Getting started

This course requires some software to be installed.

• A web browser: firefox
• A text editor: gedit
• PHP
• GIT

Normally these packages are already installed on the provided VM. If not, they can easily be installed by running:

sudo dnf install firefox gedit php git

Press y when prompted Is this ok [y/N]:.

This document and all the exercises/examples are hosted on GitHub. This means a local copy of the source can be obtained easily and kept in sync with the latest changes and updates.

This website source can be found at https://github.com/asoete/howest-webtechnology and the result viewed at https://asoete.github.io/howest-webtechnology

All the code created during the lessons will be made available at https://github.com/asoete/howest-webtechnology-examples.

Init workspace

mkdir ~/webtechnology
cd  ~/webtechnology

• Create your own exercises directory

mkdir exercises

You can store all your scripts in this folder…

Get local copy of this site.

Although all documents are hosted online (https://asoete.github.io/howest-webtechnology) it is recommended to host the cursus-site locally.

Github doesn’t allow the execution of PHP scripts, so the exercise solution may not work as they should because Github is preventing PHP-code execution…

The following steps must be taken to start/open the site locally:

• Get an initial copy of the repository:

cd ~/webtechnology
git clone https://github.com/asoete/howest-webtechnology.git cursus

• To get the latest version/updates

cd ~/webtechnology/cursus
git pull origin master

• Start a local instance of the site:

cd ~/webtechnology/cursus
make serve

And open http://localhost:8000 in a web browser.

Get local copy of the exercises and examples solutions

• Get an initial copy of the repository located at https://github.com/asoete/howest-webtechnology-examples:

cd ~/webtechnology
git clone https://github.com/asoete/howest-webtechnology-examples.git solutions-and-examples

This command will create a `solutions-and-examples`-folder which will contain all the code featured during the lessons:
* Example snippet
* Exercise solutions

• To get the latest version (aka. update the repository) run:

cd ~/webtechnology/solutions-and-examples
git pull origin master

git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/master

Final result

If you complete all of the steps above, you will end up with a workspace that looks like this:

~/webtechnology
├── cursus
├── exercises
└── solutions-and-examples

Editors

GUI editors (present in repositories)

These editors come shipped with the default enabled package repository and are only a sudo dnf install... away.

Gedit

This is a very basic editor equipped for basic file editing. Installed by default.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gedit

sudo dnf install gedit

# install additional plugins for more "advanced" features linke snippets
sudo dnf install gedit-plugins

Geany

This is a very little more advanced editor equipped for simple programming.

https://www.geany.org/

sudo dnf install geany

Search dnf for additional plugins and install them:

sudo dnf search geany-plugins

# Example install spellcheck
sudo  dnf install geany-plugins-spellcheck

Gnome builder

Gnome builder is a full featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) with advanced features.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder

https://builder.readthedocs.io/en/latest/exploring.html

sudo  dnf install gnome-builder

GUI editors (third party)

Some editors are not present in the default repositories because they do not conform to the Free and Open Source policies Fedora upholds.

VScode / VSCodium

Microsoft publishes a very capable and popular code editor named VSCode: https://code.visualstudio.com/

There is however no open build of this editor. This is what VSCodium is trying to solve: https://vscodium.com/

When we [Microsoft] build Visual Studio Code, we do exactly this. We clone the vscode repository, we lay down a customized product.json that has Microsoft specific functionality (telemetry, gallery, logo, etc.), and then produce a build that we release under our license.

When you clone and build from the vscode repo, none of these endpoints are configured in the default product.json. Therefore, you generate a “clean” build, without the Microsoft customizations, which is by default licensed under the MIT license

Installation:

sudo tee -a /etc/yum.repos.d/vscodium.repo << 'EOF'
[gitlab.com_paulcarroty_vscodium_repo]
name=gitlab.com_paulcarroty_vscodium_repo
baseurl=https://paulcarroty.gitlab.io/vscodium-deb-rpm-repo/rpms/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
repo_gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://gitlab.com/paulcarroty/vscodium-deb-rpm-repo/raw/master/pub.gpg
metadata_expire=1h
EOF
sudo dnf search codium
sudo dnf install codium.x86_64

Command line editors

These are command line editors run from within a terminal. They are most commonly used to edit configuration files and can also be used over SSH.

With some configuration they can also be used for more advanced editing and code development.

ViM

This is the editor you may be seen during the lessons. It has quite a steep learning curve. Be advised!

https://www.vim.org/

sudo dnf install vim

Nano

This editor is used during BIT01 Linux to edit config files.

https://www.nano-editor.org/

sudo dnf install nano

Emacs

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

sudo dnf install emacs