Mobiilivihko (eng. Nature Notebook) is a mobile application developed by Finnish Museum of Natural History LUOMUS, for making nature observations. The app allows the users to mark their observations on map. It can be used in the field, so that the users can mark the observations that they find nearby. The app uses location data to track the path which the user has traveled. Observation events are sent to Laji.fi.
Install expo-cli for running the app in development.
Install Expo (mobile app) on your phone from Google Play to be able to run the app on your phone while developing.
Install Android Studio to use emulators for running the app locally.
Install dependencies: npm ci.
Add files called .env and prod.env to the project root. Ask the developers for the values and replace the placeholders with them. Note that the values of ACCESS_TOKEN, API_URL and SOURCE_ID are different in .env and prod.env. The app uses .env i.e. the dev values by default when running the app locally. Both of the .env files have the following structure:
// @ts-nocheck
// types have been configured manually in src/types/env.d.ts
ACCESS_TOKEN=<DEV_OR_PROD_ACCESS_TOKEN>
API_URL=<DEV_OR_PROD_API_URL>
ATLAS_API_URL=<DEV_OR_PROD_ATLAS_API_URL>
GEOCODING_API_KEY=<GEOCODING_API_KEY>
GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY=<GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY>
GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY_IOS=<GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY_IOS>
LAJI_AUTH_URL=<DEV_OR_PROD_LAJI_AUTH_URL>
LAJI_URL=<DEV_OR_PROD_LAJI_URL>
SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN=<SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN>
SENTRY_DSN=<SENTRY_DSN>
SOURCE_ID=<DEV_OR_PROD_SOURCE_ID>
Start the app for development with npx expo start --tunnel and scan the QR-code from the terminal with the Expo mobile app or open it into an emulator from the terminal by pressing 'a' (might require to have an emulator already running on Android Studio).
Create an Expo account and contact the developers to add you to LUOMUS' Expo organization.
Install eas-cli for building the app.
Add the Google Maps Geocoding API Key (ask from developers) into app.json, as a value to expo.android.config.googleMaps.apiKey but remember to not push it to Git!
To create a test build, initialize the development variables to EAS by running eas secret:push --scope project --env-file .env --force. Then run eas build --platform android --profile preview for Android, or eas build --platform ios --profile preview for iOS.
To create a production build, initialize the production variables to EAS by running eas secret:push --scope project --env-file prod.env --force. Then run eas build --platform android --profile production for Android, or eas build --platform ios --profile production for iOS.
To release the app to Play Store, first run eas submit --platform android and then log into luomusict@gmail.com account on Google, and finally go to Google Play Console to add changelog and to publish the uploaded .aab file.
To release the app to App Store, first download the .ipa file from the Expo Dev page of LUOMUS into a Macbook and then use the Apple Transporter App to upload the .ipa into Apple Store Connect (ASC). You need to log in to ASC with a University of Helsinki developer account. On ASC you can add the changelog and publish the uploaded .ipa file.
More documentation can be found in wiki.helsinki (requires access to LUOMUS wiki pages).