Dear community, I would like to start of a discussion on this epic with few questions. Please engage.
*1) Purpose of airavata-django-portal* I see it's an interface for airavata service. So, that it's accessible from a browser for authenticated users with authorised privileges. So, this is more similar to phpMyAdmin for mysql. For any airavata service, this can be exposed as an admin portal. In addition to that, airavata-django-portal let the users manage a storage and use them on experiments. *2) Why do we need a desktop application for airavata?* More than this being just another copy of airavat-django-portal available as a desktop application, I believe this could be kind of a mysql-workbench for mysql where multiple connections can be managed together. So, that who ever has the connection details to a airavata service could make a connection and get the needful done. But, then I get following questions. *2.1) What's the existing way of managing users?* I can see anybody could signup. But, I couldn't find where the user privileges can be managed? Should we include kind of a section on the desktop application or should we encourage the desktop application only to users who has credentials to a airavata service. *2.2) Reusing components from airavata-django-portal* Yes, it can be done. But, since it's plugged to it's own endpoints instead to airavata services directly, if we are doing what's on (2), It'll be required to put in so many conditional code inside components which would be too much configurations. But, still we could refactor some of them to view only components and reuse. So, that it'll be easy to upgrade. Given it could be not if the UX is changed based on what's expected in the desktop application. *2.3) User storage management* For the desktop application, Do we need to manage a separate user storage. We could let it use the computer storage instead. *2.4) Airavata javascript api client * I can see this is going to be a common component generated using the airavata thift api spec. Since, it's a reusable component for many cases, would it be a good idea putting that as a package on npm. So, it'll be not duplicated. *2.5) Additional functionalities* Other than the functions available on airavata-django-portal and few mentioned above, Do you have anything on you mind which could be included on a desktop application particular. Regards, Dinuka
