README.md

OpenCOR

OpenCOR is a frontend to libOpenCOR, a library that can be used to organise, edit, simulate, and analyse CellML files.

There are two versions of OpenCOR:

1. OpenCOR: a desktop application that can be run on Windows, Linux, and macOS on Intel/ARM; and
2. OpenCOR's Web app: a Web app that can be run using a Web browser.

The main difference between the two versions is that models in OpenCOR are, by default, compiled while they can only be interpreted in OpenCOR's Web app.

Prerequisites

To build OpenCOR and OpenCOR's Web app, you need to install Node.js and npm, which you can do from here. Then, you need to install pnpm:

npm -g install pnpm

To build OpenCOR, you also need a C/C++ toolchain:

• Windows:
  • Intel:
    • Visual Studio Community 2019 (Desktop development with C++ with MSVC v142 - VS 2019 C++ x64/x86 build tools and Windows 10 SDK); or
    • Visual Studio Community 2022 (Desktop development with C++ with MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 build tools and Windows 11 SDK);
  • ARM:
    • Visual Studio Community 2019 (Desktop development with C++ with MSVC v142 - VS 2019 C++ ARM64 build tools and Windows 10 SDK);
• Linux: G++ (g++ package) on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS/Ubuntu 24.04 LTS; and
• macOS: Xcode (including its Command Line Tools).

Notes:

• Yes, OpenCOR for Windows on ARM can only be built using Visual Studio Community 2019 (this is because we must use MSVC v142; see here for more information).
• On Windows on ARM, you can install Node.js using fnm. However, if you use fnm install --lts, it will install the Intel version of Node.js, which may or may not be what you want. If you want to install the ARM version of Node.js, you should use fnm install --lts --arch arm64.
• On Ubuntu on ARM, you need to install the libopenjp2-tools package so that electron-builder can get access to opj_decompress.

Scripts

Before doing anything, you need to install all of OpenCOR's dependencies:

pnpm install

Then, you can run a given script:

pnpm <script>

where <script> is one of the following:

• build: build OpenCOR;
• build:web: build OpenCOR's Web app;
• clean: clean OpenCOR's environment;
• dev: (build and) start OpenCOR and OpenCOR's Web app in development mode;
• dev:web: (build and) start OpenCOR's Web app in development mode;
• format: format OpenCOR's code and OpenCOR's Web app's code;
• format:check: check that OpenCOR's code and OpenCOR's Web app's code are properly formatted;
• libopencor: build OpenCOR's JavaScript interface to libOpenCOR's C++ bindings;
• lint: lint OpenCOR's code and OpenCOR's Web app's code;
• package: (build and) package OpenCOR for the current platform;
• publish:web: publish OpenCOR's Web app on npm;
• start: (build and) start OpenCOR in production mode; and
• start:web: (build and) start OpenCOR's Web app in production mode.

Notes:

• To run or package OpenCOR, you first need to build OpenCOR's JavaScript interface to libOpenCOR's C++ bindings (using pnpm libopencor). From there, you can run (using either pnpm start or pnpm dev) or package (using pnpm package) OpenCOR.
• OpenCOR does not, by default, work on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and later (see here for more information), although it can be made to work by running the following command:

  sudo sysctl -w kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns=0

• The URI scheme works fine when using the package-based version of OpenCOR. When it comes to the start-based and dev-based versions of OpenCOR, the URI scheme "works" as follows:
  • On Windows and Linux, it just does not work; and
  • On macOS, it only works when OpenCOR is already running.