Setup

To set up this project on your own machine, perform these steps.

Fork this repository, then clone it. Fork it via the GitHub website, then clone it with either GitHub desktop or the command line (if you've got the ssh keys set up)

$ git clone git@github.com:mygithubusernae/libraryapp-hackathon-python-starthere.git

(Use the address of your fork of this repo: you'll need to change mygithubusername in the line above.)

Once you have a copy of the repository, open a terminal in that directory

$ cd /path/to/libraryapp-hackathon-python-starthere/

Once there, create and activate a virtual environment for the project

$ python3 -m venv gcmk
$ source gcmk/bin/activate

(If you're on Windows using the cmd terminal, the command is (make sure you use backslashes)

$ .\gcmk\Scripts\activate

If you're on Windows using the Git Bash terminal, the command is

$ source gcmk/Scripts/activate

)

Install the required libraries, such as Django

(gcmk) $ pip install -r requirements.txt

Check you have the correct version

(gcmk) $ python -m django --version
2.1.5

Run a migration to create the database

(gcmk) $ python manage.py migrate

These migrations creates the Librarian and Library user groups and assigns the correct permissions to them. They also set up the Configuration database table with sensible starting values.

Create users and records

There are two options here: either use the pre-populated sample data, or create users and data yourself.

Using sample data (recommended)

After running migrate, pick one of the datasets to include in the database.

Sample users

(gcmk) $ python manage.py loaddata library-user.json

Sample users, and sample books & loans

(gcmk) $ python manage.py loaddata library-user-library.json

Then run the server:

(gcmk) $ python manage.py runserver

and visit the library site (127.0.0.1:8000/library) in a web browser. The admin site is at 127.0.0.1:8000/admin should you need it.

Creating users and data by hand (not recommended)

If you elect not to use any of the sample datasets, you'll have to create the users by hand.

Create a superuser

(gcmk) $ python manage.py createsuperuser

Run the server, and open the admin site (127.0.0.1:8000/admin) in a web browser

(gcmk) $ python manage.py runserver

In the admin site, create some users, books, copies, and loans. Create at least one librarian and one library-user.

Making changes

Let's say you want to make a change/enhancement/extension to the app.

Setup

You only need do this once.

Create a new remote link, called upstream, that points to the original repository. This will allow you to keep up to date with ongoing changes that others have made. (You have to do this on the command line: GitHub desktop doesn't support this.)

(gcmk) $ git remote add upstream https://github.com/GirlsCodeMK/libraryapp-hackathon-python-starthere.git

Starting work

Before you start work, ask around to make sure no-one else is working on that feature!

Make sure your local copy of your repository is up-to-date by pulling any changes.

(gcmk) $ git checkout master
(gcmk) $ git fetch upstream
(gcmk) $ git merge --ff-only upstream/master

Create and checkout a new branch for your feature. Call the branch anything you want, but you may want to include your name and/or the issue number (if you're addressing an open issue on the project).

(gcmk) $ git branch cool-feature
(gcmk) $ git checkout cool-feature

(You can do both of these steps as one with git checkout -b cool-feature)

Do some work on this feature. Make commits often, as is good Git practice.
Sooner or later (and preferably sooner), you'll want to push these commits to your own repository. The first time you do this, you need to tell Git to create a new branch in your remote origin repository on GitHub.

(gcmk) $ git push --set-upstream origin cool-feature

As you continue to work, make more commits and push them.

(gcmk) $ git push origin cool-feature

Getting your changes accepted

Once you've finished your cool feature, it's time to get it accepted into the main project.

Check that the main master hasn't changed while you've been working.

(gcmk) $ git checkout master
(gcmk) $ git fetch upstream
(gcmk) $ git merge --ff-only upstream/master

As you've not changed our local copy of master, there should be no conflicts here.

Merge the newly-updated master into your feature branch

(gcmk) % git checkout cool-feature
(gcmk) % git merge master

(If you're feeling confident about what you're doing, you can rebase your changes instead of mergeing them.)

Fix any conflicts between your changes and the updates in master. Once you're done, commit the changes back to your feature branch. (Git is helpful here in guiding you through the process.)
Push your changes back up to your repository

(gcmk) $ git push origin cool-feature

On the GitHub website, find the big green "New pull request" button to ask for your changes to be included into main repository.
That's all you need do: someone else will look at your changes and advise you on what happens next. Your changes could be accepted as-is, or the review could suggest some improvements to make to your feature.

Logging

The development system is set up to log some messages to the console (the same terminal where the messages appear from runserver). At the moment, logging is only active for calls in the views.py file.

To log a step of a function, include the line

logger.warning('copy delete args: ' + str(self.kwargs))

...and the message will appear when the function is used.

Note that the argument to logger must be a single string, so you need to convert non-string arguments for logger.

Links

The Django documentation is essential reading, including the Django "getting started" tutorial.

This application is based on the DjangoGirls tutorial system and the Mozilla Development tutorial.