nim-status-client

Experiments calling status-go from nim, inspired in nim-stratus by @arnetheduck

Building

0. Prerequesites

• QT

Linux users should install Qt through the system's package manager:

# Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt install qtbase5-dev qtdeclarative5-dev qml-module-qt-labs-platform

If that's not possible, manually install QT from https://www.qt.io/download-qt-installer and add it to the PATH

# Linux
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/Qt/5.14.2/gcc_64/bin

# macos
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/Qt/5.14.2/clang_64/bin

• Go - (used to build status-go)

# Linux
<TODO>

# macOS
brew install go

1. Install QT, and add it to the PATH

# Linux users should use their distro's package manager, but in case they do a manual install:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/Qt/5.14.2/gcc_64/bin

# macOS:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/Qt/5.14.2/clang_64/bin

2. Clone the repo and build nim-status-client

git clone https://github.com/status-im/nim-status-client
cd nim-status-client
make update
make

For more output use make V=1 ....

Use 4 CPU cores with make -j4 ....

Users with manually installed Qt5 packages need to run make QTDIR="/path/to/Qt" ...

Troubleshooting:

If the make command fails due to already installed Homebrew packages, such as:

Error: protobuf 3.11.4 is already installed
To upgrade to 3.11.4_1, run `brew upgrade protobuf`.
make[1]: *** [install-os-dependencies] Error 1
make: *** [vendor/status-go/build/bin/libstatus.a] Error 2

This can be fixed by uninstalling the package e.g. brew uninstall protobuf followed by rerunning make.

3. Run the app

make run
# or
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=vendor/DOtherSide/lib ./bin/nim_status_client

Development

If only making changes in QML ui/ re-rerunning the app is enough If making changes in the nim code src/ then doing make again is needed (it's very fast after the first run)

Cold Reload

"Cold" reload using VSCode

We can setup a "cold" reload, whereby the app will be rebuilt and restarted when changes in the source are saved. This will not save state, as the app will be restarted, but it will save us some time from manually restarting the app. We can handily force an app rebuild/relaunch with the shortcut Cmd+Shift+b (execute the default build task, which we'll setup below).

To enable a meagre app reload during development, first creates a task in .vscode/tasks.json. This task sets up the default build task for the workspace, and depends on the task that compiles our nim:

({
  "label": "Build Nim Status Client",
  "type": "shell",
  "command": "nim",
  "args": [
    "c",
    "-L:lib/libstatus.dylib",
    "-L:-lm",
    "-L:\"-framework Foundation -framework Security -framework IOKit -framework CoreServices\"",
    "--outdir:./bin",
    "src/nim_status_client.nim"
  ],
  "options": {
    "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}"
  }
},
{
  "label": "Run nim_status_client",
  "type": "shell",
  "command": "bash",
  "args": ["./run.sh"],
  "options": {
    "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}/.vscode"
  },
  "dependsOn": ["Build Nim Status Client"],
  "group": {
    "kind": "build",
    "isDefault": true
  }
})

Next, add a .vscode/run.sh file, changing the DOtherSide lib path to be specific to your environment:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/Users/emizzle/repos/github.com/filcuc/DOtherSide/build/lib"
../bin/nim_status_client

Auto build on save (for the "cold" reload effect)

Finally, to get trigger this default build task when our files our saved, we need to enable a task to be run while .nim files are saved, and when .qml files are saved.

Build on save

To build on save of our source files, first install the "Trigger Task on Save" VS Code extension to detect changes to our changable files, which will trigger a build/run. Once installed, update settings.json like so:

"files.autoSave": "afterDelay",
"triggerTaskOnSave.tasks": {
  "Run nim_status_client": ["ui/**/*", "src/*.nim"]
},
"triggerTaskOnSave.restart": true,
"triggerTaskOnSave.showStatusBarToggle": true