Running from source

Running your very own instance of OWOT from source is relatively straightforward. The source code is available here.

While the instructions for running your own instance are detailed on the Github project's README, this article will go in depth on how to get your instance up and running.

Software Requirements

Our World of Text is built on Node.js which is a JavaScript runtime for your desktop. Despite what people may say about Node online, it's a robust runtime that has evolved since its release in 2009. It's capable of dealing with a large number of requests per second and handles I/O operations very well.

Node.js

• https://nodejs.org/en

Our World of Text has been tested on versions as early as v16. If you haven't installed Node.js already, you can go for the LTS release which works fine for essentially everybody.

Git

• https://git-scm.com/downloads

This is not required. This is only good for those who want to quickly fetch updates from the repository or get into OWOT development. If you choose to proceed with this route, you may download the latest version of Git.

Downloading the Source Code

Once you've got the software installations out of the way, you can now start downloading the source code so that you can run it.

There are a few ways of doing this:

Through Git

First, you'll have to open command prompt and navigate to a directory to place your source code. You do not need to create a directory.

Next, you will have to run the following command: git clone https://github.com/system2k/NodeWorldOfText.git nodeworld

Once that is done, you may now enter the directory. You can do so by entering cd nodeworld

If you could not get git to work all this time or decided not to use it, you may just download a zip file from the GitHub repository.

From the GitHub Website

Visit the repository:

• https://github.com/system2k/NodeWorldOfText

To download the zip file, click the green Code button and click Download ZIP.

Navigate to where the zip file is and extract it to a proper directory (i.e. not your Pictures or Desktop although there's no harm).

You should be all set for this part.

Through wget

If you're on Linux, you may run this command: wget https://github.com/system2k/NodeWorldOfText/archive/master.zip -O nodeworld.zip

Extract the contents by running: unzip nodeworld.zip

You should now see a file named NodeWorldOfText-master somewhere in your directory. It's up to you what to name it or where to put it.

Through curl

If you're on Linux (or Mac if you're unfortunate), you may run: curl -L -O https://github.com/system2k/NodeWorldOfText/archive/master.zip -o nodeworld.zip

Extract the contents by running: unzip nodeworld.zip

You should now see a file named NodeWorldOfText-master somewhere in your directory. It's up to you what to name it or where to put it.

Getting the Server Ready

By this point, you should already ensure that you're inside the source code directory.

Stay tuned for more.