Action Center

Configuration

Secrets

Much of the configuration for your app will happen in a file called config/application.yml. Use this file to store sensitive login credentials, API keys, and other information that should not be made public, including:

• Rails secret key base - generate this with rake secret
• Devise secret key - generate this with rake secret
• Amazon S3 secret key and key id
• SmartyStreets API key and id
• Sunlight API key

For convenience, a template config is provided in config/application.yml.example

Database

The default database is postgresql, but the mysql2 adapter can be chosen if desired. You can edit the database settings in config/application.yml

If you're using heroku, you can skip this part. Heroku should take care of the database configuration when you deploy.

SMTP

You will need to configure an smtp server in order to start creating user accounts. Configure the address, port, and domain in config/application.rb. Configure the username and password in config/secrets.yml.

Local Setup

bundle install
rake db:schema:load
rails s

Once the server is running, navigate to localhost:3000/register and create yourself a user account. You will need to provide (and confirm) a valid email in order to log in. When that's done, promote yourself to be an admin using the following command:

rake users:add_admin[youremail@example.org]

Now you should be able to go to localhost:3000/admin/action_pages to create your first action page.

Heroku Setup

First create a new app and configure it with a Postgres add on. Then

git remote add heroku git@heroku.com:your-action-center-app.git
git push heroku master
heroku run rake db:migrate

As with above, you can now register a user account and confirm your email.

heroku run rake users:add_admin[youremail@example.org]

Production Setup

Follow these instructions https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-rails-and-nginx-with-passenger-on-ubuntu

Generating the EFF icon font

The EFF icon font is generated using fontello.com and via the fontello-rails-converter.

To add a new icon to the fontset, read the Update your existing fontello font section of the fontello_rails_converter readme.

Front-end Asset Management

We use rails-assets.org for front-end asset management. Please refer to the Gemfile to modify these assets.

Embedding Actions

Embedding actions is simple. Just include the following HTML on the page you want the action to be embedded:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://act.eff.org/action/embed"></script>
<a id="action-center-widget" href="https://act.eff.org/action/shut-the-nsa-s-backdoor-to-the-internet">Take part in the action!</a>

The link href should point to the action page you wish to embed.

If you want to get fancy, you can modify the embed code to include some of the following parameters, all of which are optional:

<script type="text/javascript">
    var ac_embed = {};
    ac_embed.css = "https://example.com/hello.css"; // specify a css file url
    ac_embed.width = 500; // specify a width manually
    ac_embed.no_css = true; // remove all default styles
    ac_embed.css_content = "#some_elem"; // specify an element which itself contains some styles
</script>
<script id="some_div" type="text/x-css-content">
    body{
        background-color: blue;
    }
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://act.eff.org/action/embed"></script>
<a id="action-center-widget" href="https://act.eff.org/action/shut-the-nsa-s-backdoor-to-the-internet">Take part in the action!</a>

Acknowledgements

This project was created by Lilia Kai, Thomas Davis, and Sina Khanifar. Large portions of the codebase are directly attributable to them, while under the employ or contractorship of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2014. Thank you Lilia, Thomas, and Sina! The Action Center is maintained currently by William Budington and Sina Khanifar.

Licensing

See the LICENSE file for licensing information. This is applicable to the entire project, sans any 3rd party libraries that may be included.