To begin developing individual projects on DM, you need to have access to an already existing instance of the platform, or install the open-source platform software on a server. Installation requires IT network/system administration expertise, but afterward developing individual projects requires no specific IT expertise.

​

The latest software version (DM v2.1) was developed to be deployed on the Heroku cloud-server platform, using Amazon S3 Bucket to store image data. Additionally, the platform can now be set up on a local server relatively quickly using Docker Compose, where the only requirements are Docker and Docker Compose themselves.
 

Requirements: DM v2.1 is a single page React application backed by a Ruby on Rails server running a Postgres database. It uses ActiveStorage for image uploads and ImageMagick for image processing. It includes out the box support for storing images on Amazon S3. It can utilize a service like Postmark or SendGrid for outbound SMTP. It has been developed within the Heroku (heroku.com) environment but has no Heroku specific dependencies. Additionally, the platform can now be set up on a local server relatively quickly using Docker Compose, where the only requirements are Docker and Docker Compose themselves. Instructions for installing DM v2.1 on both Heroku or a local server may be found on the DM 2 GitHub page, along with issue tracking and new releases. Check the GitHub releases page for the latest updates.

If you wish to install DM on Heroku or locally, but lack the technical expertise to do so, DM's developer, Performant Software Solutions, is available for contract to consult and/or work on installs and/or possible customization of the platform.

Note: On installation of a DM server, the email notification system for adding new collaborators requires an external application such as SendGrid or Postmark. Some projects have reported that issues with SendGrid's spam filters have led to situations where email notifications were not sent. Projects using Postmark have not experienced such issues and so using Postmark is recommended. For more information on this issue see github.com/performant-software/dm-2#configuration-variables and github.com/performant-software/dm-2/issues/449