Palette 🎨

An interactive rubric builder and grading assistant tool to improve the group project grading experience on Canvas.

Table of Contents

• Requirements

  • Docker
  • Canvas API Token
    • Generating a personal token:
    • Using your Canvas token with Palette:

• Startup Instructions - Easy

  • Update and Run
  • Run

• Startup Instructions - Advanced

  • Option 1: Running with Docker
  • Option 2: Running without Docker

• Shutting Down

  • Stopping Containers

• Usage

• Troubleshooting

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Requirements

Docker

Palette runs in a Docker container, providing the necessary Node environment. Make sure you have the following installed:

• Docker: Install Docker
• Docker Compose: Install Docker Compose

Check your installations with:

docker --version
docker-compose --version

Canvas API Token

A token is required to interact with the Canvas API.

Generating a personal token:

• Sign in to Canvas
• On the left sidebar menu click the account widget
• Click Settings
• Scroll down to Approved Integrations
• Select + New Access Token
• Label your token by filling in the Purpose field
• Set an expiration date and/or time as desired, leave blank for no expiration.
• Copy the full token before refreshing the page.

Using your Canvas token with Palette:

• In the top right of the application, click on the gray circle to open a drop-down menu
• Select Settings
• Paste your full Canvas API token into the Token Input field
• Select Update Settings
• Navigate to the Builder tab if you want to create or edit rubrics or the Grading tab to grade assignment submissions.
• Select your target course and assignment.
• Have a blast!

Important

Your account must be authorized as a teacher or grader in order to perform most actions. Students can do certain actions via the API but Palette does not support those at this time.

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Startup Instructions - Easy

Two scripts have been provided to update and run the application without worrying about Docker commands.

Update and Run

From the project root, run ./update.sh to pull the latest content from GitHub, shutdown any running instances of the application in Docker, rebuild the container with the latest changes, and start the container.

Important

Run this script if there's a new update to pull. If the application has any errors, try running this first as Docker caching sometimes causes issues.

Run

When you just want to run the application, this is the fastest method.

Run ./start.sh from the project root to start the container and run Palette.

Important

If the application has any errors, try running update.sh first as Docker caching can sometimes cause issues.

Startup Instructions - Advanced

Option 1: Running with Docker

1. Clone the repository and navigate to the root folder:

   git clone <repository-url>
   cd palette

2. Run one of the following commands to start the services:

   docker-compose up        # Attached mode
   docker-compose up -d     # Detached mode

   This will build and start the container on any OS.

3. Stopping the Containers

   • Use CTRL + C if in attached mode or docker-compose down if detached.

Option 2: Running without Docker

If you have Node.js (version 18+) installed:

1. After cloning the repo, run:

   npm install && npm run dev

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Shutting Down

Stopping Containers

• To stop services and remove containers:

  docker-compose down

• Removing Volumes and Images
  For a complete cleanup:

  docker-compose down --volumes --rmi all

• Optional:
  To remove unused resources:

  docker system prune --all --volumes

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Usage

Once up and running, you can interact with the application on http://localhost:5173.

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Troubleshooting

1. Permissions Issues
   Ensure Docker is running, and check that your user is in the docker group. For persistent issues, run with sudo.

2. Checking Logs

   docker-compose logs

3. Rebuild Containers
   After changes:

   docker-compose up --build

4. Network Issues
   Verify port 5173 is free.

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