installation.md

Installation Instructions

• 1. Initial project setup
• 2. Platform Specific dependencies

1. Initial Project Setup

Project Initialisation involves standard procedures listed below

• Project initialisation:

  Clone the repo

  git clone git@github.com:Chumbak/Retailstore-Attendance-Monitor.git
  

  Install npm modules

  npm install
  npm start - starts up on localhost:8080  
  

  Standard react-native run commands (Platform Specific)

  react-native run-android - Android device/Emulator
  react-native run-ios - iOS Simulator
  react-native run-ios-devicename - iOS devices which have their provisioning profile already created
  

2 .Critical Project Specific Dependencies

• Firebase for the App:

  RAM depends on firebase for most of its CRUD operations. Firebase setup for the project has two different approaches for iOS and Android.

  As of this point, both firebase and react-native-fcm have already been installed in the project as they are a part of the package.json file.

  We move on to creating a firebase app which will be integrated into our project

  • Getting the Initial Firebase keys and APIs
    • Create a firebase Android App and select the Web project. All the required API keys will be available within the config object.
    • Create a .env file that will host all these required API KEYS, Database, hosting URLs.

  This is where the .env file must be placed within the project structure

        android/...
        dashboard/
        functions/
        ios/...
        src/...
        .env <--* //Add here
        .env.tmpl
        index.android.js
        index.ios.js
        package.json
        README.md
  

The Keys required and the the template to store them are listed within the .env.tmpl

-Firebase Dependencies for Android

The Firebase dependencies for Android version of the app are critical in-terms of the serverless push notifications pushed by GCM.

For these to be enabled, within the firebase console select a new Android application. Download the google-services.json file and add it within the /app folder within android in the project

Here's a glance of the positioning of the google-services.json file

    android/...
       ./app
         |--google-services.json <--*//Add here
    dashboard/
    functions/
    ios/...
    src/...
    .env
    .env.tmpl
    index.android.js
    index.ios.js
    package.json
    README.md

-Firebase Dependencies for iOS

Firebase GCM serverless push notifications can instantiated in multiple ways ..either using Cocoa pods as in the official documentation or manually.

We preferred the latter. The initial steps are standard with enabling iOS app in the firebase console and download the google GoogleService-Info.plist

    android/...
    dashboard/
    functions/
    ios/...
      RetailAttendanceMonitor
        |-- GoogleService-Info.plist <--* //Add here
    src/...
    .env
    .env.tmpl
    index.android.js
    index.ios.js
    package.json
    README.md

Apart from these, in order to enable firebase push notifications, you must upload requisite certificates into the iOS app on firebase console. These certificates can be downloaded from the apple developer account console.

-HockeyApp dependencies

• We use HockeyApp for distribution and crash tracking purposes.Create an account on HockeyApp and get the HOCKEY_APP_ID. Place it within the .env file created above

• While distribution is simpler for android .apk. For iOS .ipa there needs to be an ios adhoc deployment profile to be created with the user udids if you are willing to distribute via HockeyApp.

-Cloudinary dependencies

• Cloudinary is our Image repository. Create your account in Cloudinary and extract the following CLOUDINARY_UPLOAD_PRESET CLOUDINARY_CLOUDNAME CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET CLOUDINARY_API_KEY and add it to the .env file

-Hosting using Firebase

• Change to this repo in the terminal and execute firebase init. This will create the required function files

• To deploy the website use firebase deploy

• The url of the website and the dashboard must be aded to the .env file. These are obtained from firebase as instructed in the previous steps

-All the dependencies to be filled in the .env file are listed within the .env.tmpl