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---
layout: page
title: Directory structure
---
# Alaveteli's directory structure
<p class="lead">This page gives you an overview of where to find things in Alaveteli's
directories.</p>
**You'll probably never need to worry about this** if you're just installing
Alaveteli -- this is really more useful if you're a developer planning on
making more substantive changes to the code. You don't need to be familiar with
Ruby to install or make basic [customisations to your
installation](/docs/customising/).
<!-- (and if you do,
remember to read the page about [feeding your changes back](/feeding-back)).-->
Alaveteli uses Ruby on Rails, which is a common "Model-View-Controller" web
framework — if you're familiar with Rails this will look very familiar. For
more information about the Rails structure see the [Ruby on Rails
website](http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html).
## Key directories and what they're for
<dl class="dir-structure">
<dt>
app
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>the core Alaveteli application code</em></p>
<dl>
<dt>
assets
</dt>
<dd>
<em>static assets that require precompilation before being served</em>
<dl>
<dt>
fonts
</dt>
<dt>
images
</dt>
<dt>
javascripts
</dt>
<dt class="last">
stylesheets
</dt>
<dd class="last">
<p><em>stylesheets in CSS or <a href="http://sass-lang.com/">SCSS</a> format.</em></p>
<p>SCSS stylesheets are compiled to CSS.</p>
</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
controllers
</dt>
<dt>
helpers
</dt>
<dt>
mailers
</dt>
<dt>
models
</dt>
<dt class="last">
views
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>cache
</dt>
<dd><p><em>cached files for downloads, attachments and templates.</em></p>
</dd>
<dt>
commonlib
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>mySociety's library of common functions</em></p>
<p>
We maintain a <a href="https://github.com/mysociety/commonlib">common
library</a> that we use across many of our projects (not just
Alaveteli). This is implemented as a <a
href="http://git-scm.com/book/en/Git-Tools-Submodules">git submodule</a>,
so Alaveteli contains it even though the code is separate. Normally, you
don't need to think about this (because git handles it automatically)...
but if you really <em>do</em> need to change anything here, be aware that
it is a separate git repository.
</p>
</dd>
<dt>
config
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>configuration files</em></p>
<p>
The primary configuration file is <code>general.yml</code>. This file isn't in the git
repository (since it will contain information specific to your installation, including
the database password), but example files are.
</p>
</dd>
<dt>
db
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>database files</em></p>
<dl>
<dt class="last">
migrate
</dt>
<dd class="last">
Rails' migration (updating the database scheme up or down
as the code develops).
</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
doc
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>documentation</em></p>
<p>
These are technical notes. This is in addition to the <a
href="http://code.alaveteli.org/docs/">core documentation</a> — which
you are reading now — which is actually stored in the git
repository in the <code>gh-pages</code> branch, and published as GitHub
pages.
</p>
</dd>
<dt>
lib
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>custom libraries</em></p>
<dl>
<dt>
tasks
</dt>
<dd><a href="http://guides.rubyonrails.org/command_line.html#rake">Rake</a> tasks.
</dd>
<dt class="last">
themes
</dt>
<dd class="last">This is where your Alaveteli theme lives.
</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
locale
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>translations (internationalisation/i18n)</em></p>
<p>
The translation strings are stored in <code>.po</code> files in directories specific to
the locale and encoding. For example, <code>es/</code> contains the translations for the Spanish site.
</p>
</dd>
<dt>
log
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>application log files.</em></p>
</dd>
<dt>
public
</dt>
<dd> <p><em>static files that can be served directly.</em></p>
</dd>
<dt>
script
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>server-side shell scripts</em></p>
<p>
For example, <code>alert-overdue-requests</code> for running the script
which finds overdue requests and mails them out.
</p>
</dd>
<dt>
spec
</dt>
<dd>
<p><em>tests</em></p>
<p>
Alaveteli's test suite runs under <a href="http://rspec.info/">rspec</a>.
</p>
</dd>
<dt>
tmp
</dt>
<dd>
<p>
<em>temporary files</em>
</p>
</dd>
<dt class="last">
vendor
</dt>
<dd class="last">
<p><em>third-party software</em></p>
<dl>
<dt class="last">bundle</dt>
<dd class="last">
<p>
<em>the bundle of gems needed to run Alaveteli</em>
</p>
</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>
We've missed out some of the less important subdirectories here just to keep
things clear.
|
