WordWall

Simple, Self-Hosted, Collaborative Word Cloud Generator.

WordWall is a simple word-cloud generator used for collaborative think-sessions for teams to share thoughts, ideas, opinions and more. The tool attempts to provide simple options to allow live updates in addition to "revealed" walls whose contents aren't shown until you're ready.

Theory of Operation

WordWall is intended for use in small-use-settings, and does not employ authentication. That means that anyone who accesses the tool may create a collaborative cloud of their own. Anyone who views the collaboration page, of course, will be allowed to participate immediately.

To support interaction, a temporary SQLite file is managed in order to support sequences of words entered by participants. Each time the application is started or restarted, the temporary file containing the SQLite file will be removed, effectively removing any records of the activities.

Installation

WordWall is built to be run in a Docker container. The easiest way to get WordWall started is to use a docker-compose configuration to define the parameters for your application to use. Here's an example:

# WordWall Example Configuration
services:
  wordwall:
    image: ghcr.io/engineerjoe440/wordwall:master
    ports:
      - 8082:80
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      # Optional Configuration Parameters
      # - APPLICATION_SITE_URL: https://wordwall.example.com
      # - APPLICATION_SITE_NAME: WordWall
    volumes:
      - ./config:/server/config

Development

Developing WordWall should be relatively simple. It falls into a few general steps. Install the npm dependencies, build the frontend, install the python dependencies, then run the backend.

Installing Frontend (npm) Dependencies

1. cd to the frontend/ folder.
2. Run the command: yarn install (requires yarn)

Building Frontend

1. cd to the frontend/ folder.
2. Run the command yarn build. This will generate all of the Javascript/CSS files needed in the backend/wordwall/static/react/ folder, and the index.html in backend/wordwall/templates/.

Installing Backend (python) Dependencies

1. Create a Python Virtual Environment with python3 -m venv venv.
2. Activate the virtual environment.
3. Run the command pip install -r backend/requirements.txt

Run the Application

1. cd to the backend/ folder.
2. Run the command: uvicorn wordwall.main:app --reload --host 0.0.0.0. This will expose the application on all interfaces on the computer running the app. This will allow you to test the app from other local devices.