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wescheme-blocks

README.md

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wescheme-blocks

A screenreader-accessible, hybrid block and text editor for a subset of the Racket programming language, which is used on WeScheme.org.

Usage

Export the wescheme-blocks module using the normal npm run build mechanism, then include it in your favorite Racket-using, CodeMirror-enabled project. You can now use the new CodeMirrorBlocks constructor to replace an existing CodeMirror instance with blocks. In other words, you'd replace code that looks like this:

// make a new CM instance inside the container elt, passing in CM ops
this.editor = CodeMirror(container, {/* CodeMirror options  */}});

With code that looks like this:

// make a new CMB instance inside the container elt, passing in CMB ops
this.editor = CodeMirrorBlocks(container, {/* CodeMirrorBlocks options  */});

NOTE: your IDE will need to load CodeMirror as an external dependency. We assume it already does (otherwise, why would you be here?), so you'll need to provide it yourself.

Development

To get your dev environment up and running, follow these steps. Note that to run tests, you will need either Chrome or Chromium and point the variable CHROME_BIN to the binary like this:

export CHROME_BIN=/usr/bin/chromium

You must enter the following command in every session before you run the test. Alternatively, you can put it in your .{bash,zsh}rc, which will run them automatically.

  1. Checkout the repository in your favorite manner

  2. install dependencies with npm

    npm install

  3. start the webpack development server:

    npm start

  4. browse to http://localhost:8080/editor.html and fire away!

  5. while you work, be sure to run the unit tests (early and often!) with:

    npm run test

Language-specific code is in the src/languages/wescheme/ directory. The files there include:

  • ast.tsx - a TypeScript file describing the AST nodes for this language, over-and-above the builtin nodes that the CMB library includes natively. If you are adding support for language features or changing the way existing nodes render, this is where you'll do most of your work. You'll need some JS and minimal JSX/React chops to work here.
  • index.js - the interface where the language mode declares itself to the CMB library. It's unlikely you will edit anything here (except maybe some of the strings).
  • Parser.js - this file contains that code that takes an AST produced by your language's native parser and converts it to a CMB AST. Pay special attention to the aria-label fields! These strings are what the screenreader will announce to describe an AST node.
  • style.less - this is where the CSS rules are declared, for styling the rendered AST nodes. If you know CSS, learning LESS is pretty easy and downright fun!

  1. you can generate local coverage reports in the .coverage/ folder by running:

    COVERAGE=true npm test

  2. you can generate a static, minified ball of JS and CSS in the dist/ folder by running:

    npm run build