Run in browser using WebAssembly

[c4lliope]

Gource is an incredible program for seeing code bases.

As such, I imagine companies like GitHub, GitLab, and chromium.googlesource.com would be really curious to embed gource images of their source code, inside the webpages where people first encounter the code.

Imagine, if you can - going to Ruby on Rails and being able to scrub through the history of the project online, without needing to pre-download the large codebase. This approach would ease the challenge of comparing code for companies who plan on adopting open-source programs.

---

I should say I have no clue on what stack you are using in gource, so it is a challenge to say the steps needed to get it running in the browser. But hey, this is 2020 and anything is possible, gorramit.

If you could check my guesses here, this is my rough idea of a roadmap:

• Query your code base -> likely happens on the server, with a small HTTP server API to feed the web visualization process.
• Render code -> Likely ported from (____________) to WebGL, and rendered on Canvas
• Mouse events, such as hovering over filenames -> handled in WebGL rendering layer, once all data is loaded.
• Mouse events, such as scrubbing over the timeline -> sends events back to server API.

---

A possible implementation would be to provide a docker container for the HTTP server API.
The docker container could:

• clone the code base on launch, or be pre-built (eg. daily) using a cloned codebase @ a specific revision
• respond to websocket connection requests, specifying the runtime controls
• send all the information the rendering code needs to do the render

Then, any .html page could...

<canvas id="gource_my_code">Gource!</canvas>
<scipt src="........../gource.js" />
<script>
  Gource.run(
    document.querySelector("#gource_my_code"),
    "https://example.com/gource_process/",
  )
</script>

...and gource.js would hook up the WebGL renderer as necessary.
Boom. Gource, online!

[c4lliope]

Ah, some more research leads me here:

Ignore my recommendations for making a docker container with an HTTP API; way overcomplicated, given that we could instead read gource log files.

For large projects, generating a log of the project history may take a long
time. For centralized VCS like SVN, generating the log may also put load on
the central VCS server.

Precisely matches our need; anyone who wants to display a gource rendering online can prepare the log by any means possible, and then send that log to the user's browser when it's time to render. No special server-side code required on gource's behalf.

So our HTML code would become,

<canvas id="gource_display">Gource!</canvas>
<scipt src="........../gource.js" />
<script>
  Gource.display(
    document.querySelector("#gource_display"),
    "https://github.com/rails/rails/gource.log",
  )
</script>

[acaudwell]

Yeah, embedding the log file would be the most pragmatic way to do this.

I recall this old article about the process of a porting the game FTL to run in a browser which seems to have similar stack to Gource (SDL, C++ and Opengl): https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/11/porting-to-emscripten/

[myudak]

@acaudwell so how to output it to opengl before converting it to webgl

[talkl]

@c4lliope anything new? Creating gource in the cloud with ffmpeg and serving it to the browser makes the machine to crawl, would be great to have it in the browser

[c4lliope]

No plans so far. You can help?

…

On Thu, Nov 4, 2021 at 8:36 AM Tal Shmuel Kleiner ***@***.***> wrote: @c4lliope <https://github.com/c4lliope> anything new? Creating gource in the cloud with ffmpeg and serving it to the browser makes the machine to crawl, would be great to have it in the browser — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#259 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AHILHKVHR67273VU235YIXTUKJ43PANCNFSM4VCSX4TQ> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>.

[bryson32]

hey man did you ever figure this out? Currently trying to get gource output embedded into my electron app, but everything i try is failing.

[talkl]

Hey not me.
I abandoned my idea and moved on

[myudak]

anyone figure it out