Workbench » History » Version 5
Tom Clegg, 04/17/2014 04:14 PM
| 1 | 1 | Tom Clegg | h1. Workbench |
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| 3 | 5 | Tom Clegg | Developer documentation: |
| 4 | * [[Hacking Workbench]] |
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| 6 | 4 | Tom Clegg | Workbench is the primary browser-based tool for Arvados users. In addition to providing built-in generic browsing tools for data and analysis jobs, Workbench acts as a gateway and integration point for analysis and visualization applications running in VMs on the cloud. |
| 7 | 1 | Tom Clegg | |
| 8 | 4 | Tom Clegg | The built-in browsing features in Workbench are also available via command line tools or any other SDK; Workbench does not need any special privileges[1]. The browsing features are offered for two reasons: |
| 9 | 1 | Tom Clegg | |
| 10 | 4 | Tom Clegg | * *Convenience* — Sometimes it's quicker to click than to type, and sometimes it's helpful to see progress bars instead of ASCII art. |
| 11 | 1 | Tom Clegg | |
| 12 | 4 | Tom Clegg | * *Example* — The source code is an example of how to use Arvados and the Rails SDK. |
| 13 | 1 | Tom Clegg | |
| 14 | 4 | Tom Clegg | The Arvados API and authentication system facilitate a smooth user experience and effective data sharing when working with multiple independent web-based applications. |
| 15 | 2 | Tom Clegg | |
| 16 | 4 | Tom Clegg | Workbench is built with Ruby on Rails using the Arvados Rails SDK. |
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| 18 | (In a sense, Workbench is the web browser SDK -- but we don't call it that because we don't expect anyone to write an application by scripting a web browser.) |
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| 20 | fn1. Exception: Each site has an official Workbench installation with the privileges required to retrieve a user's API authentication tokens. This is necessary to obtain authentication tokens for API clients/environments that aren't well suited to the OpenID authentication process, like CLI tools. |