Relief.io

A webapp to support the coordination of disaster relief efforts.

Relief.io was started during Hack4Good: Typhoon Haiyan to help with disaster relief in the Philippines with the intent to be used in any future disaster relief efforts.

The app is built with nodejs+angular, uses firebase for the sockets and is sponsored by ObjectRocket for mongodb.

Contributing to the project

Please help out where you can, we're happy for this repo to be the base for a bunch of projects that can all live at http://relief.io or you are free to fork it and create another site.

Google Group

Join in the chat:

• Relief.io Room
• Hack4Good: Typhoon Haiyan

Hackathon page Project page

Please star the repo and spread the word on twitter! https://twitter.com/insertcoffee/statuses/399232533910409216

Setting up for development

Note: you will need node and npm installed first.

The easiest way to install node.js is with nave.sh by executing [sudo] ./nave.sh usemain 0.10

Clone the repo, enter the directory and type:

$ npm install

$ [sudo] npm install bower -g
$ bower install

$ npm start

You should now be able to access the server here: http://localhost:3000/

Project Structure

Backend

• All server files live in the /server directory.
• Controllers live in the /server/controllers directory.
• General app config lives in the /server/app.js file.

Backend Dependencies

• Try to use npm where possible, record dependencies in package.json or use the --save flag with npm

Frontend

• All frontend files live in the /public directory.
• Angularjs components are split up in to features in the /public/features directory.
• Inside each feature can be controllers, services, styles and views related to that specific feature.
• Each feature may include an init.js file to initialize routes and services.
• Generic styles & services can live in /public/style & /public/services.js.
• The main angular app config lives in /public/app.js
• The layout file is rendered in jade and passes session and user info from the backend to the frontend. This lives in /public/index.jade

Frontend Dependencies

• Try to use bower where possible, record dependencies in bower.json or use the --save flag with bower
• Other 3rd party code can live in /public/vendor.

Developing a new feature

Frontend

The frontend is built with angularjs, which is pretty simple if you have experience with a javascript MVC framework. Jquery, underscore & Twitter Bootstrap are also included.

• Create a new directory for the feature /public/features/myfeature. (it may be easier to copy an existing one)
• Modify init.js to set up your routes and rename the controllers etc.
• Edit /public/app.jade in the // ========= Features ========= section to add your new feature. (it may be easier to copy an existing one)
• You can modify /public/features/menu/menu.html to add your new feature to the top menu.

Adding information to a map

The mapping lib leafletjs is included and some example code can be found in the map feature directory. ( leaflet functions all start with L. )

• http://leafletjs.com/
• https://github.com/missinglink/relief.io/blob/master/public/feature/map/IndexController.js

Backend

The backend is built with nodejs. If you have experience with ruby or PHP etc you should be fine copy->pasting to get you started. The server is based on expressjs & the sockets are using firebase.

• Create a new controller in /server/controllers or a service in /server/services. (it may be easier to copy an existing one)
• Edit /server/app.js in the // Controllers or // Services section to add your new feature. (it may be easier to copy an existing one)