GSoC 2020 : First Phase Report

The first evaluations happened from June 29th to July 3rd and Yaaass.. I Passed!!! This blog post comes as a summary to the amazing work done in the first phase of Google Summer of Code.

The mobile_app project was primarily focussed on two sub projects as follows:

CircuitVerse API development.
The Mobile App.

Overview

Before the GSoC period CircuitVerse was primarily focussed for the Web. We have this very amazing simulator, ability to create groups, beautiful circuits, assignments with grading obviously <3 and a lot more features. make sure to check them out on our website. Thanks to our amazing community, @satu0king, @tachyons & @nitin10s.

CircuitVerse now plans to expaaand.. GSoC 2020 basically aims at improving the Simulator and Web UI, structuring & refactoring the huge JS codebase, offline electron app, the mobile_app and implementing API.

The CircuitVerse API

Authentication & Users API

For authenticating users, token auth is being used to encode user data and return the token for successful login/signup. The private_key.pem can also be fetched in /private_key.pem which could be used to decode the token to fetch user info on client side. Also added /password/forgot to send reset password instructions. Coming onto users, all users public info is made available at /users & logged in user at /me.

Related PRs: #1431(Merged), #1510(Under Review).

Projects API

I have added endpoints to fetch public/accessible projects @ /projects, user projects @ /users/:id/projects, favourites/starred projects @ /projects/favourites, featured projects @ /projects/featured. Specific project can also be starred/unstarred @ /projects/:id/toggle-star, fork @ /projects/:id/fork.

Related PRs : #1441, #1490, #1499 (All Merged)

Collaborators API

CircuitVerse also supports adding collaborators to your projects so does the API @ /projects/:project_id/collaborators. Deleting a collaborator would require DELETE request to /projects/:project_id/collaborators/:id

Related PR : #1473(Merged)

Groups, Assignments & Group Members API

CircuitVerse API supports fetching groups you mentor or you are member of @ /groups & /groups/mentored respectively. Mentor can also add group members using email in /groups/:group_id/members. Support to add/delete assignments had also been incorporated. Specific assignment can be reopened or start @ /assignments/:id/reopen & /assignments/:id/start.

Related PR : #1462(Under Review)

Grading API

Circuits related to assignments can be graded & are uniquely identified using assignment_id & project_id. Uniqueness check for multiple grades with same identifiers was also added.

Related PR : #1482(Merged)

API Specs/Tests

A total of 164 specs/examples were added in view of the CircuitVerse API. The codeclimate coverage marked an increase of about 5%. Yay!

API Documentation

The complete API documentation has also been added using slate. PR #1512 is under review, the next step being adding continous deployment for the documentation.

No rubocop recommendations were harmed during API development xD

CV Mobile App

Since I started early, i had some time devoted to the mobile app too. Hence had significant progress in the same context :)

Architecture & Initial Setup

I plan to use MVVM architecture for CV Mobile App. Provider for State Management & get_it for dependency_injection makes up an awesome pair for me :) I had previously talked about the file structure and the app architecture in detail in the first half of this blog post.

Related PR : #1

Static Views

The first step was adding the static views i.e which generally don’t require viewmodel bindings. The home_view, teachers_view, about_view, contribute_view falls under this category.

Home View Teachers View About View Contribute View

Authentication Views

I have added login_view & signup_view with appropriate viewmodel bindings set up. Forgot password API has also been implemented..

Signup View Login View

Group’s Views

The CV Mobile App can show you the groups you mentor or belongs to in my_groups_view, related members and assignments in group_details_view. Adding/Deleting groups members are also click of a button away :)

My Groups View Group Details View Update Group Add Group Member Delete Group Member

Assignment Views

Adding, Updating & deleting Assignments were also implemented during the first phase..

Add Assignment Update Assignment Delete Assignment

Contributions

By end of phase one, 10 in all PRs, 7 have been merged, 3 are under constructive review. Contributed about 3500 lines of code in a total of 20 commits. Thanks CircuitVerse.

Next Steps

In the second phase, primarily i plan to implement the remaining sections, view & viewmodel bindings with some impovements to the existing codebase, FCM notifs etc.. Also, I would be now actively putting up PRs for different feature requests in the mobile_app. If everything works out well, the MVP for CV Mobile App shall be expected by the end of second phase.. <3

Experience

I feel myself fortunate enough to be working with the amazing CircuitVerse community with my mentors always helping me out if i gets stuck anytime.. The Journey till now has been amazing, i couldn’t have asked for more.. I gained a lot of insights in backend development with Ruby on Rails & best practices in general.. Looking forward for the exciting phase two..

Cheers!!

Written on July 3rd , 2020 by Nitish Aggarwal

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