Girder 2.0 officially released

In this version, Girder’s web client build system received a major overhaul. It now uses Webpack. Webpack provides users of the web client library the ability to link against specific sub-modules of the Girder code base to build their own applications. Users can employ Webpack with the Babel plug-in to utilize modern ECMAScript language features. These newer features are transpiled to ES5, so the code can still be used on older browsers that don’t support the new language features yet.

Additionally, a lightweight Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) service now ships with the Girder package. The service can expose the Girder data hierarchy via anonymous or authenticated access. Since SFTP can resume interrupted downloads, the service can help facilitate large downloads of nested datasets, even in the presence of poor network conditions.

Site administrators can also benefit from a new feature that dynamically maps plug-ins that serve their own applications to custom paths on the server. This interface also allows site administrators to re-map the core Girder user interface (UI) to its own custom path.

For plug-in developers, a “Migration Guide” helps transition 1.x-based plug-ins to version 2.x as painlessly as possible. The guide enumerates all of the breaking changes and explains how to address each one.

For questions or comments, please reach out on Girder’s Gitter chat page: https://gitter.im/girder/girder.