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Landing

Welcome to the C4G BLIS project!

You are looking at the documentation site for C4G BLIS. The website is generated by the tool mkdocs from code in the C4G BLIS GitHub repository.

The Project

Here is the official brief:

Open source system to track patients, specimens, and lab results. One of the original C4G projects, continuously in operation since 2010 and deployed in over a dozen countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.

http://blis.cc.gatech.edu

Goals for Spring 2025 include:

  • Implement a self-update feature of the BLIS-NG desktop launcher
  • Implement a password reset tool in the BLIS-NG desktop launcher
  • Test the PHP 7 upgrade and support BLIS online development

What is BLIS?

Great question! You can start poking around BLIS without installing anything on our demo site: demo.c4gblis.org.

There are stock usernames and passwords on this page.

Two Modes of Operation

BLIS can operate either as a web service (using Apache 2, PHP, and MySQL in a Docker container) or as a desktop application on Windows (using the same stack, except Docker is replaced with a Windows launcher application).

The majority of work on this project this semester requires Windows (x86-64) to test effectively. There are instructions for running the development version of BLIS as a web service below for other platforms.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Windows Desktop (x86-64)

  1. Install Docker Desktop
    • Note that this is for personal use, and you should not install this on a work computer.
  2. Install the .NET 10.x SDK
  3. Clone the main repository: git clone https://github.com/C4G/BLIS.git
  4. Clone the BLISRuntime repository: git clone https://github.com/C4G/BLISRuntime.git
  5. Clone the BLIS-NG repository: git clone https://github.com/C4G/BLIS-NG.git
  6. In the BLISRuntime directory, highlight all the files (Ctrl-A) and copy them to the BLIS/ folder
  7. Open the BLIS-NG folder in VS Code, and in the Debug tab, click run

BLIS Cloud Development (Linux, MacOS, WSL2, Devcontainer) (x86-64 / ARM)

Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 Users: Unless otherwise noted, all instructions should be followed from within your WSL2 installation.

  1. Windows (including WSL2) & MacOS Users: Install Docker Desktop
    • Note that this is for personal use, and you should not install this on a work computer.
  2. Linux Users (NOT including WSL2): Install Docker Engine
  3. Clone the main repository: git clone https://github.com/C4G/BLIS.git
  4. Enter the main repository: cd BLIS
  5. Start the development containers: bin/dev

BLIS can be accessed at http://127.0.0.1:8000/ and PHPMyAdmin can be accessed at http://127.0.0.1:8080/.

WSL2 Users: You may need to use a different local IP address. From within WSL2, run hostname -i to determine the correct address to use.

Optional: Devcontainer: BLIS contains a devcontainer specification. If you are using VS Code and it prompts you to "Reopen this folder in a devcontainer" - feel free to try it out and see if it works for you!