Creating a community app

Version 10.1 by mmorgan on 2023/06/21 17:03

Community apps in collabs

Community apps are services developed by the EBRAINS community of users.The services run are deployed by their respective developers on a server online. Community apps differ from other services in that they can be added to the navigation of any collab with easier integration. For this, the app needs to be registered in a space called the "Community Apps Catalogue". Once the app is registered, instantiating such an app in the Wiki navigation of a collab is as simple as creating a new Wiki page in the collab.

Becoming a contributor

The first step for an EBRAINS user to creating a community app is to get the service developer accreditation. Contributors can register and manage apps within the Community Apps Catalogue.

Users can request service developer accreditation by performing both of the following 2 steps:

  1. opening an EBRAINS support ticket at https://ebrains.eu/support with a short motivation for the request, and
  2. navigating to the app-collaboratory-iam--service-providers Group and clicking the big green "request to join" button.

The support team will apply the permissions to your user.

HBP accredited members will automatically be approved. Other EBRAINS users will be required to sign an an agreement in order to obtain service developer accreditation.

Making your app available to users

In order for users to install your app, it needs to be registered in the Community Apps Catalogue.

Warning: EBRAINS tolerates that service developers create test instances in the Community Apps Catalogue on the conditions that:

  1. The app is marked with the "under development" tag (see below), and
  2. Test apps are removed after no more than 2 weeks (10 working days).

Failure to respect these conditions may lead to a user having their service developer accreditation suspended and/or to the app being deleted from the catalogue by the Collaboratory team without notification.

If the users of your app need to be authenticated, see managing authorisation in the Collaboratory or OIDC clients explained and its sub-pages for a more detailed overview of authenticating EBRAINS users and creating an OIDC client.

Register your app in the Community Apps Catalogue

To register an app in the catalogue, navigate to the catalogue https://wiki.ebrains.eu/bin/view/Apps/ and click the "Create App" button. If the button does not appear, you are either not logged in or you do not yet have the service developer accreditation (see above).

create-app.png

Then, create a new space in the Community Apps Catalogue for your app using the "Community App" type.

create-app-2.png

Fill the form with the following information:

  • main URL: the URL of the homepage of your app. This is where the users will be directed when they open your app in a collab.
  • settings URL: the URL of your app's settings management page, if there is one.
  • description: a description of what your app does. This helps users choose the apps they install.
  • under development?: if checked, your app will not be available to other users.
  • category: a category to help structure the list of apps.
  • maintainers: a list of EBRAINS users who maintain the app. The users need to have logged in to the Wiki service at least once to appear in the list. Maintainers are granted the right to modify the app's registration.
  • documentation URL: if your app has online user documentation, a link to this URL will be provided to users when they use your app.
  • repository: a URL to a public repository so users can access the source code of your app.

Note that only users registered in the "maintainers" field will be able to edit this form. Do not forget to add yourself as a maintainer. When done, click on the "Save & View" button; it displays a summary of information you have just filled. Your app is now available to be used in the Wiki.

Add a logo (optional)

Some of users like to add a logo to their app. The logo is only visible when browsing the catalogue. To do so, the user has to add a PNG file attachment with the filename "logo.png" in the attachment tab at the bottom of the summary page displayed after the "Save & View" action above.

Add an app to your collab

Adding an app to a collab is as simple as creating a new wiki page. As an admin or editor of a collab, a user can add a community app by clicking the "+ Create" button at the top of any wiki page, and selecting the "Community App" type.

add.png

Then click the Create button and the app will be added in the collab's navigation menu.