First you'll need to settle few prerequisites.
Axiom uses a grunt based build, so you'll need node.js to get started. Installing node in your home directory is a good way to avoid the need for sudo, but you're free to install it however you like.
The home directory installation goes like this:
Visit http://nodejs.org/download/ and download the latest version of the node.js source. Untar the source, configure and build...
# install node.js and npm, if you haven't already.
$ cd ~/path/to/nodejs/source/
$ ./configure --path=~/opt/
$ make install
Make sure to modify your PATH to include ~/opt/bin. You can check that node and npm are properly installed by running npm --version.
Next, make sure you have grunt-cli installed...
# install the grunt cli interface globally, if you haven't already.
$ npm install -g grunt-cli
Now clone the Axiom repository.
$ cd ~/src
# clone using ssh
$ git clone git@github.com:chromium/axiom.git
# or https
$ git clone https://github.com/chromium/axiom.git
Now install Axiom dependencies. You'll need this step the first time you build Axiom, and any time a new dependency is added.
$ cd ~/src/axiom/
$ npm install
Axiom is written as a series of ECMAScript 6 modules. It needs to be transpiled into browser or node.js compatible modules before it can be used. We use es6-module-transpiler for this.
# Create ready-to-use Axiom distribution
$ grunt dist
We also use the closure compiler for static analysis. It's possible to skip the static analysis step if you don't want to install closure, but not if you plan to submit a pull request.
To perform a static analysis you'll need to get a recent version of closure from github and point your CLOSURE_PATH environment variable to it. Then run one of the grunt targets that includes a closure pass.
# Just static analysis
$ grunt check
Our tests are written in Jasmine. We have a build target that creates a stand-alone test_harness.html file which you can load in your browser and debug just like any other web page.
You'll need to serve the test harness yourself, see below.
# Build the test harness, then rebuild it after changes.
$ grunt test-watch
# Same as above, but add closure.
$ grunt check-test-watch
We also use Karma for automated test runs.
# Run automated tests in PhantomJS.
$ grunt test
# Run automated tests in Chrome.
$ grunt --browsers=Chrome test
# Both...
$ grunt --browsers=Chrome,PhantomJS test
Our web_shell is build as a sample app, and as such isn't included as part of the main distribution.
# Build the samples once...
$ grunt samples
# Or build once, then watch for changes and rebuild...
$ grunt watch:samples
You'll need to serve the sample app somehow, see below.
The test harness and sample apps need to be served from somewhere. One simple way is to use the http-server package.
Our code assumes you're serving it from https, so step one is to generate a key and certificate for your development server. If you have openssl installed, it goes like this...
$ openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -new -nodes -x509 -days 3650 -keyout \
~/ssh/dev_server_key.pem -out ~/.ssh/dev_server_cert.pem
Then you'll install the http-server package if you don't already have it...
$ npm install -g http-server
Finally, start the server with...
http-server -p8080 -S -C ~/.ssh/dev_server_cert.pem -K ~/.ssh/dev_server_key.pem
Note that our Google Drive file system driver assumes your dev server is running on port 8080. If you're not interested in this code you can run from any port.
A typical use case is to keep this server running in one terminal window in conjunction with grunt watch:samples or grunt check-test-watch running in another terminal window. Make changes to the Axiom source, wait for the grunt rebuild to finish, and then reload the app in your browser.