panoptikos

README

Panoptikos

Panoptikos is an image viewer for Reddit. You can see it in action at panoptikos.com.

The server-side code is written in Go, the client-side code in JavaScript with AngularJS. Panoptikos is hosted on Google App Engine.

Features

• Preview images. No need to open dozens of tabs to see what’s behind all those links.
• Infinite scrolling.
• Sharp images. Preview images look gorgeous on high-density screens.
• No duplicate content. On Reddit you’ll often see the same content on the next page again. Doesn’t happen here!
• Supports all screensizes. Works on mobile phones equally as well as on widescreens.
• Supports all common platforms and browsers. It’s a web-app. There’s nothing to install, not even a browser extension.

Known issues

• High memory usage on clients because images outside the visible screen area are not removed from the page. Possible browser crashes if browser runs out of memory.
• Jerky scrolling because sometimes only high-resolution images can be used as preview images.

Development

Installing Panoptikos

Install the Google App Engine SDK for Go if you haven’t done so already. Then:

$ go get github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos

Running Panoptikos locally

Start the App Engine development server and tell it to serve Panoptikos:

$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/app/
$ goapp serve

Then, open your browser and go to http://localhost:8080/.

Deploying Panoptikos to Google App Engine

1. Create a new application on appengine.google.com. As application id choose anything you like.

2. Change the application id in $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/app/app.yaml to the one you just used when you created the application on Google App Engine.

3. Upload the app:

   $ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/app/
   $ goapp deploy
   

4. You can now access Panoptikos at http://your_app_id.appspot.com.

Updating Panoptikos on Google App Engine

Simply run:

$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/app/
$ goapp deploy

This replaces your already deployed version. If you want to keep your deployed version, change the version string in app.yaml to something else before you run the command.

Switching between development and production mode

By default, the app is in production mode. That means a single file that contains all templates, Javascript and CSS was generated and is served. Any changes to the source code will have no effect unless you generate a new single production file. Generated production files are stored in app/webroot/compiled-index/.

To make development easier, you can enable development mode. If development mode is enabled, the server serves template, Javascript and CSS files from their development directories. Any changes to the source code will be reflected immediately on page refresh. Open app.yaml and uncomment the marked blocks to enable development mode.

Generating a new production file

To generate a new production file that contains all templates, Javascript and CSS:

$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ChristianSiegert/panoptikos/
$ /usr/local/go/bin/go run ./assetcompiler/main.go

You may have to adjust the path to the standard Go binary if you don’t develop on a Mac.

This repository contains two programs, app and assetcompiler. app is the actual Panoptikos app, and assetcompiler is responsible for compiling template, JavaScript and stylesheet files into a single file.

assetcompiler calls two Java programs, namely Closure Compiler to compile JavaScript files and Closure Stylesheets to compile CSS files. Since Java programs can’t be called in a Google App Engine Go sandbox, the asset compiler can’t be a part of the actual Google App Engine Panoptikos app and instead is a normal, standalone Go program.