Edit github CSVs

[rufuspollock]

Propose we have url:

/#github/{path-on-github}

e.g.

/#github/datasets/country-codes/blob/master/data/country-codes.csv

Do do this we need:

• A new route
• Create "project" object with github csv (but this is a special project that won't save in the normal way)
• Hook into save so we persist back
  • Disable save if you are not logged in and prompt you to login
  • Note how do we handle situation where not authroized to push to original file - we want classic fork and push approach

[rufuspollock]

@landonreed @aliounedia so question here is how we do this best.

1. Should we have github csv editing app as a separate app or part of this app.
   • Separate app in terms of one tool for one job philosophy. However it is more work
2. If part of this app how do we "hack" the project and what should the UI be e.g. should one copy prose style?

The simplest thing possible right now would be:

• Mirror github urls for editing /#{username}/{repo}/{github-style-path-to-file}
  • [Later we could provide prose-style browser]
• Configure a project so it knows whether it is a "full" data project with persistence to gists or is just a "github file" style project where save means writing over the original file

What do people think?

[aliounedia]

@rgrp @landonreed , I have some questions here : what look like a [ prose-style browser] for a csv file . I though that we want to load on grid a csv github file / not gist file . It can be done by testing if a gist file or just a "github csv file" style project where save means writing over the original file. change can be done on grid ?

[rufuspollock]

Once we have a decision this is now about 1h to implement :-)

[rufuspollock]

@landonreed @aliounedia so we now have basic load working e.g.

http://explorer.okfnlabs.org/#datasets/gdp-us/edit/master/quarter.csv

However save won't work yet (plus some other stuff probably!)

[aliounedia]

@landonreed , @rgrp, I was very busy this last days, so I will check today :) Thank!

[rufuspollock]

@landonreed @aliounedia this should now basically be working including save. Please visit http://explorer.okfnlabs.org/#start and give a try (see the Edit a Github CSV on the front page) and let me know if there are bugs / issues.

[rufuspollock]

FIXED.

[paulfitz]

@rgrp this is great! Would it be totally out of scope to also support editing tables expressed as YAML? I've been writing github jekyll sites that are driven by a table or two placed in _data/*.yml, and a simple online editor could help my collaborators. Looking at the code, it seems doable, but not sure the functionality belongs here?

[rufuspollock]

@paulfitz it would actually be pretty simple to do and would we a welcome addition - we just need something that will serialize and unserialize yaml to a structure like (this is what we use internally in managing the data)

{
  records: [ { a: 1, b: 2}, {a: 10, b: 12}, ... ]
  // fields are optional - fields describe the columns as per json table schema
  fields: [ { name: 'a', type: 'string' }, ... ]
}

[paulfitz]

@rgrp looks like procrastinating on doing this paid off for me. The version of jekyll on github-pages was recently updated, and will now accept _data/*.json, so no yaml needed.

[paulfitz]

Also this https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/pull/2761 will reduce the work needed down to zero, with csv supported directly.

[Floppy]

glad to be of service ;)