WRA flask prototype kit

This kit allows us to do some rapid prototying of designs and pages before deciding whether to take the prototype further and create a dedicated project for it.

The latest prototypes (and links to standalone prototypes) are available at wra-prototypes.herokuapp.com/.

Getting started (locally)

Optional but recommended. Run in a virtualenv. To create one (with Python 3) run:

mkvirtualenv --python=`which python3` <name>

where is what you wish to call it.

When returning run workon <name> to activate the virtualenv you just created.

To install flask and all the other dependencies run:

make init

This will install the python dependencies and the npm requirements.

You will need to set some environment variables. Create a .env file and include these params

ADMIN_PASSWORD=
ADMIN_USERNAME=

These will allow any private pages to be behind a basic login.

Finally to start the it run:

flask run

Put page behind basic auth

Use the decorator @requires_auth on the routes you want to be behind basic auth.

E.g.

@prototypes.route("secret-page")
@requires_auth
def secret_page():
    return render_template("prototypes/secret.html")

Adding layers to the map

You can add layers by adding a record to application/data/datasets.csv with the respective details.

Once you add them they should show up on the Explore land and property data prototype (the one with the big map).

Note, you may need to tweak the URL that geoserver gives you to make sure it returns all the features for a layer. By default geoserver adds the param &maxFeatures=50 which limits the returned features to 50. Change this to get more. It does mean you need to know the total number of features in the dataset.

Create bilingual prototypes

Create English and Welsh versions of a prototype by providing the page lang to the route. For example,

@prototypes.route("/<lang>/by-post-code")
def by_post_code(lang):
    if lang.lower() not in ["en", "cy"]:
        abort(404)
    g.lang_code = lang
    refresh()
    ...

Here we pass either en or cy to the route. It aborts if a different string is passed in. The lines g.lang_code = lang and refresh() tell babel (the library that does the switching) which language to work in.

Then in your templates, everywhere you have a string wrap it in the _() function.

For example,

<p>This is a prototype</p>

Should become

<p>{{ _("This is a prototype") }}</p>

Once you have set up you template run make extract-strings. This extracts the strings and puts them in application/translations/cy/LC_MESSAGES/messages.po. You should add the welsh string to this file.

Once you have added them run make compile-translations. And commit the changed file.

The only other change you need to make is when linking to pages that have 2 versions. You need to include the lang parameter. For example,

{{ url_for('prototypes.area_selection_options', lang=langLinkSetting) }}

Check out the selecting areas prototype to see an example of this. Look at the route and the strings in the template.

To do