Building from Source

Clone the modernGraphTool repository, customize whatever you like, and build your own dist/ folder. This path is aimed at developers and operators who need changes that go beyond what config.js exposes.

Overview

Building from source gives you full control over the app bundle itself — you can edit components, add features, change the build pipeline, and ship custom releases. It’s also the most work: you need Node.js, git, and the ability to debug build errors.

If you only want to customize config.js, theme.css, data/, or assets/, you don’t need to build from source — use CDN Deployment or Pre-built Release instead.

When to pick this

Good fit for:

• Forks with custom features beyond what the config surface exposes
• Developers who want to contribute upstream
• Operators who need to edit app components, routes, or build configuration

Bad fit for:

• Operators who just want a working site — use CDN or Pre-built
• People who don’t want to deal with node_modules and build errors

Prerequisites

• Node.js v20 or later
• git
• Basic command-line familiarity

Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/potatosalad775/modernGraphTool.git
cd modernGraphTool
npm install

defaults/ vs static/

modernGraphTool uses a two-layer static assets system. Understanding it before you start editing will save you a lot of time.

• defaults/ holds user-configurable templates: config.js, theme.css, data/, assets/, and so on. These are the files a regular operator would edit. They’re checked into git and ship with every release.
• static/ is a gitignored override layer. Any file you place in static/ takes priority over the same path in defaults/ — during npm run dev and during npm run build.

Pattern for customizing while developing: copy the file you want to edit from defaults/ into static/, then edit the copy in static/. This keeps your personal customizations out of git and makes git pull painless.

The fallback behavior is implemented by vite-plugin-defaults.ts, which serves defaults/ as a fallback during dev and copies it into dist/ after the build (without overwriting files from static/).

Don’t import from defaults/ or static/ as modules

Files in defaults/ and static/ are runtime-loaded assets, not bundled modules. Use fetch() at runtime to read them — never import them from source.

Local development

npm run dev

This starts the Vite dev server at http://localhost:5173 with hot module reload. Edits to .svelte, .ts, .css, and defaults/ files all reload live.

If you want to test against your own measurement data, drop your data/ folder into static/data/ — the dev server will serve your files instead of the shipped defaults.

Previewing the production build

npm run build
npm run preview

npm run build produces dist/, and npm run preview serves that built folder locally. This is how you verify the production bundle before uploading. The preview server runs at http://localhost:4173 by default.

Type checking and quality gates

npm run check          # TypeScript + Svelte type checking
npm run lint           # Prettier + ESLint
npm run test           # Vitest unit tests
npm run format         # Auto-fix formatting

Run npm run check and npm run test before shipping any custom build — they catch most integration issues before they reach users.

Building and deploying

npm run build

The build output goes to dist/. From there, deployment is identical to Pre-built Release — upload the folder to your web server, make sure the SPA fallback is configured (.htaccess for Apache, or equivalent for other servers).

If you also want a CDN-mode build for your own mirror, run:

npm run build:cdn

This produces a dist-cdn/ folder containing the versioned bundle structure that a CDN loader expects.

Updating from upstream

git pull
npm install
npm run build

If you’ve been editing files in defaults/ directly (instead of copying them to static/), expect merge conflicts on upstream updates. The clean fix is to move your customizations to static/ once, then git pull stops conflicting with your edits forever.

Troubleshooting

Build fails with TypeScript errors

Cause: Usually a stale .svelte-kit/ directory after a git pull.

Fix: Run npm run prepare (which runs svelte-kit sync), then retry npm run build. If it still fails, delete node_modules/ and .svelte-kit/ and reinstall.

npm run dev fails with a port conflict

Cause: Port 5173 is already in use (another Vite instance, or another dev server).

Fix: Either stop the other process or pass --port to Vite: npm run dev -- --port 5174.

My edits to defaults/config.js aren’t showing up

Cause: You have a static/config.js that’s shadowing it.

Fix: Edit static/config.js instead, or remove it if you want defaults/ to take over.

Tests fail on a fresh clone

Cause: Missing the Paraglide i18n code generation step.

Fix: Run npm run prepare before running tests — it runs svelte-kit sync, which among other things triggers the Paraglide compile step.