-This file documents the contents of this module
+his file documents the contents of this module
See the devel/ subdir for more devel-oriented doc.
** change DEVELOPER_ROOT if you didnt clone into ~/git/myslice-django
** change the location of your backend API (not yet supported)
+* edit myslice/config.py and enter the details of your manifold backend
+
* init django
$ manage.py syncdb
-[ at this point point it *might* be needed to run
-$ make allst
- but as far as running a local server is concerned you should be good without that
- feedback on this is appreciated]
+* gather static files
+$ make static
* run a local server:
$ manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000
+-- or -- my advice:
+$ devel/server-loop.sh
+when you just need to hit ^C yourself when your static files need to be refreshed - see below
* use it from your browser
+(See more notes on using the development server below)
+* install dependencies
+$ pip install -r path/to/requirements/file.txt
==================== Status
-For now there's not much in here;
+*** Authentication ***
+
+Although there still are a few hard-coded accounts in the system, you
+will only be able to see some static views and won't be able to send
+real queries if you use these, so you'd better use a real account (one
+that your manifold backend knows about).
+
+For logging out: click on 'logged as *jean*', this shows a
+confirmation page for logging out. this is intended to be temporary.
+
+*** Packaging ***
+
+I've done a very rough attempt at packaging for rpm.
+The logic seems about right but needs more work, in particular in terms of installing myslice.conf
+in the httpd conf.d directory.
+It seems like our app won't work on f14 as is because Django is only 1.3.1 on f14
+Plan is to target f18 but I lack a test machine.
+Also of course I'll try to tackle debian/ubunti at some point.
+
+*** Features ***
+
+We have a basic model for asynchroneous queries (referring to manifold
+queries) and for plugins (in the most general sense a plugin is just a
+piece of the output that may be connected to a query)
-* Logging in should be easy using one of the few hard coded accounts
- this was the simplest possible way to demonstrate deferring authorization elsewhere
-* To logout, click on 'logged as *jean*', this shows a confirmation page..
+Right now the UI has a handful of demo views only; as of this writing
+only the list of slices actually comes from the manifold backend in an
+asynchroneous way.
+Also all the views are gathered in the trash/ locations for now, being
+that they're only for assessment purposes.
-Right now the UI has 4 views:
+* dahsboard : has one async. query and 2 plugins that share that
+ query; the intent was to demo a different layout in both cases,
+ although the datatables one won't work yet at this point.
-* the most useful one being the 'Plugin' view which demonstrates all the available plugins
- see test_plugin_view in engine/views.py
+* the 'Plugin' view demonstrates most of the available plugins.
* slice view : only demonstrates how to use URLs to pass arguments along
-* scroll view : forget about that one, but it does illustrate that some pages can be made public (no need to login)
+
+* scroll view : mostly it only illustrates that some pages can be made
+ public (no need to login)
+
* tab view : a hand-made tab widget
-(last three from slice/views.py)
+Not much effort has yet been put into coming up with a nice layout,
+feel free to tweak that but it's probably still way too early for
+this.
+
+====================
Third party tools shipped:
* jquery
* datatables
+* spin
* bootstrap
+* and others are added as we build the system when they become needed
-not much effort has been put into coming up with a nice layout and all, feel free to tweak that but it's probably way too early for that
+I've tried to keep track of the version I picked and to have an easy upgrade path.
==================== Contents: 1st level subdirs
. settings.py
. urls.py
-* engine:
- the code for building / rendering plugins
+* manifold:
+ the code for dealing with queries, sending them to the backend, and offering the /manifold/proxy/ URL
+
+* unfold:
+ the code for building / rendering plugins
* plugins:
the actual code for plugins
for how to use a separate authentication system,
as well as settings.py for how to enable it
-* slice:
- a django app for dealing with slice views
+* trash/
+ rough/preliminary views in here - as the name suggests this is temporary
+
+* views/
+ will receive actual views over time
+ currently has some global html templates as well
+ + some global static files (css, js, images..)
* insert_above:
a third-party django app for adding on-the-fly mentions to css or js files that need to go in the header
-* templates/
-* static/
- some global stuff:
- * templates (django templates, i.e. (essentially html) fragments that can be specializied)
- * static files (css, js, images..)
- see more about that below
+* third-party/
+ * third party javascript and css stuff (bootstrapfs, jquery, this kind of things)
+ see more about that below too
* devel:
no code in there, only various notes and other scripts useful for developers
========== automatically generated
* all-static: (generated, no need to source-control)
- this is where 'manage.py collectstatic' will gather all your static contents if you run a local server
+ this is where 'make static' will gather all your static contents if you run a local server
make has convenience targets to refresh this area
- $ make clean-static
$ make static
+ $ make clean-static
* myslice.sqlite3
this is where django stores its own stuff, as per settings.py
+==================== conventions for templates & static files
+==================== and NOTES on using the development server
+
+. first off, running manage.py runserver is provided by django as a development convenience but
+ SHOULD NOT be used in production
+
+. second, when you do use it for developement purposes, please be aware that:
+
+.. the recommended layout for the various files and pieces (py, html, js and css) with django is
+ IMHO really painful; we *SHOULD* use e.g.
+ plugins/simplelist.py,
+ plugins/templates/plugins.html,
+ plugins/static/js/simplelist.js
+ plugins/static/css/simplelist.css
+ which I have tried doing for a while but I found mmyself just hopping around in the file tree all
+ day long, wasting cycles all along
+
+.. as that does not make sense IMHO, I've rewritten the tool for gathering these pieces (this is in
+ the Makefile). Bottom line is we can essentially store this wherever we want.
+ The only restriction being that if you have a template that is *not* html, then it *has to* sit
+ in a templates/ directory, otherwise it gets shipped as a static file.
+
+.. as a result, we can now store all the files building a plugin in a single (git) directory; like e.g.
+ plugins/quickfilter/quickfilter.py
+ plugins/quickfilter/quickfilter.html
+ plugins/quickfilter/quickfilter.js
+ plugins/quickfilter/quickfilter.css
+
+ Of course it's a completely different matter once the service is packaged and installed, these
+ files of course get properly separated.
-==================== conventions for templates and static
+.. as a result it is a little bit less convenient to use the development server when you change the
+ layout of your static and template files, you might need to re-run 'make static', so it is
+ recommended to use devel/server-loop.sh instead
+
+
+All this being said, here are our current conventions for storing templates and static files
* templates:
we store this under templates/ within the corresponding app, e.g.
- auth/templates/login.html
- for now this is mostly about html, but the engine can be used for rendering anything including js(on) or whatever..
+ auth/templates/login.html
+ for now this is mostly about html, but the engine can be used for rendering anything
+ including js(on) or whatever (in which case, as stated above, this *must* have /templates/ in its path.
* static files:
we chose to have all static files (images, but also javascript and stylesheets) in the various
- proj or app where they belong, under a static/ subdir that has this structure:
+ proj or app where they belong, with a layout like:
where-it-belongs/
- static/
img/
css/
js/
+ Honestly it's not yet very clear sometimes what 'where-it-belongs' should be sometimes, and it
+ does not matter too much anyway, given that the code doesn't need to change when we move things
+ around. So in particular it's fuzzy between myslice/ (where the logo could fit e.g.) views/ and
+ even trash/
+
+Makefile has a few convenience targets to list all kinds of stuff; the 2 major targets are
+
+$ make static templates
+
+that would reset all-static/ and all-templates/ for you from the other contents
+
+* third-party
+ please note that the set of files that actually get exposed in all-static from third-party is
+ hand-coded in Makefile because we tried to preserve the original codebase layout from mainstream,
+ and there's only so much in common between 2 differents js libraries at this point.
-NOTE. in essence any of these files can be moved around (from e.g. one templates/ dir to another)
-at any time without any change needed in the code