<title>The Fossil Web Interface</title>
One of the innovative features of Fossil is its built-in web interface.
This web interface provides everything you need to run a software
development project:
* [./bugtheory.wiki | Ticketing and bug tracking]
* [./wikitheory.wiki | Wiki]
* [./embeddeddoc.wiki | On-line documentation]
* [./event.wiki | Technical notes]
* Timelines
* Full text search over all of the above
* Status information
* Graphs of revision and branching history
* File and version lists and differences
* Download historical versions as ZIP archives
* Historical change data
* Add and remove tags on check-ins
* Move check-ins between branches
* Revise check-in comments
* Manage user credentials and access permissions
* And so forth... (some [./webpage-ex.md|examples])
You get all of this, and more, for free when you use Fossil.
There are no extra programs to install or setup.
Everything you need is already pre-configured and built into the
self-contained, stand-alone Fossil executable.
As an example of how useful this web interface can be,
the entire [./index.wiki | Fossil website],
including the document you are now reading,
is rendered using the Fossil web interface, with no enhancements,
and little customization.
<blockquote>
<b>Key point:</b> <i>The Fossil website is just a running instance
of Fossil!
</blockquote>
Note also that because Fossil is a distributed system, you can run
the web interface on your local machine while off network (for example,
while on an airplane) including
making changes to wiki pages and/or trouble ticket, then synchronize with your
co-workers after you reconnect. When you clone a Fossil repository, you
don't just get the project source code, you get the entire project
management website.
<h2>Drop-Dead Simple Startup</h2>
To start using the built-in Fossil web interface on an existing Fossil
repository, simply type this:
<b>fossil ui existing-repository.fossil</b>
Substitute the name of your repository, of course.
The "ui" command will start a webserver running (it figures out an
available TCP port to use on its own) and then automatically launches
your web browser to point at that server. If you run the "ui" command
from within an open check-out, you can omit the repository name:
<b>fossil ui</b>
The latter case is a very useful short-cut when you are working on a
Fossil project and you want to quickly do some work with the web interface.
Notice that Fossil automatically finds an unused TCP port to run the
server on and automatically points your web browser to the correct
URL. So there is never any fumbling around trying to find an open
port or to type arcane strings into your browser URL entry box.
The interface just pops right up, ready to run.
The Fossil web interface is also very easy to setup and run on a
network server, as either a CGI program or from inetd, or as an
SCGI server. Details on how
to do that are described further below.
<h2>Things To Do Using The Web Interface</h2>
You can view <b>timelines</b> of changes to the project. The default
"Timeline" link on the menu bar takes you to a page that shows the 20
most recent check-ins, wiki page edits, ticket/bug-report changes,
and/or blog entries.
This gives a very useful snapshot of what has been happening lately on the
project. You can click to go further back in time, if needed. Or
follow hyperlinks to see details, including diffs and annotated diffs,
of individual check-ins, wiki page edits, ticket changes, and
blog edits.
You can view and edit <b>tickets and bug reports</b> by following the
"Tickets" link on the menu bar.
Fossil is backed by an SQL database, so users with appropriate permissions
can write new ticket report formats based on SQL query statements.
Fossil is careful to prevent ticket report formats from doing any mischief
on the database (it only allows SELECT statements to run) and it restricts
access to sensitive data such as user passwords. So it is actually safe
to let anonymous users on the internet write their own ticket formats if
you like. In addition to viewing and/or creating report formats, you can
also create new tickets or look at summaries or complete histories of
existing tickets. Any changes you make will automatically merge with
changes from your co-workers the next time your repository is synchronized.
You can view and edit <b>wiki</b> by following the "Wiki" link on the
menu bar. Fossil uses simple and easy-to-remember
[/wiki_rules | wiki formatting rules] so you won't have to spend a lot
of time learning a new markup language. And, as with tickets, all of
your edits will automatically merge with those of your co-workers when
your repository synchronizes.
You can view summary reports of <b>branches</b> in the
check-in graph by visiting the "Branches" link on the
menu bar. From those pages you can follow hyperlinks to get additional
details. These screens allow you to easily keep track of what is going
on with separate subteams within your project team.
The "Files" link on the menu allows you to browse through the <b>file
hierarchy</b> of the project and to view complete changes histories on
individual files, with hyperlinks to the check-ins that made those
changes, and with diffs and annotated diffs between versions.
The web interface supports [./embeddeddoc.wiki | embedded documentation].
Embedded documentation is documentation files (usually in wiki format)
that are checked into project as part of the source tree. Such files
can be viewed as if they were ordinary web pages. This document that
you are now reading is an example of embedded documentation.
<h2>Customizing The Web Interface Appearance</h2>
Users with appropriate permissions can customize the look and feel of
the web interface using the "Admin" link on the main menu of the web
interface. Templates
for the header and footer of each page can be edited, as can the CSS
for the entire page. You can even change around the main menu.
Timeline display preferences can be edited. The page that is brought
up as the "Home" page can be changed. It is often useful to set the
"Home" page to be a wiki page or an embedded document.
<h2>Installing On A Network Server</h2>
When you create a new Fossil project and after you have configured it
like you want it using the web interface, you can make the project
available to a distributed team by simply copying the single
repository file up to a web server that supports CGI or SCGI. To
run Fossil as CGI, just put the
<b>sample-project.fossil</b> file in a directory where CGI scripts
have both read and write permission on the file and the directory that
contains the file, then add a CGI script that looks something like this:
<verbatim>
#!/usr/local/bin/fossil
repository: /home/www/sample-project.fossil
</verbatim>
Adjust the script above so that the paths are correct for your system,
of course, and also make sure the Fossil binary is installed on the server.
But that is <u>all</u> you have to do. You now have everything you need to host
a distributed software development project in less than five minutes using a
two-line CGI script.
Instructions for setting up an SCGI server are
[./scgi.wiki | available separately].
You don't have a CGI- or SCGI-capable web server running on your
server machine?
Not a problem. The Fossil interface can also be launched via inetd or
xinetd. An inetd configuration line sufficient to launch the Fossil
web interface looks like this:
<verbatim>
80 stream tcp nowait.1000 root /usr/local/bin/fossil \
/usr/local/bin/fossil http /home/www/sample-project.fossil
</verbatim>
As always, you'll want to adjust the pathnames to whatever is appropriate
for your system. The xinetd setup uses a different syntax but follows
the same idea.