenticated request and included by default.

427### `window.urb.req(method,url,params,json,cb)`

429Our basic request wrapper. You can see here how a request needs to be packaged

430to be properly understood by your Urbit.

432### `window.urb.subscribe({path:"string"})`

434Subscribe to an endpoint. Subscription data is returned through the continuous

435long poll.

437### `window.urb.unsubscribe({path:"string"})`

439Close subscription on specified path.

441### `window.urb.poll()`

443Mechanics of the continuous long poll. Used mostly internally.

445### `window.urb.util`

447Library of utility and helper functions.