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Welcome

Welcome to the the Volunteering App Github repo

Download the app!

Get the test version of the app on your own phone so you can see it working in practice and see new test releases when they're available.

(You can also download the production version of the app from the App Store or Google Play, but you can't have both test and production versions installed on the same device.)

iOS

Ask Joanna on Slack to set you up, you'll get an email invitation to download TestFlight and install the app from there.

Android

Ask the team on Slack - one of the dev team needs to go to the Google Play Console > Volunteer app > Release > Testing > Internal testing, then they'll add your email address to the 'STA Volunteer App' Testers group (NB this must be the email address you use for the Google Play account on your phone).

Once that's done, you go to this page and follow instructions to download the app.

Updating to the latest version of the app

The app is being updated regularly and while it's in private testing your phone won't automatically download the latest version. Here's what you do to get the latest version:

iOS

If you are in the Beta test group and you have the Test Flight App installed on your phone, you should receive an email and a push notification that a new version is available. In the TestFlight app Tap the Update button next to the STA Volunteer App to download the new version (pull down to refresh if you don't see the new update).

You can also install previous builds if you tap on the STA Volunteer App > App Information > Previous Builds. Note: Test Flight builds expire after about 90 days, so you won't be able to download them if they are older.

If you're not in the Beta test group, reach out to Joanna who can add you.

Android

On your phone, go to the Play Store page from the app itself -- long press on the icon, choose App Info, then App details in store. Then if you see an 'Update' button click that to install the latest version on your device.

Alternatively, you can go to the link in the instructions above for installing the Android app, then to the Google Play Store page it takes you to. If there's an 'Update' button there click that to install the latest version on your device.

Requirements to run the project:

  1. Node.js LTS release (the 'ACTIVE' version here)
  2. npm

    npm usually is installed when Node.js is installed. Run the command npm --version to check if it is installed after installing Node.js in Command Terminal

  3. npx

    Once you have npm, run the command npx --version to check if npx is installed. If that doesn't work, you can install npx with the command npm install -g npx

  4. Install the Expo Go app on your iOS or Android phone -- when you're developing the app locally, you'll use Expo Go to test the app on your phone. As part of this you'll need to set up an Expo account if you don't have one already.

Code editor

You can develop on your local machine.

Or if you want, you can use a cloud-based alternative like GitHub Codespaces (this might be good if you have a very slow laptop for instance). With a free GitHub plan you get up to 60 hours a month of development time in Codespaces (which is probably plenty to volunteer on this project!) You can start a codespace here -- use the Blank template.

Visual Studio Code

If you're using Visual Studio Code for development, it's recommended that you:

Setup and first run

  1. Ensure that you've gone through the setup instructions above

  2. Clone the code from GitHub:

    Using SSH do git clone [email protected]:Scottish-Tech-Army/Volunteer-app.git or using https do git clone https://github.com/Scottish-Tech-Army/Volunteer-app.git

  3. Follow the instructions in Volunteer-api repo to run the api locally

  4. At the command prompt type npx expo install

    Each time you pull from GitHub it is best to run this step in case package.json changed

    If you get warnings about installing dependencies you probably don't worry about these, but do raise them as they indicate possible compatibility issues in dependencies

    If you get errors about installing dependencies try running npx expo install again then ask for help in slack

  5. Copy the .env.example file in the api root folder and name your new file .env in the same folder -- e.g. using the command cp .env.example .env Set the value of STA_API_BASE_URL to the tunnelled URL of your local API server (the one you made a note of in step 8 above).

  6. Run Expo using npm start This will run some commands and then it show you a QR code in your terminal.

You may get an automatic prompt to install @expo/ngrok or another package -- if so, type y to install it.

If you get stuck at this stage, you might need to install @expo/ngrok manually, globally on your local machine: run npm install -g @expo/ngrok then try running npm start again.

  1. Connect your phone:
  • iPhone: open the camera and scan the QR code, tap on the link and it should open up the app in Expo Go
  • Android: open the Expo Go app itself and you can scan the QR code
  • You should now see your local development version of the app on your phone -- any changes you make in your code should show almost instantly on your phone. (If you find you're not seeing changes on your phone or Expo Go loses the connection, see tips here.)

  1. When you've got the app to run, make a PR to improve this README! Fix something that caused you headaches, update something that's no longer correct, or add a training resource, or add something else you think would help other people to get up and running.

  2. See the Subsequent run section below for what to do next time you want to run the app. See the Development section below for more info on developing the app, and how to get set up to deploy changes to the app.

Troubleshooting

Below are some commonly encountered issues and possible ways to resolve them. If it still doesn't work, post in the volunteer-app Slack channel and someone will help you.

The app won't build

  • When I run npm install, it fails with dependency resolution errors

    Sometimes this happens when one or more of the project dependencies gets updated and is out of step with the others. You should try running npx expo install and then npm install --legacy-peer-deps or npm install --force.

  • I can't get Expo started in my terminal when I run npm start in the app directory

    You may get an automatic prompt to install @expo/ngrok or another package -- if so, type y to install it.

    If you get stuck at this stage, you might need to install @expo/ngrok manually, globally on your local machine: run npm install -g @expo/ngrok then try running npm start again.

The app gets stuck loading projects

  • The app gets stuck on the Projects screen -- projects never load

    Make sure the API is running on your local machine, and that your .env files are configured correctly (see Setup and first run above)

    Check the values for both API_TUNNEL_SUBDOMAIN and STA_API_BASE_URL. STA_API_BASE_URL should be prefixed with https://. API_TUNNEL_SUBDOMAIN should not be prefixed with https:// and should only include the URL up to but not including .loca.lt.

    • STA_API_BASE_URL="https://nadia-bloggs-abc123def456ghi789.loca.lt"

    • API_TUNNEL_SUBDOMAIN="nadia-bloggs-abc123def456ghi789"

    Make sure you have three terminal windows open, two running the API: one running npm start and one running the npm tunnel command (see above), both are needed in order for the app to be able to connect to the API

    Check if you can see data coming through from the API. In the terminal window where you ran the npm tunnelling command, get the URL, then paste that URL into a web browser and add /v1/projects at the end -- if your local API is running and tunnelling successfully, you should see a JSON response with a list of projects. (If you don't see that, try the suggestion below, and also check the terminal window where you ran npm start and see if there are any error messages there.)

    Your API tunnel might have fallen asleep -- try stopping the process (press Ctrl+C) in the window where you ran the npm tunnelling command, then run that command again.

    Once a week, your API tunnel will expire and you'll need to enter an IP address in order to continue using it. To check if this is the case, go to the URL of your tunnelled API and add /v1/projects at the end (e.g. https://nadia-bloggs-abc123def456ghi789.loca.lt/v1/projects) If you see a web page instead of projects data, follow the instructions on the page to enter your public IP address -- follow what it says in the If you're the developer... section further down the page. Then stop and restart your app in Expo.

The app builds, but crashes when I run it

  • The app crashes with an error that says 'Metro has encountered an error: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'transformFile')'

    Make sure you are using the LTS version of Node (currently v16); see suggested solutions on StackOverflow. If you want to keep your current version of Node as well, you can use tools such as nvm (MacOS/Linux) or nvm-windows to manage your Node installations.

  • The app crashes with an opensslErrorStack: (error: 03000086)

    Make sure you are using Node v16 LTS due to known conflicts on some devices between OpenSSL and Node v17+; see suggested solutions on StackOverflow.

The app in Expo Go isn't showing my changes or has lost connection

Subsequent run

  1. Start the api

  2. In a third terminal window, enter npm start to run Expo

  3. Connect your phone to your local development version of the app in Expo Go:

  • iPhone: open the camera and scan the QR code, this should open up the app in Expo Go
  • Android: open the Expo Go app itself and you can scan the QR code

    If you find you're not seeing changes on your phone or Expo Go loses the connection, see tips here.

Development

Bugs

Ask one of the team to add you to the it470-volunteer-app-errors Slack channel where you can see crash and error reports coming via Bugsnag. Find out more about Bugsnag on the app and API development pages linked to below.

App

Please see here for more info on developing the front-end app, including more about React Native and Expo, and NativeBase.

Deploying the app

Get set up now so you can deploy changes to the app. Check out the deployment instructions here.

Training resources