Create "example sessions" or "session templates"

[cmdcolin]

A very common thing in bioinformatics tools, for demo purposes, is to have "example links" that auto fill out some forms and give you the output

In our context, this could be like example sessions that demonstrate different types of views or regions of interest or tracksets. The admin could configure these.

[cmdcolin]

some notes from meeting

• users could replace the "new session", "linear genome view", and "sv inspector" launches. this may come from config (exampleSessions:[], exampleSessionSpecs:[] also perhaps), or maybe even an entirely custom react component (how to do this?)
• the start screen could also list saved sessions, and the recent autosaves (helps recover old sessions easier than opening up the "open session" widget in some cases)
• defaultSessionSpec config entry, probably a types.frozen, that can be used to launch a default related to set-default-session --tracks generates incomplete session #2708

[JoshuaFortriede]

I would like to add interest in this feature. While groups could have a list of example sessions outside of JBrowse, having a filterable/searchable list of example sessions on the splash page would be very helpful. I would suggest an implementation model where a separate JSON file (exampleSessions.json or sharedSessions.json) could be used to create a list of sessions.

Importantly, I think not only having a name for the session, but a description would be very helpful. Potentially even keywords that could work in a searchable way if a group has dozens of these sessions that they want to provide. An example of this might be a JBrowse implementation at a DCC, and they want a shared session for each dataset/publication.

A slight change on this could be not loading from a static file, but from a URL. In this case, the config.json file might have a entry of "sharedSessionSource". This could be a local file (exampleSessions.json, sharedSessions.json, etc), or it could be a URL. What is helpful about providing a URL is it could point to a API that dynamically builds the JSON file, allowing automated updates based on data stored in a database.

[cmdcolin]

+1 those are all good ideas. one alternative that can be used "today" for this is to create a separate page outside of jbrowse that provides share links to these sessions, but having it in the app would likely be good too

[JoshuaFortriede]

To follow up on this, are Shared Sessions permanent or do they ever expire?

[cmdcolin]

short answer: should be permanent

long answer: if you use the 'short urls' then it is permanent to the extent that our link shortener service is alive, which should be indefinitely. you can also toggle 'long urls' and then it is not even dependent on our link shortener.

see https://jbrowse.org/jb2/docs/faq/#how-does-the-session-sharing-work-with-shortened-urls-work-in-jbrowse-web and https://jbrowse.org/jb2/docs/faq/#what-should-i-do-if-the-share-system-isnt-working

[cmdcolin]

several people have also asked for preloading their jbrowse config with some bookmarks