NOTE: This project was formerly known as the "Predix Seed." Code for old versions of this project can still be found in the old Github repository: https://github.com/predixdev/predix-seed

The Predix WebApp Starter ("Starter") is a web application starter kit aimed to accelerate Predix application development. It comes in the form of a simple web application, with code examples on features such as branding, theming, layout, navigation, responsiveness, organization of views, data presentation and micro-services integration, to name some. These working code samples can be straightforwardly customized and adapted to specific application needs. Predix application projects can directly use, remove from or add to these features to achieve prototype or production state much faster than through building everything from scratch. This speeds up application development, letting developers focus on functionality, instead of having to make boilerplate concerns work.

As its name indicates the Starter is built on Polymer. Based on the Web Component API, Polymer is a component framework that prefers the browser's native capabilities over HTML and JavaScript enhancements, wherever possible. And where there are differences in currently available features, polyfills are provided towards consistent cross-browser behavior. By adopting the Polymer strategy the Starter ensures high consistency of application behavior across browsers, and the best chances of compatibility with future browser versions.

Most of the frontend components provided in the Starter are from Predix UI Components, which are also built on Polymer. These re-usable UI building blocks have been researched and designed to address the most common UI patterns. Both built upon Polymer, the Starter and Px Components work together out-of-the-box. Px Components can be used independently, or in combination with one another and with the Starter. This achieves consistent behavior, look-and-feel, and high code re-use.

The backend of the Starter is implemented as a NodeJS/Express web server. It presently includes a minimal set of public modules and a couple of Predix-specific modules (for session and proxy concerns, for example). Similar to the frontend, it is also straightforwardly customizable, even replaceable by another server application, if so desired. NodeJS is a server-side application framework based on JavaScript. It enjoys strong growth and huge adoption in the server applications community.

Many features offered by the Starter are from open-source component projects, many of which are actively discussed and contributed to. This provides developers with available documentation and help in using such components for their projects.

Make a directory for your project. Clone or download and extract the starter in that directory.

git clone https://github.com/PredixDev/predix-webapp-starter.git  
cd predix-webapp-starter

If you don't have them already, you'll need node, bower and gulp to be installed globally on your machine.

1. Install node. This includes npm - the node package manager.
2. Install bower globally npm install bower -g
3. Install gulp globally npm install gulp-cli -g

Change directory into the new project you just cloned, then install dependencies.

npm install
bower install

The default gulp task will start a local web server. Just run this command:

gulp

Browse to http://localhost:5000. Initially, the app will use mock data for the views service, asset service, and time series service. Later you can connect your app to real instances of these services.

With a few commands you can build a distribution version of the app, and deploy it to the cloud.

Use gulp to create a distribution version of your app, which contains vulcanized files for more efficient serving. You will need to run this command every time before you deploy to the Cloud.

gulp dist

Pushing (deploying) to a cloud environment requires knowledge of the commands involved and a valid user account with the environment. GE uses Cloud Foundry for its cloud platform. For information on Cloud Foundry, refer to this link.

The simplest way to push the Starter application to a cloud environment is by modifying the default manifest file (manifest.yml) and using the cf push command, as follows:

1. Update manifest.yml

   Change the name field in your manifest.yml.
   Uncomment the services section, and change the names to match your service instances. Uncomment the two base64ClientCredential environment variables and enter the correct values for your UAA clients.

   ---
   applications:
     - name: my-predix-starter
       memory: 64M
       buildpack: nodejs_buildpack
       command: node server/app.js
   #services:
    # - <your-name>-secure-uaa-instance
    # - <your-name>-timeseries-instance
    # - <your-name>-asset-instance
   env:
       node_env: cloud
       uaa_service_label : predix-uaa
       # Add these values for authentication in the cloud
       #base64ClientCredential: dWFhLWNsaWVudC1pZDp1YWEtY2xpZW50LWlkLXNlY3JldA==
       #loginBase64ClientCredential: bG9naW5fY2xpZW50X2lkOnNlY3JldA==
   

2. Push to the cloud.

   cf push
   

3. Access the cloud deployment of your Starter application

The output of the cf push command includes the URL to which your application was deployed. Below is an example:

```
Showing health and status for app my-predix-starter in org my-org / space dev as [email protected]...
OK

requested state: started
instances: 1/1
usage: 128M x 1 instances
urls: my-predix-starter.run.aws-usw02-pr.ice.predix.io
last uploaded: Mon Apr 17 18:35:03 UTC 2017
stack: cflinuxfs2
buildpack: nodejs_buildpack

    state     since                    cpu    memory          disk          details
#0   running   2017-04-17 11:35:40 AM   0.0%   63.5M of 128M   90.9M of 1G
```  

Access your Starter application by adding "https://" to the beginning of the URL, and loading that URL in a web browser.

Ask questions and file tickets on https://www.predix.io/community.

This application also serves as the UI for the Predix RMD Reference App. For more information:

• Predix RMD Reference App Dev Guide
• predix-rmd-ref-app Github repo

Copyright © 2015, 2016, 2017 GE Global Research. All rights reserved.

The copyright to the computer software herein is the property of GE Global Research. The software may be used and/or copied only with the written permission of GE Global Research or in accordance with the terms and conditions stipulated in the agreement/contract under which the software has been supplied.