HSL Map Publisher (Julistegeneraattori)

This project is the server-side component of the poster publisher (the UI can be found in HSLdevcom/hsl-map-publisher-ui) that generates the stop posters that you see on public transport stops around the Helsinki area. It uses PostgreSQL as the database where the poster data and generation status is stored, React for rendering the posters, Puppeteer for generating PDF's of the poster app and Koa as the server to tie everything together.

In production everything runs from a docker container that takes care of all dependencies and environment setup.

Development

If ticket zone regions are changed, remember to update ticket-zones-polygons.json to reflect the new zones !

Dependencies

Install dependencies:

yarn

Also install Chrome. Refer the installation instructions of Chrome for your operating system.

About the app

This app is split into three parts:

Server (receives poster requests and stores them into the Redis database)
Worker (Fetches poster jobs from Redis, fires up Puppeteer to render and save the posters)
Render (Receives worker's requests for certain poster parameters, fetches relevant data and renders the poster in the browser for Worker's Puppeteer instance to save into PDFs)

Writing components

Write CSS styles @ 72 dpi (i.e. 72 pixels will be 25.4 mm)
Add components to renderQueue for async tasks (PDF is generated when renderQueue is empty)
Use SVG files with unique IDs and no style tags (Illustrator exports)

Layout logic

The poster app will try to fit all pieces of the poster in the allotted area, and will drop off or modify the layout as required. This logic is programmed in the StopPoster component's updateLayout method. The order is as follows:

Make the route box full-width
Hide the route box
Stretch the timetable column to be full-width
Hide the tram or route diagram
Hide the local map (or static SVG image)

It will make two layout passes to check if the map can be rendered. The ads (graphics under the timetable column) will be shown if there is enough space left over under the timetables. They are not included in the logic chain described above.

Each component will add itself to the "render queue" when mounted, an operation of which there are multiple examples in the code. Once the component has finished its own data fetching and layout procedures it removes itself from the render queue. Once the render queue is empty, the poster is deemed finished and the server will instruct Puppeteer to create a PDF of the page. The component can also pass an error when removing itself which triggers the whole poster to fail.

Running the app

Server and REST API for printing components to PDF files and managing their metadata in a Postgres database.

Pre-step: Create Digitransit apikey

Create .env file and place your Digitransit apikey there. If you still don't have your own, generate one on https://portal-dev.digitransit.fi or https://portal.digitransit.fi (dev / prod). Without apikey the map won't work and generation will fail.

1. Start Postgres

docker run -p 0.0.0.0:5432:5432 --env POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres --name publisher-postgres postgres

Adjust the port if you have many Postgres instances running on your machine. The server needs the PG_CONNECTION_STRING environment variable set, which it uses to connect to your Postgres instance. If you use the default Postgres port, place this to .env:

PG_CONNECTION_STRING=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/postgres

Again, adjust the port if you are running your Publisher Postgres instance on an other port.

2. Redis

Start Redis

docker run --name redis --rm -p 6379:6379 -d redis

For default configuration, place the following to .env:

REDIS_CONNECTION_STRING=redis://localhost:6379

3. Backend, worker and poster UI

In development, start the Publisher backend server like this, (make sure you have connection strings in .env)

yarn run server

Then, start generator worker. (You can start multiple workers.)

yarn run worker

Finally, start the React app/Rendering

yarn run start

Now you can use the UI with the server, or open a poster separately in your browser. The poster app needs component and props query parameters, and the server will echo the currently rendering URL in its console. But if you just need to open the poster app, you can use this link that will show H0454, Snellmaninkatu:

http://localhost:5000/?component=StopPoster&props%5BstopId%5D=1140196&props%5Bdate%5D=2019-09-30&props%5BisSummerTimetable%5D=true&props%5BdateBegin%5D=&props%5BdateEnd%5D=&props%5BprintTimetablesAsA4%5D=false&props%5BprintTimetablesAsGreyscale%5D=false&template=mock_template

You will have to create a template using the Publisher UI. The poster app will download the template from the Publisher server.

If Azure credentials are not set in the .env file the posters will be stored locally.

4. Start frontend

See hsl-map-publisher-ui for UI.

Two different ways to setup local environment:

A) Setup local environment using Docker Compose

For fonts you have three options:

Create fonts/ -directory inside project folder. Place Gotham Rounded and Gotham XNarrow OpenType fonts there from Azure.
Place AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT and AZURE_STORAGE_KEY either via .env.local or Docker secrets. Fonts will be downloaded from Azure on startup.
If no fonts or credentials are provided, the app use just the default fonts found inside Debian image.

Due to licensing, we cannot include the fonts in the public repository.

Ensure you have the correct environment variables defined in your .env file (by default .env.local):

Remember to also include DIGITRANSIT_APIKEY !

Build the local version of hsl-map-publisher:

docker build --build-arg BUILD_ENV=local -t hsl-map-publisher .

Setup the development environment:

docker compose up

B) Manually setup local Docker environment

As before, make sure you are running a database and broker for the publisher:

docker run -p 0.0.0.0:5432:5432 --env POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres --name publisher-postgres postgres
docker run --name redis --rm -p 6379:6379 -d redis

Remember to check the naming of the containers! If they are different, use your naming in .env.local and in next commands. Add also possible credentials to connection strings, if you have set up them, add fill up the variables left empty (CLIENT_SECRET, API_CLIENT_SECRET and domain restrictions).

For fonts you have three options:

Create fonts/ -directory inside project folder. Place Gotham Rounded and Gotham XNarrow OpenType fonts there from Azure.
Place AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT and AZURE_STORAGE_KEY either via .env.local or Docker secrets. Fonts will be downloaded from Azure on startup.
If no fonts or credentials are provided, the app use just the default fonts found inside Debian image.

Due to licensing, we cannot include the fonts in the public repository.

Build the Docker image with the following command:

docker build --build-arg BUILD_ENV=local -t hsl-map-publisher .

And run the Docker container with these commands (you can leave font-directory mounting away if you don't have them locally):

Server:

docker run -d -p 4000:4000 --name publisher-server -v $(pwd)/output:/output -v $(pwd)/fonts:/fonts --link publisher-postgres --link redis -e SERVICE=server:production hsl-map-publisher

Rendering:

docker run -d -p 5000:5000 --name publisher-render -v $(pwd)/output:/output -v $(pwd)/fonts:/fonts --link publisher-postgres --link redis -e SERVICE=start:production hsl-map-publisher

And finally a Worker, which is linked to the rendering instance:

docker run -d --name publisher-worker -v $(pwd)/output:/output -v $(pwd)/fonts:/fonts --link publisher-postgres --link redis --link publisher-render --link publisher-server -e SERVICE=worker:production hsl-map-publisher

HSLdevcom / hsl-map-publisher