README.md
# [Helpful](http://helpful.io)
Help shouldn't hurt.
[](https://travis-ci.org/asm-helpful/helpful-web)
[](https://codeclimate.com/github/support-foo/web)
[](http://inch-ci.org/github/asm-helpful/helpful-web)
<a href="https://assembly.com/helpful/bounties?utm_campaign=assemblage&utm_source=helpful&utm_medium=repo_badge"><img src="http://badger.asm.co/helpful/badges/tasks.svg" height="20px" alt="Open Tasks" /></a>
Helpful is an open product that's being built by a fantastic group of people on [Assembly](https://assemblymade.com/helpful). Anybody can join in building this product and earn a stake of the profit.
## Getting Started
If you're running Windows, [here's a guide written by one of our members on how to get set up.](https://github.com/asm-helpful/helpful-web/blob/master/docs/getting_started_on_windows.md)
[Vagrant](http://vagrantup.com) is the recommended way to run Helpful on your own machine. You need to download and install [Vagrant](http://vagrantup.com/downloads) before you can continue (this will take a while to run so you may want to grab some coffee).
git clone https://github.com/asm-helpful/helpful-web.git helpful-web
cd helpful-web
vagrant up
Once it's finished open up [http://localhost:5000](http://localhost:5000) in your web browser to check out Helpful.
### Gems Installation and Database Migration
Remember that you are using Vagrant, so if you run ```bundle install``` or ```rake db:migrate``` directly in your terminal it will not affect the virtual machine where Helpful is running.
In order to run these commands, in the virtual machine, all you have to do is to run ```vagrant provision```.
### Environment Variables
If you need to change any environment variable you have to edit ```.env``` file properly and restart Rails server running:
vagrant ssh -c "sudo restart helpful"
### Using Helpful
To create a new account for Helpful, click "Sign Up" on the homepage.
## Advanced Email Configuration
### Sending with Gmail
In your .env file, change the below values for your own email and
password:
USE_GMAIL=true
SENDER_EMAIL_ADDRESS="email@example.com"
SENDER_EMAIL_PASSWORD="PassWord"
Save and restart the app (`sudo restart helpful` on vagrant)
### Receiving with Mailgun (optional)
Setting up [Mailgun](http://mailgun.com) in development takes a little work but allows you to use the
actual email workflow used in production.
1. Register for a free account at https://mailgun.com.
2. Get your Mailgun API key from https://mailgun.com/cp it starts with "key-"
and add it to your .env file as MAILGUN_API_KEY.
4. Get your Mailgun test subdomain from the same page and add it to your .env
file as INCOMING_EMAIL_DOMAIN.
5. In order to recieve webhooks from Mailgun we need to expose our development
instance to the outside world. We can use a tool called
[Ngrok](http://ngrok.com) for this. Download and setup Ngrok by following the
instructions on the [Ngrok](http://ngrok.com) site.
6. Run rake mailgun to make sure everything is setup right. It should prompt you
to create a route using `rake mailgun:create_route`.
7. Run `rake mailgun:create_route` and when prompted enter your Ngrok address
as the domain name.
8. Send a test email to helpful@INCOMING_EMAIL_DOMAIN and you should see it
appear in the helpful account.
## Contributing
There are a couple of steps you need to take before contributing:
1. Go to https://assemblymade.com and sign up.
2. Link your GitHub account to your Assembly account in your profile settings.
3. Create a new WIP at https://assemblymade.com/helpful/wips. Think of WIPs as GitHub issues.
Then just go ahead, fork the repo & issue a pull request. You're on your way to having a stake in Helpful.