fish-public-frontend is one of three parts of the [fɪʃ] suite. Fish lets you create online forms/questionnaires using a simple graphical interface and then host them on-prem (i. e. on your own servers). User responses are collected in a table and can be viewed online or downloaded as CSV files.
The [fɪʃ] suite comprises a backend and two distinct frontends. For authentication, it relies on OpenID Connect, with Keycloak being the tested and recommended implementation.
The two frontends are the fish-admin-frontend and the fish-public-frontend. The public frontend retrieves questionnaires from the backend and renders them. It lets users complete those forms and submit them to the backend. The backend, upon receiving a completed questionnaire, saves the data to a flat-file database and sends a confirmation email to the user and the owner of the questionnaire. The public frontend is also used by administrators to pick the items on the questionnaire. The separate admin frontend is used by administrators to see user responses, create new questionnaires, type the confirmation email texts and managing some other details.
The [fɪʃ] suite allows text input fields, single choice and multiple choice questions. Text input fields can be marked optional.
The fish-public-frontend includes a simple GUI editor that can be used to add, change and re-arrange items. Each item is given a key that determines the column heading under which the response will later be found in the table (or CSV file) of results.
Communication between the backend and the two frontends utilizes a REST API. A description of the API is available in the OpenAPI v3 format. It is a part of the fish-backend repository.
The description file: https://github.com/MJochim/fish-backend/blob/master/fish-api.yaml
Use Swagger UI to visualize the API: https://petstore.swagger.io/?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MJochim/fish-backend/master/fish-api.yaml
To install an instance on your own server, you need a web server and an OpenID provider (e. g. Keycloak).
fish-public-frontend uses the Angular framework and must be configured and built
locally before deploying it to the server. The build process basically amounts
to npm install && ng build.
fish-admin-frontend does not need a build process. It can be configured and then uploaded to a web server as is.
fish-backend must be set up correctly on the web server.
In Keycloak, you must set up a confidential client for fish-backend and a public
client for the two frontends (they share one client). The client for
fish-backend must have its service account enabled and that service account
needs to be permitted to add client roles to the other client; currently this
means that it needs the manage-client role in the respective realm.
A detailed installation guide will be added in the future. Get in touch if you need advise or want to make the guide happen more quickly ;-).
The [fɪʃ] suite was developed by Markus Jochim for the association Junge Sprachwissenschaft e. V. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU AGPLv3.
Junge Sprachwissenschaft e. V. (recognised in Germany as a “gemeinnütziger Verein”) also offers to host questionnaires for you, especially if you are a student (group) in a linguistics-related field. While this, to some degree, defeats the purpose of self-hosting, it can be more appropriate than resorting to commercial hosting providers. Get in touch if you are interested: https://www.junge-sprachwissenschaft.de/en/contact/