██████╗ ███████╗██████╗ ██╗   ██╗███╗   ███╗
██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔══██╗██║   ██║████╗ ████║
██████╔╝█████╗  ██████╔╝██║   ██║██╔████╔██║
██╔══██╗██╔══╝  ██╔══██╗██║   ██║██║╚██╔╝██║
██║  ██║███████╗██║  ██║╚██████╔╝██║ ╚═╝ ██║
╚═╝  ╚═╝╚══════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝     ╚═╝

reconditorium eximium rerum universalium mutabiliumque

TinyThings

A tiny NodeJS web application for connecting with the RERUM API. This is for software developers looking to develop a client application that uses the public RERUM API as the client's back end. Developers can fork this as a starting point for their client application. Visit rerum.io for more general information about RERUM. See a working demo of this application at tiny.rerum.io.

RERUM Registration Prerequisite

What authenticates and attributes your fork of TinyThings with RERUM is the token information in a .env file. The sample.env file included in the codebase details the required information. You need to make your own .env file with the information presented in the sample.env file. To get tokens you must register at store.rerum.io. Once you have the tokens in a .env file you can install and/or deploy your fork.

Default Installation as a Client App

The following is a git shell example for installing the app on your local machine.

cd /code_folder
git clone https://github.com/CenterForDigitalHumanities/TinyNode.git tiny_things
npm install

Create a file named .env in the root folder. In the above example, the root is /code_folder/tiny_things. /code_folder/tiny_things/.env looks like this:

ACCESS_TOKEN = OBTAINED_FROM_REGISTRATION
REFRESH_TOKEN = OBTAINED_FROM_REGISTRATION
RERUM_REGISTRATION_URL = https://store.rerum.io/v1/
RERUM_API_ADDR = https://store.rerum.io/v1/api/
RERUM_ID_PATTERN = https://store.rerum.io/v1/id/
RERUM_ACCESS_TOKEN_URL = https://store.rerum.io/v1/client/request-new-access-token
PORT = 3005
OPEN_API_CORS = false

Now, you can run tests

npm run runtest

And start the app

npm start

To stop the application, kill or exit the process via your shell (CTRL + C or CTRL + X).

From here, you can continue to add more front ends than just the index.html page to comprise what you imagine for your client web application!

Centralized Client API Mode

In this form there is no app front end. Instead, only the underlying hooks to interact with the RERUM API are exposed. Other web applications can use this Client API to interact with the RERUM API without registering themselves. However, their data will not be uniquely attributed because all the data will share the same registered agent - the agent that established the Client API. This is useful when multiple disparate front end driven applications interact with the same data corpus for the same purpose and so do not require individualized attribution. To run the app in this form, make a small change to the .env file as detailed below.

OPEN_API_CORS = true

Note: If you leave index.html in the app code it is possible that users will be able to navigate to this page and experience a front end. This is either a bug or a feature...if you don't want users to end up in a front end then remove or rename the index.html file.

🌟👍 Contributors 👍🌟

Trying to contribute to the public TinyThings? No way, that's awesome. Read the Contributors Guide!

Who is to blame?

The developers in the Research Computing Group at Saint Louis University authored and maintain this template in connection with the RERUM API service. Neither specific warranty nor rights are associated with RERUM; registering and contributing implies only those rights each object asserts about itself. We welcome sister instances, ports to other languages, package managers, builds, etc.