How it works/Technology we use

Here is a list of the tools we use to make this platform work. Of course each of them depends in turn by other tools (for instance Quasar Framework depends on Vue.js, and Vue.js is in turn composed by several components, like the router and vuex, a "state management pattern"), however, given a set even arbitrary of the most prominent tools we use, the reader might explore on his or her own the vast areas not covered by the following table both in extension and in depth.

Currently used

software	description	use
Mediawiki 1.34	The collaboration and documentation platform which inspired and powers Wikipedia.	We use it for the back-end side of this site, in order to ensure collaborative creation of quality contents.
Mediawiki extensions	Plugins extending the set of features of Mediawiki.	Some of the most prominent extensions include: Page forms, Semantic Mediawiki, Visual editor, Ms Upload, MultimediaViewer, and more: we are also using a custom extension created by us!
Quasar framework	open-source Vue.js based framework for building apps	We use it for all the Front-end part of the site, taking advantage of its server side rendering feature and beautifully crafted components
Cheerio	DOM manipulation from an html string	We use it to perform some adjustments to the mediawiki html output before recording the latest version of a page to be served through the APIs
nodemw	Node.js interface for the Mediawiki APIs	We use it to call the mediawiki APIs from a Node.js script to retrieve and structure wiki pages before serving them through the APIs
detectlanguage	Language identification JSON webservice	We use it to determine the language of a wiki page, in order to filter them by language in the front-end site, or to perform hyphenation
Detecting languages (Google Cloud Translation)	Language detect using Google Cloud Translation APIs	As above, we use both of them concurrently
Knex	Query builder for Node.js	We use it to assemble mysql queries in our Node.js scripts
Email templates	A wrapper for sending email using template engines (like PUG) and transports (like Nodemailer)	We use it to send email using PUG templates and Node mailer-Sendgrid transport
Prism	Javascript syntax highlighter	We use it to format code snippets on the Front-end site
jsonwebtoken	Node.js implementation of An implementation of JSON Web Tokens.	We use it to authenticate a student accessing his/her Classes
fancytree	Javascript library providing interactive trees based on hierarchical data structures	We use it to display a structured and editable table of contents of a given set of wiki pages to be used as navigation panel in the related front-end site.
Hyphenopoly	"Hyphenation for node and Polyfill for client-side hyphenation."	We use it to hyphenate the organization or documentation's pages based on the detected language of each wiki page. Especially important on mobile devices combined with justified columns.
pouchdb	client-side open-source JavaScript database inspired by CouchDB	We use it to store all the organization or documentation's pages on the client, to minimize loading data from the server and to allow offline navigation

Previously used

software	description	use	notes
Esprima	ECMAScript parser	We use it to securely parse the javascript object produced by the Frontend Index (the link might be broken) storing the structure of the tree	The functioning of the the former "Frontend Index" (now renamed "Table of contents") has been reviewed. Now the tree object representing the table of contents is saved as a semantic property directly by a form, rather than by a script invoking the Mediawiki javascript api, in a process technically virtuous but not the simplest.

... and more ! The list is in progress !