2017-07-27 DSpace 7 Working Group Meeting notes

Tim Donohue [10:00 AM]
@here: It's time for our weekly check-in meeting for the DSpace 7 Working Group: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/DSpace+7+Working+Group As always, we'll kick things off here with Angular UI status updates, questions, etc.

[10:01]
@art-lowel : would you like to update us on Angular UI efforts this week & plans for the coming week?

Art Lowel [10:01 AM]
Sure

[10:01]
After last week’s meeting, I merged @wwelling’s Angular 4 PR

[10:01]
and afterwards I noticed a strange bug

[10:01]
https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/128

[10:02]
If you clicked a link, the previous page didn’t disappear, it remained visible underneath the new page (edited)

[10:02]
On my local machine, the page worked with per angular 4 code, but @wwelling pointed out in the github issue that on dspace7-demo.atmire.com those item pages wouldn’t render at all

[10:03]
It turned out this was a pre-existing bug, only the symptoms had changed

[10:03]
likely because we switched routers in the context of the angular 4 upgrade

[10:03]
But this is good to be aware of

Tim Donohue [10:03 AM]
wow..good find

Art Lowel [10:04 AM]
if you see the same symptoms, there’s likely a different error preventing the router from completing its page load

[10:04]
Here’s the PR: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/129

[10:04]
I’ve also been working on the upgrade to @ngrx/platform

[10:04]
WIP branch here: https://github.com/artlowel/dspace-angular/tree/switch-to-ngrx-platform

[10:05]
I was able to fix all build errors, but the migration was harder than their docs made it seem :wink:

[10:05]
this was in part due to the fact that our store was multiple levels deep

[10:05]
I grouped similar features together using ngrx’s `combineReducers` method

[10:06]
But in the new version you can no longer do that manually, so I had to switch to a flatter store structure

[10:06]
The way we were fetching data from the store also didn’t work anymore

[10:06]
platform adds support for memoized selectors

[10:07]
If you use those twice, with the same params, they aren’t recalculated but the previous result is automatically cahced and returned

[10:07]
This is a great idea for performance, however I can longer get our old selectors to work, even though they’re not supposed to be deprecated

[10:07]
I would have liked to switch to those memoized selectors more gradually

[10:08]
anyway, I translated most of the selectors by now, but I’m still having some issues

[10:08]
I’d say I’m most of the way there, but there’s still some work to be done

[10:08]
I hope to be ready early next week

Tim Donohue [10:09 AM]
Ok. good to know. Are any of these comments things to report back to the ngrx-platform team as possible bugs (or upgrade gotchas)?

Art Lowel [10:09 AM]
About the selectors maybe, I’ll ask about it in their gitter room

[10:09]
There was a long thread on github about the removal of combineReducers though

[10:10]
and they were adamant that that’s not coming back

Tim Donohue [10:10 AM]
yes, I was more thinking the selectors not working but not deprecated

[10:10]
So, this all sounds good overall, but it sounds a lot more frustrating than it should have been.

Art Lowel [10:11 AM]
yup :slightly_smiling_face:

Tim Donohue [10:11 AM]
If we find it's really "just not ready" (or not fixable easily), is there an option to simply stick with what we have until they fix these issues?

Art Lowel [10:11 AM]
Yes, if I don’t get it fixed early next week that’s what we’ll do

Tim Donohue [10:12 AM]
(Just want to be sure you don't end up spinning your wheels...the effort here probably isn't worth it, if the ngrx-platform isn't stable/working right)

Art Lowel [10:12 AM]
but it’s unfortunate, because a lot of the issues we had with ngrx are supposedly fixed in the new version

[10:12]
yeah, that’s a fair point

[10:13]
as I said, if I don’t get it working soon, I’ll put it on hold and start working on search

Tim Donohue [10:13 AM]
Sounds like a good plan

[10:14]
Any other updates to share here? I saw a fair amount of Waffle board cleanup today: https://waffle.io/DSpace/dspace-angular (But it looked more like cleanup than code changes)

Art Lowel [10:14 AM]
Yeah, like we discussed last time, I closed the issues that were only open due to lacking tests

[10:15]
and created a new issue for that

[10:15]
Those were my updates

Tim Donohue [10:16 AM]
Was there anything to discuss on @atarix83's PR: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/127 It looks to me like we're just waiting on PR updates at this point? Any more information you need, @atarix83 ?

Giuseppe Digilio [10:17 AM]
I think that for issue it's better to wait @bollini is back from holiday

[10:18]
we need to discuss with him about this issue

Tim Donohue [10:18 AM]
OK. Is there any way to move this PR forward in the meantime (and create a new ticket for the remaining discussion)? Or does this PR just need to wait as well, @atarix83 ?

Art Lowel [10:19 AM]
Right before OR, @bolini had fixed it so that `/api/core/communties/:id/collections` would return the scoped list of collections

[10:19]
does that help?

Tim Donohue [10:20 AM]
If the PR needs to wait, that's OK. It's just something we should be aware of here...so that we don't keep asking for updates on this PR. I just want to clarify how to move this forward to potentially free up your time for something else, @atarix83 :slightly_smiling_face:

Giuseppe Digilio [10:21 AM]
maybe i can separate the two issue of the PR

[10:21]
https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/125

Art Lowel [10:22 AM]
Yes, that part can be easily merged

Giuseppe Digilio [10:22 AM]
and move the other one back In progress (edited)

Tim Donohue [10:23 AM]
That sounds fine to me. I'd just like to see you be able to move on to something else (until Andrea returns from holiday), @atarix83 . So, this sounds like a good way to do so

Giuseppe Digilio [10:23 AM]
I've almost resolved this one https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/119 (edited)

Tim Donohue [10:24 AM]
Sounds great, if you end up having a PR to review soon, let us know!

[10:25]
Are there any other updates that anyone would like to share? (realizing we are nearing the 30 minute mark)

[10:26]
I'm also noticing the "Ready" column is a little light: https://waffle.io/DSpace/dspace-angular But, that may be OK for now, as long as we keep minimally putting new bugs in there (for potentially new contributors)

[10:26]
@art-lowel : it looks like we do need a ticket for the Search work you talked about though. I'd like to make sure that work is tracked as assigned to you (or whomever at Atmire will claim it)

Art Lowel [10:27 AM]
You’re right, I need to start writing search tickets

Tim Donohue [10:27 AM]
Thanks, sounds good. And, yes it probably should be a series of search tickets (as much as it can be broken down) so that others can chip in on pieces too

Art Lowel [10:28 AM]
That’s the plan

Tim Donohue [10:28 AM]
Anyone else in attendance here have questions, or looking for guidance on how to contribute (or an easy "first ticket" to claim)?

[10:30]
Well, if you are looking for guidance (and just not wanting to say so publicly), please don't hesitate to get in touch privately with @art-lowel or I. We'd be glad to help you get involved, or point you at an easier ticket to get started with

[10:31]
Since it's now 30mins into the meeting (and no other comments/questions), I'd say let's move this over to the #rest-api channel to talk REST API updates.

Hardy Pottinger [10:31 AM]
I remember having a conversation about workflows at OR17, and the importance of keeping bots out of submission workflows came up, which could easily be handled by a Captcha, and, I wonder if there is a ticket for addinng a Captcha UI element to our Angular UI work?

Art Lowel [10:32 AM]
Not yet

[10:32]
tickets for workflow haven’t been created yet

Hardy Pottinger [10:32 AM]
^^^ would be an easy first ticket: implement a Captcha

Art Lowel [10:32 AM]
high level workflow tasks, are written down in a spreadsheet with all the future workpackages

[10:33]
I’ll add this to that spreadsheet

Tim Donohue [10:31 AM]
@here: we are now into the REST API updates portion of our DSpace 7 Working Group meeting.

[10:33]
As noted in the earlier portion of this meeting, Andrea Bollini, our REST API lead, is out on holiday (until Aug 11). So, in the meantime, I'll be a bit dependent on individuals bringing REST topics to this update session.

[10:33]
I know from following REST tickets & this channel that @tom_desair has added a proposal to the REST contract for Search endpoints: https://github.com/DSpace/Rest7Contract/pull/9

Tom Desair (Atmire)
[10:34 AM]
Indeed, @bollini proposed to review it, but I do not know when.

Tim Donohue [10:34 AM]
(And it looks like @bollini said he added a "review" but I don't see it... I wonder if he forgot to save his review)

Art Lowel [10:34 AM]
No, I think he just opened a request for reviews

Tim Donohue [10:35 AM]
Oh, I see

[10:35]
So, presumably @art-lowel you've reviewed this proposal from an Angular UI perspective (i.e. is this all seemingly reasonable from an Angular implementation point of view)?

Art Lowel [10:36 AM]
yes, I did, it looks very good

Tim Donohue [10:37 AM]
Since Andrea is out for a few more weeks, I'll give this a review today. As long as nothing sticks out as "obviously wrong" (doubtful), I'll give it a :+1: and suggest we merge & move this effort forward. When Andrea returns, he can always log bug fixes or improvements if there are areas he feels could be enhanced/improved

[10:38]
If there is anyone else in this channel who is also willing to look at this proposal for new endpoints, please do let me know. Other feedback is also welcome and/or reviews on the PR

[10:39]
And, thanks @tom_desair for writing up this proposal!

[10:39]
Are there other REST API updates to share (from anyone)?

[10:41]
Anyone here looking for/at ways to contribute to the REST API efforts in the coming week (or so)? If so, either speak up now, or get in touch post-mtg

[10:42]
Ok, not hearing anything. As you likely can tell, the next major effort on the REST API side is this search endpoint. So, as that work progresses, I'd encourage others to provide feedback on the code and/or ideas as you see fit. We'd like to find ways to get others involved, and even just via feedback is a useful first step here

[10:44]
I will also note we have a "REST API v7" component in JIRA to track the tickets here: https://jira.duraspace.org/issues/?filter=13920 I've also set this up as a filter in our Kanban board (requires a JIRA login to see though, unfortunately): https://jira.duraspace.org/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=33&projectKey=DS&quickFilter=70

[10:45]
Ok, so it sounds like we are done with REST API updates.

[10:46]
We do have about 15 mins left in this meeting. So, I'll ask one last time for questions/comments from anyone. And, this can be about anything DSpace 7 related, not necessarily specific to REST API

[10:48]
Ok, not hearing anything. Sounds like we'll end early today. Next week we'll touch base via Google Hangouts. As always, please feel free to get in touch (via Slack, email etc) if you have questions, or are looking for ways to contribute.

[10:48]
Thanks all!

Art Lowel [10:48 AM]
Thanks Tim

Tom Desair (Atmire)
[10:48 AM]
See you!

Mark Wood [10:48 AM]
Thanks!