➔ Slides (doi: 10.7490/f1000research.1114475.1)
Authors
Evgeny Anatskiy, Bioinformatics Group at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg
Anup Kumar, Bioinformatics Group at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg
Joachim Wolff, Bioinformatics Group at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg
Clemens Blank, Bioinformatics Group at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg
Eric Rasche, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Texas A&M University
Martin Cech, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State University
Björn Grüning, Bioinformatics Group at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg
Abstract
Historically Galaxy's implementation of the user interface (UI) did not allow for rich user experience features familiar for users of Facebook, Gmail, GitHub and other sites. To address this Galaxy has been undergoing an architectural transformation towards API-driven framework design. Here we describe benefits of this shift -- the new design philosophy allows us to dramatically improve user experience by enabling features and uses that were simply not possible before.
In particular, the addition of Galaxy Webhooks -- a plug-in system designed for customization of individual Galaxy instances -- is one of the prominent developments enabled by the new architecture. Webhooks are configurable and often community-contributed pieces of code altering the UI and providing additional features. The primary benefit to the community will be the ability to personalize Galaxy instances tailoring them to the needs of individual groups.
Notable examples of webhooks:
- Tool Describing Tours - providing capability for executing a ‘demo' run of any tool using the tool's own test case and data. This is the ideal medium for guiding and educating users by directly exposing them to tools parameters, inputs and outputs.
- Overlay Search - allowing rich exploration across all objects in the Galaxy including datasets, tools, histories, workflows, libraries and so on.
- Tool Flavoring - generating a list of installed tools that can be readily packaged into docker images mimicking the original Galaxy's toolset.
We believe webhooks represent a logical result of project's sustained focus on building robust, reliable framework for integration of tools and plugins.