TreeChecker

TreeChecker is a Laravel application that allows users to run error checks on their GEDCOM family tree files. GEDCOM files can be uploaded and parsed using a slightly modified version of the Webtrees parser, then checked for a variety of errors (see the documentation at http://www.treechecker.net/wiki/ for a specification).

TreeChecker comes with a database model that allows for multiple users and family tree files. The Laravel Eloquent ORM makes querying a breeze and allows for rapid development of new features.

(Development) Installation of TreeChecker

Preliminaries

• The application is written in the Laravel framework. Some useful resources on Laravel are posted below.
• Before installing, make sure to have Apache, MySQL and PHP (>=5.4) installed.
• Install Composer for dependency management.

Initialization

• Clone the repository with git (git clone https://github.com/cgeltly/treechecker.git)
• Run composer install to install the dependencies.

Database seeding

• Create a database called treechecker on your local MySQL installation.
• (optional) Add your machine to bootstrap/start.php as a local environment.
• Check the settings in app/config/database.php to see whether the connection details for the database are correct. You might need to change database names or access credentials.
• To migrate and seed the database (see http://laravel.com/docs/migrations for more info), use php artisan migrate --seed.

Back-end

• As stated before the back-end is written in the Laravel framework, version 4.2.x.
• The parsing part of the application relies heavily on the webtrees parser (version 1.5.3).
• For display of tables, we employ the blimm/datatables package (version 1.3 onwards).

Front-end

• The front-end of the application uses Bootstrap for its CSS.
• It runs quite a few JavaScript packages (all via CDN):
  • jQuery and jQueryUI
  • DataTables
  • D3.js
  • Google Charts
• The front-end can be launched by going to localhost/treechecker/public/home in your browser.

Testing

• TreeChecker is set up to use PHPUnit. You can run the tests by calling phpunit in a terminal.
• You can create a coverage report by uncommenting lines in phpunit.xml.

Last but not least

Want to know more about Laravel?

• The Laravel documentation can be found from http://laravel.com/docs/introduction onwards. Some useful links:
  • Basic tutorial on Laravel: http://daylerees.com/codebright/build-an-app-one
  • Authentication tutorial on Laravel: http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/authentication-with-laravel-4--net-35593
  • Laravel starter site: https://github.com/andrewelkins/Laravel-4-Bootstrap-Starter-Site
  • Laravel cheat sheet: http://cheats.jesse-obrien.ca/
  • List of Laravel packages: https://github.com/tuwannu/awesome-laravel
  • Faker, for generating test data: https://github.com/fzaninotto/Faker