Fonio is a a collaborative scholarly text editor allowing to build high quality static websites, using the architecture of websites to structure arguments, and the possibility to feature an extensible array of resources such as bibliographic references, images, tables, videos, and interactive elements.
Fonio puts an emphasis on documentation, allowing writers to describe all the resources gathered during their inquiry in a rich and homogeneous way (date, source, author, ...). It also allows them to build an augmented glossary in order to define key terms and browse them in an interactive way.
Besides, the application is aimed at allowing to work extensively on the information design of a dissertation: one can choose a way to organize the reading experience of their readers, and customize the visual identity of their work in a meaningful way.
Fonio is collaborative and allows several writers to work simultaneously on contents, design and documentation. According to this collaborative state of mind, works in progress are readable by the whole classroom, but their edition is restricted to each team.
Each session corresponds to a specific course and exists during a limited period of time. All works are saved and privately archived after the semester is finished, but the application also allows writers to download their work at anytime to backup it or to publish it online in a clean and easy way.
Fonio is part of a suite of digital storytelling tools tailored for the FORCCAST pedagogical program and médialab sciences po scientific activities.
It works with the quinoa-server application which provides a server to store stories and handles collaborative edition through websockets.
Nota bene: you have to install both fonio (the client/visual interface) and quinoa-server (the server/data management application) to be able to run this application.
Prerequisites :
- install node
- install git
- learn to use macos terminal, windows command line or linux command line depending on your operating system
To install quinoa-server, open your terminal/command line tool and run the following commands in a directory of your choice :
git clone https://github.com/medialab/quinoa-server
cd quinoa-server
npm install
cp config/sample.json config/default.json
Then edit the config/default.json file with your own settings.
Then, to install fonio, open your terminal/command line tool and run the following commands in a directory of your choice :
git clone https://github.com/medialab/fonio
cd fonio
npm install
cp config/sample.json config/default.json
Then edit the config/default.json file with your own settings.
In both fonio and quinoa-server folders, run in two different terminal/command line tabs :
npm run dev
Fonio application is then available locally at the following address: localhost:3000
Fonio is compatible with the Redux Devtools browser extension for an optimal developer experience.
For matters of deploying fonio to an online/"production" version, Fonio is supposed to run in a docker infrastructure.
Please look at the docker-compose.yml file present on quinoa-server repository for that matter.
See the contributing guide in order to give a hand on translations, report bugs, or propose pull requests.
npm run build # builds the app to build dir
npm run lint # lints (auto-fix on) the js code
npm run comb # prettifies (s)css code
npm run test # launch tests for all .spec.js suffixed js scripts within src dir
npm run analyze # analyze webpack bundle
# translation management
npm run translations:backfill # backfills untranslated keys with default language
npm run translations:discover # updates json translation files with missing translation keys, removes deprecated keys
npm run translations:export:to:po # exports the contents of /src/translations/*.json files to /translations/*.po files (format for professional translation software)
npm run translations:import:from:po # imports the contents of /src/translations/*.json files from /translations/*.po files (format for professional translation software)
npm run translations:update:po # fills po files with untranslated keys
npm run translations:update # backfills, discovers and updates po files
npm run translations:addlanguage # automated files manipulations for adding a locale
npm rnu translations:gitaddpo # adds to git the new translations files
The project uses a precommit hook before each commit to ensure the code remains clean at all times. Check out the package.json to learn more about it.