2017-05-25 DSpace 7 UI Working Group Meeting notes

Tim Donohue [8:54 AM]
@here: Reminder that in a little over an hour (at 15:00UTC / 11am EDT) we'll be holding our weekly DSpace 7 Working Group meeting in #angular-ui (first 30mins) followed by #rest-api (second 30mins). All are welcome to join the discussion, or just listen in. As always, meeting notes will be posted on our working group wiki page at: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/DSpace+7+UI+Working+Group

Tim Donohue [10:00 AM]
@here: Our DSpace 7 UI Meeting is starting now

[10:01]
Art emailed me to let me know he's got a conflict today, so I'll be giving the Angular UI updates, based on what he's forwarded along and added into Waffle and/or GitHub

[10:02]
First up, we have several new PRs this week on the Angular side of things: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pulls

[10:02]
There's a pagination component PR from Guiseppe: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/95

[10:04]
Art gave this an initial review and added some comments into the PR itself. Giuseppe is working on updating the PR based on those comments

[10:04]
Art mentioned that once the updates are made, he'll give it another review and hopefully get it merged shortly thereafter

[10:05]
Next up in the PR list, is work from Lotte (Atmire). She's added in tests & docs for the Simple Item page work: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/96

[10:06]
This is to finish up this ticket: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/74 The code behind the Simple Item page was in a separate PR (and already merged). So the new PR #96 just needs a quick review and can be merged quickly.

[10:07]
Finally, in the Angular PR list is adding "Type" info to the mock data (to better align with the REST API): https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/97

[10:08]
This is a pretty small PR overall, and it includes a few improvements to Bootstrap usage (see the PR description)

[10:08]
Art mentioned that this is also ready to be merged quickly (after a quick review).

[10:09]
Per these PRs that are ready to merge, I'll try and find some time later today (or next week) to give them a quick review & merge. But, I'd encourage others to also take a look if you find time

[10:11]
The last update the Art passed along was that we have a new ticket in the "ready" column: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/98

[10:12]
This ticket is currently dependent on Giuseppe's PR (#95) and the "Type" info PR (#97), but it'll provide us with a component to easily list various DSpace Objects on browse/search pages.

Giuseppe Digilio [10:12 AM]
I'm ready to update the PR

Tim Donohue [10:13 AM]
And as a general reminder, we do have some other tickets in the "ready" column already. Here's that Waffle board of tasks: https://waffle.io/DSpace/dspace-angular Anyone is welcome to claim a ticket and start working on it. If you need access to the GitHub repository to claim the ticket, get in touch with myself or @art-lowel

[10:14]
Thanks @atarix83! Feel free to update it as soon as you are ready. I'd recommend also mentioning Art by name in a comment, so that he is notified (and can review it again tomorrow or early next week) (edited)

[10:15]
Those are all the updates I have for today on the Angular UI side of things. As you can tell, there's been a good amount of effort this past week.

[10:16]
That said, we'd still like to get others @here more involved! We still have a pretty small active group (with others joining up on occasion). If you would like to get involved, but don't know where to start, please get in touch!

[10:17]
Are there any other questions or comments others would like to add/ask regarding the Angular UI work? Or any other updates anyone here would like to share?

[10:19]
Ok, I'm not hearing anything.

Pinned by you
May 25th at 10:25 AM Pinned by you
[10:21]
If you are interested in Angular training, there are several opportunities in the coming months. On June 26, we'll hold our first DSpace Angular training workshop at OR2017 (in Brisbane, Australia). On Aug 22-23, we'll have another at the DSpace User Group meeting at Georgetown University (Washington, DC): https://www.library.georgetown.edu/node/19724. So, I'd encourage folks to attend one or the other if you'd like to learn more about Angular & how to help out this effort! (edited)

[10:22]
At this point in time, I'd suggest we go ahead and migrate ourselves over to #rest-api channel a bit early, and start with the REST API subteam updates.

Tim Donohue [10:23 AM]
Ok, now it's time for the DSpace 7 REST API updates @here. I'm going to hand this over to @bollini to lead the updates

Andrea Bollini [10:24 AM]
we have three updates for the past week

Terry Brady [10:24 AM]
Hello

Andrea Bollini [10:24 AM]
1. a question has been posted on the REST7Contract https://github.com/DSpace/Rest7Contract/issues/8

[10:25]
this is a good news because it means that people start to be aware of the repo and the ongoing work but also show that the goals of the new REST API are not well known by most of the community

[10:26]
I hope to start a conversation on that so that other can help to identify all the area that need to be supported in the new REST API

Terry Brady [10:27 AM]
It would be useful to enumerate all of those features on the endpoints page. It will help us realize how much work there is to complete.

Andrea Bollini [10:28 AM]
yes, my suggestion is to open PR against the endpoint page as soon as we identify a new area / function that need to be supported

Tim Donohue [10:29 AM]
I agree. In general, it'd be good to add brainstormed endpoints to the "Proposed Endpoints" section, even if we don't yet know what the full endpoint name/path should be yet

[10:29]
https://github.com/DSpace/Rest7Contract/blob/master/endpoints.md#proposed-endpoints

Andrea Bollini [10:30 AM]
2. we have a PR merged (CORS support https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/1749 ) and a PR waiting for approval https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/1750

[10:31]
I want to update the demo website of the api so if we agree about 1750 I will prefer to have that merged before the update

Terry Brady [10:31 AM]
Based on a very fast scan, I like the concept

Tim Donohue [10:32 AM]
I like that 1750 makes the "{apiCategory}" easy to update (especially since we may want to do this in other areas as we add more endpoints). +1

Andrea Bollini [10:33 AM]
@terrywbrady I will add you as reviewer so that you can formally approve

Terry Brady [10:33 AM]
Sounds good.

[10:33]
Could you re-share the link to your demo site

Andrea Bollini [10:33 AM]
we already agree that the new api are under heavy development so don't take it too seriously :slightly_smiling_face:

[10:34]
http://dspace7.4science.it/dspace-spring-rest/

Terry Brady [10:34 AM]
thanks

Andrea Bollini [10:35 AM]
last update from my side
3. I have updated the documentation about the code practice for the new REST API https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/DSpace+7+REST%3A+Coding+DSpace+Objects

Mark Wood [10:35 AM]
Please, when adding to Rest7Contract, make it very clear what is settled (for now) and what is brainstorming.

Pinned by you
May 25th at 10:36 AM Pinned by you
Tim Donohue [10:35 AM]
The DSpace 7 REST API demo is at http://dspace7.4science.it/dspace-spring-rest/ (edited)

[10:36]
:point_up: I just added that so we can pin it easier

Andrea Bollini [10:36 AM]
to clarify it uses the same backup data than demo.dspace.org but it is not linked to the same database

Tim Donohue [10:37 AM]
Thanks for the clarification. I'll just take that point off the pinned link then, @bollini :wink:

Andrea Bollini [10:38 AM]
I ask you to check the coding documentation page as I have tried to explain a bit the direction that I'm following to solve the most pressure issues that we have

[10:38]
essentially it should (hopeful) clarify a bit what I tried to explain in the last week hangout call

Tim Donohue [10:39 AM]
Thanks for those docs, @bollini! I'll give them a more thorough read today (I haven't had a chance to read them yet). I'd encourage others to do so as well!

Terry Brady [10:39 AM]
I will as well

Mark Wood [10:39 AM]
Ditto

Andrea Bollini [10:40 AM]
ok thanks

[10:40]
I haven't other update. As 1750 as been formally approved I'm going to merge and update the demo website at the end of this meeting

Tim Donohue [10:41 AM]
Sounds great, thanks!

Terry Brady [10:41 AM]
I have a couple of loosely related items

[10:42]
If any of you can travel to Wash DC in Aug, I want to make sure you are aware of this event: https://www.library.georgetown.edu/node/19724
library.georgetown.edu
DSpace North American User Meeting | Georgetown University Library

[10:42]
We plan to have some DSpace 7 conversations.

Tim Donohue [10:42 AM]
And an Angular training session! :wink:

Terry Brady [10:43 AM]
Also, in some of my recent DSpace 6 work, I have had a greater desire to run cloud instances of DSpace for rapid/easy testing.

[10:43]
I took a look at codenvy.io which offers a cloud-based IDE+runtime. I am curious to know if anyone is doing somehting like this in their development workflows

[10:44]
I am finding it tricky to work in DSpace 5,6 and 7 on the same box

Tim Donohue [10:45 AM]
FWIW, I've mentioned this codenvy.io investigation within DuraSpace to the other teams (Fedora, DuraCloud, VIVO). No one else is aware of such work in other projects, but sounds like there's a general interest in hearing about our experiences (as we gain more)

Andrea Bollini [10:46 AM]
I'm not using cloud-based IDE yet. It is something that I want to explore as well when.... I will have the time :disappointed:
to work on different version of dspace up to now we use different eclipse workspace and installation directory

Tim Donohue [10:46 AM]
And for more context, the codenvy.io stuff uses Eclipse Che (cloud based IDE): https://eclipse.org/che/
eclipse.org
Eclipse Che | Eclipse Next-Generation IDE, Cloud IDE, and Workspace Server
Eclipse Che Next-Generation Eclipse IDE.

Terry Brady [10:46 AM]
If anyone starts exploring this, please let me know. It would be good to coordinate efforts.

Mark Wood [10:47 AM]
I just have a few scripts that write mostly-identical local.cfg and Tomcat contexts. The problem I usually have with multiple development streams is having to commit stuff to my local repository in a half-finished state when I need to switch.

Terry Brady [10:47 AM]
I had hoped we could host Che on our dev server, but it will require several upgrades to meet the specs

Tim Donohue [10:49 AM]
I'm very interested in the Eclipse Che + Docker in codenvy.io investigations. I admit though, I'm not sure I'll have much time in the near future to contribute. But, it seems promising especially for helping us all support older versions of DSpace (in a shared cloud dev environment)...and also for workshops/training at conferences perhaps

Andrea Bollini [10:50 AM]
Sorry to come back to the new REST API. I want to say that there are still 3/4 big area where no work is yet started

[10:51]
1. we should start to think / play in update operation (send a new json representation to update an item, etc.)

[10:52]
2. we need to think about authentication (if I remember correctly @tom_desair says something on that when we started the work on dspace7, so he could be interested to join the conversation)

Tim Donohue [10:53 AM]
+1 to both

Andrea Bollini [10:53 AM]
3. we need to explore the test / documentation framework ( https://jira.duraspace.org/browse/DS-3484 )

[10:54]
4. we need to start to think / play with the authorization issue

[10:55]
I will open issues for these points but I appreciate help on that

Tim Donohue [10:55 AM]
I was just going to suggest a JIRA ticket for each...and perhaps ping Tom by name on the Authentication piece.

[10:56]
Regarding AuthN / AuthZ, there obviously are opportunities for major overhauls in how we do this (in general). But, I do want to caution us to be careful to scope them both to something that is "reasonable" to implement in time for DSpace 7

[10:57]
Longer term, it'd be good to move towards Spring Security. But, I'm not against simply going with something based on "what we have" for DSpace 7...and move towards Spring Security in DSpace 8 (edited)

Mark Wood [10:57 AM]
We need to be vigilant, not to let any authNZ code leak over the wall into the UI.

Tim Donohue [10:57 AM]
+1000 :wink:

Andrea Bollini [10:59 AM]
we have almost hit the hour, are there any questions on the rest work that you like to discuss?

Tim Donohue [11:00 AM]
No questions from me, but I do want to mention I think this is great progress. I'm also glad to see the wiki docs on code best practices (and am looking forward to the feedback from others on those)

Terry Brady [11:00 AM]
Since we are creating a new paradigm with a REST layer, what is the optimal authentication approach? Are our old mechanisms appropriate?

[11:00]
I do not need an answer now, that is just a question that comes to vincentminde

Tim Donohue [11:02 AM]
"Optimal" in the longer term is likely Spring Security: https://projects.spring.io/spring-security/ (as it aligns with all the other areas of the code, being that it's a well adopted framework out of Spring). But, personally, I'm not certain that's "achievable" in time for DSpace 7 (as it seems like a major overhaul). So, we may need to find an "in between" step to get us closer in that direction

[11:02]
That said, this likely requires analysis of options and reporting back to us for a final decision

Mark Wood [11:03 AM]
Do you mean forms of authentication, or how we authenticate?

Andrea Bollini [11:04 AM]
authorization is the big challange. I think that we can make change to the authentication more easily

Tim Donohue [11:05 AM]
If we are talking LDAP, Shibboleth, OAuth etc... I think we want to minimally maintain what we currently support in DSpace 5/6.

Tim Donohue [11:05 AM]
notes though that we are over time here. Not sure we need to answer this all directly now. But, these would be good points to bring up in a JIRA ticket about DSpace 7 REST API AuthN

Andrea Bollini [11:07 AM]
we have two issues here probably. One is how to validate the credentials (and what we have for dspace 5/6 is probably good enough for now) and one is how to share the authenticated credentials between REST call

[11:08]
the DSpace 5/6 REST uses session cookie for that (if I'm not wrong) that is not optimal for clustering and for developer of REST client

Tim Donohue [11:09 AM]
Unfortunately, I have to leave here shortly (for another meeting). I'd recommend we move this discussion to the future JIRA ticket. We'll keep this all in today's notes (once I copy this over to the wiki) as well.

Mark Wood [11:09 AM]
That depends on where you store the session.

Terry Brady [11:09 AM]
We never build a "real" application on top of the 5/6 REST api, so I would not assume that those mechanisms are reliable for a full application

Tim Donohue [11:10 AM]
It sounds like the next steps are to create the ticket, analyze how this was done in teh DSpace 5 and 6 REST APIs (as AuthN is slightly different between those two versions even), and determine options for DSpace 7

[11:11]
So, with that, I'd recommend we close up today's meeting. Thanks all again for a productive week (and please give the REST coding best practices a read)! Next week we'll be on Google Hangouts.

Terry Brady [11:12 AM]
Have a good week!

Mark Wood [11:12 AM]
'bye for now.

Tim Donohue [11:12 AM]
Thanks all!