External Web Clients

You may want to build your own custom web applications using Girder. Since Girder cleanly separates API from UI, it is straightforward to use a mounted Girder API for app authentication and data storage. You may additionally use Girder’s JavaScript libraries and UI templates to assist in building applications.

Including the Girder REST API

Apache

See the Deploy section for instructions on deployment of Girder under Apache. You may host your web application alongside Girder and use its REST interface.

Tangelo

Tangelo is a CherryPy based web server framework for rapid data analytics and visualization application development. Tangelo has options for directly mounting the Girder API and static application files inside a Tangelo instance. See details in Tangelo’s setup documentation.

Using Girder JavaScript Utilities and Views

Including the JavaScript

Use the following to include the Girder libraries in your web application, assuming Girder is hosted at /girder:

<script src="/girder/static/built/libs.min.js"></script>
<script src="/girder/static/built/app.min.js"></script>

Note that libs.min.js includes requirements for Girder including jQuery, Bootstrap, Underscore, and Backbone. You may wish to use your own versions of these separately and not include libs.min.js.

Initializing Girder

The following code will initialize the Girder environment and should be set before performing any Girder API calls:

$(document).ready(function () {
    girder.apiRoot = '/girder/api/v1';
    girder.router.enabled(false);

    // Your app code here
});

Note that girder.router.enabled(false) must be set to false to disable URL routing behavior specific to the full Girder web application.

Using Girder Register and Login UI

To use Girder UI components, you will need Bootstrap and Girder CSS in your HTML:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/girder/static/lib/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/girder/static/built/app.min.css">

To make login and logout controls, provide a dialog container and login/logout/register links, and a container where the dialogs will be rendered:

<button class="btn btn-link" id="login" href="#">Login</button>
<button class="btn btn-link" id="register" href="#">Register</button>
<label class="hidden" id="name" href="#"></label>
<button class="btn btn-link hidden" id="logout" href="#">Logout</button>
<div class="modal fade" id="dialog-container"></div>

In your JavaScript, perform callbacks such as the following:

$('#login').click(function () {
    var loginView = new girder.views.LoginView({
        el: $('#dialog-container')
    });
    loginView.render();
});

$('#register').click(function () {
    var registerView = new girder.views.RegisterView({
        el: $('#dialog-container')
    });
    registerView.render();
});

$('#logout').click(function () {
    girder.restRequest({
        path: 'user/authentication',
        type: 'DELETE'
    }).done(function () {
        girder.currentUser = null;
        girder.events.trigger('g:login');
    });
});

girder.events.on('g:login', function () {
    console.log("g:login");
    if (girder.currentUser) {
        $("#login").addClass("hidden");
        $("#register").addClass("hidden");
        $("#name").removeClass("hidden");
        $("#logout").removeClass("hidden");
        $("#name").text(girder.currentUser.get('firstName') + " " + girder.currentUser.get('lastName'));

        // Do anything else you'd like to do on login.
    } else {
        $("#login").removeClass("hidden");
        $("#register").removeClass("hidden");
        $("#name").addClass("hidden");
        $("#logout").addClass("hidden");

        // Do anything else you'd like to do on logout.
    }
});

// Check for who is logged in initially
girder.restRequest({
    path: 'user/authentication',
    error: null
}).done(function (resp) {
    girder.currentUser = new girder.models.UserModel(resp.user);
    girder.events.trigger('g:login');
});

You can find an example minimal application using Girder’s login and register dialogs in the source tree at /clients/web-external.