Syte

Syte is a really simple but powerful packaged personal site that has social integrations like tumblr, twitter, github, dribbble and instagram. You can see it in action on my personal site http://rigoneri.com

There is only one rule

You can use, reproduce and do whatever you want with syte as long as you choose a different adjacent color as the ones used by the people below. Once you have chosen your color and deployed your Syte based site, please send a pull request with an image of you containing the color on the border like the ones above.

Social Integrations

Blog: Tumblr

Syte uses tumblr for blogging and your blog will be the primary page of the site.

Twitter

Syte has twitter integration, which means that when someone clicks on a link that points to a user's twitter profile the profile is loaded within your site along with the user's latest tweets.

Github

Syte has github integration, which means that when someone clicks on a link that points to a user's github profile the profile is loaded within your site along with a list of the user's repos.

Dribbble

Syte has dribbble integration, which means that when someone clicks on a link that points to a user's dribbble profile the profile is loaded within your site along with the user's latest shots.

Instagram

Syte has instagram integration, which means that you can show your instagram pictures within your site like a profile. Currently the only way to display your pictures is through their iPhone and Android apps, this is not even possible through their website.

Responsive UI

Syte is responsive, which means that it scales down to a mobile device screen size.

Technologies Used

Syte uses the Django web framework to handle requests and call the integration apis (with python). However it doesn't necessarily need to be in Django since the majority of the work is on the frontend (I would love to see a fork using Node.js, maybe I'll put one together sometime.)

On the frontend Syte uses HTML5 and CSS3 while using the LESS CSS preprocessor. Syte also uses several JS libraries listed below:

For static compression and minification Syte uses some Node.js libraries:

For deployment Syte uses Heroku since it's free for 750 dyno-hours per month. While the included instructions are for Heroku, Syte doesn't necessarily need to be deployed there.

Setup Instructions

There are a few steps in order to get Syte configured, but don't worry they are pretty easy.

Note I recommend you branching your fork and not checking in sensitive settings to github!

Base content changes

There are a few things that are defaulted to have my information so you have the initial structure of the site.

To start off change the pictures to have your picture, navigate to syte > static > imgs and replace pic.png with your picture and favicon.ico with your favicon in this case I use my picture as well. Please make sure you keep the same sizes. pic.png is 84x84px and favicon.ico is 32x32px.

Then make some text and link changes. Open base.html located in syte > templates > base.html and make the following changes:

Change the meta="description" content to have a description about you.
Change the meta="keywords" content to have keywords about you.
Change the title tag to have your name.
Inside the header tag change the h1 tag to have your name.
Inside the header tag change the h2 tag to have a short description about you.
Inside the nav tag change the twitter-link href to point to your twitter profile, if you don't have twitter just remove that whole line.
Inside the nav tag change the github-link href to point to your github profile, if you don't have github just remove that whole line.
Inside the nav tag change the dribbble-link href to point to your dribbble profile, if you don't have dribbble just remove that whole line.
Inside the nav tag change the contact-link href to point to your email address.
Under class="mobile-nav" div change the h3 link text to have your domain name or your name.

Then pick your adjacent color and change the @adjacent-color hex value in variables.less located in syte > static > less > variables.less Make sure the color you chose is not used by anyone on the list up above. If you want blue pick a different shade of blue, there are hundreds out there...

Setting up your blog (Tumblr)

If you already have a tumblr blog good! If you don't signup for one here it's really easy! I might eventually make Syte integrate with wordpress as well, if you beat me to it please send a pull request.

Once you have your tumblr blog you will need to get the api_key needed to call their APIs. In order to do that register your site with them by going to http://www.tumblr.com/oauth/register, fill in the information about your site, there is no need to enter a default callback url or an icon. Once you are done your website will be listed under http://www.tumblr.com/oauth/apps, save the OAuth Consumer Key value that's the api_key we need for Syte.

Once you have the api_key from tumblr you have to enter it in syte_settings.py located in syte > syte_settings.py. Once you open that file enter the key under TUMBLR_API_KEY, also please enter your tumblr url under TUMBLR_BLOG_URL see the example on how it should be formatted.

Setting up Twitter integration

Twitter has another level of security, therefore we need more information instead of just an api_key like tumblr. To get started create a new application on twitter for your website by going to https://dev.twitter.com/apps/new. Once you are done creating your application you will be taken to your application page on twitter, there you arleady have two pieces of the puzzle, the Consumer key and the Consumer secret make sure you save those.

Next you will need your access tokens, on the bottom of that page there is a link called Create my access token click on that. Once you are done you will be given the other two pieces of the puzzle, the Access token and the Access token secret make sure you save those as well.

Once you have those four items from twitter you have to enter them in your syte_settings.py located in syte > syte_settings.py. Once you open that file enter the following:

Consumer key string you saved under TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY
Consumer secret string you saved under TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET
Access token string you saved under TWITTER_USER_KEY
Access token secret string you saved under TWITTER_USER_SECRET

If you want to turn off the twitter integration just set TWITTER_INTEGRATION_ENABLED to False.

Setting up Github integration

You don't have to do anything to setup the github integration. If you want to turn off this feature just set GITHUB_INTEGRATION_ENABLED setting to False in syte_settings.py.

Setting up Dribbble integration

You don't have to do anything to setup the dribbble integration. If you want to turn off this feature just set DRIBBBLE_INTEGRATION_ENABLED setting to False in syte_settings.py.

Setting up Instagram integration

Instagram has the same level of security as twitter, but they don't provide a button that makes it easy to get the access token, so instead we have to get the access token ourselves. To get started go to http://instagram.com/developer/, sign in and crate a new client by clicking on the Manage Clients link on the top right side.

Enter the Application Name, Description, Website and OAuth redirect_uri. For the OAuth redirect_uri enter http://127.0.0.1:8000/instagram/auth for now since we will get the access token while running it locally. Once you are done regestering your client you will be given the Client ID and Client Secret.

Once you have those two items from Instagram you have to enter them in your syte_settings.py located in syte > syste_settings.py. Once you open that file enter the following:

Client ID under INSTAGRAM_CLIENT_ID
Client Secret under INSTAGRAM_CLIENT_SECRET

After you have entered those two items, folow the steps below for running your Syte locally on your machine. Once you have your Syte running navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8000/instagram/auth, you will be taken to Instagram's website and will be asked to sign in and authorize your application. After you authorized your application you will be taken back to your Syte and you will be given your Access Token and your User ID

Once you have those two items from Instagram you have to enter them in your syte_settings.py located in syte > syste_settings.py. Once you open that file enter the following:

Access Token under INSTAGRAM_ACCESS_TOKEN
User ID under INSTAGRAM_USER_ID

After you validated that your instagram integration worked go back to Instragam page and change the OAuth redirect_uri field to have your domain info (this is not required), then make sure you turn off the instagram oauth interation setting so you don't make that available to everyone in the internet. You can do that by setting INSTAGRAM_OAUTH_ENABLED to False.

If you want to turn off instagram integration just set INSTAGRAM_INTEGRATION_ENABLED to False.

Running & Deployment Instructions

Now that you have everything setup and ready to go we will be able to run the project locally and deploy to heroku with the instructions below. Please note that these instructions are for Mac, which should be the same for linux systems. If you have problems with these instructions on Windows, let me know or send a pull request.

Running Syte locally

Running locally is really easy if you are on a Mac since you already have some stuff installed out of the box. To start off install these python packages:

Once you have those two installed go to your syte directory and run the following commands:

$ mkvirtualenv syte
$ workon syte
(syte)$ pip install --use-mirrors -r requirements.txt

This will install all the project dependencies listed in requirements.txt including Django. Now all you have to do is run the django project and go to http://127.0.0.1:8000.

python manage.py runserver

Compressing Statics

Compressing static files like CSS and JS are done using Node.js. This step is important since it will get all your static files and make tiny bit small so your site can be run faster when it's out there on the so called World Wide Web :)

In order to get there you need to first install node.js, they have automatic installers which makes installation really easy. Then you need to install Node Package Manager (npm) by running the following command:

curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sudo sh

After npm is installed you need to install two node packages less and uglify-js. To do that run the following commands:

sudo npm install less -g
sudo npm install uglify-js -g

Note be sure to create the directories syte > static > css and syte > static > js > min first if it doesn't already exist.

Then whenever you want to release a new version of static update the COMPRESS_REVISION_NUMBER in syte-settings.py and run the compress python command from your syte directory:

python compress.py

This will create a minified version of your CSS in syte > static > css and the minified version of your JavaScript in syte > static > js > min.

Deploying to Heroku

Deploying to Heroku is extremely easy and free, that's why I chose it over Amazon or similar. That's another fork I would love to see, different deployment instructions maybe to an Amazon EC2 micro instance.

First signup to Heroku then follow these simple Django deployement instructions I already have the requirements.txt and the Procfile ready to go, but before you actually deploy there are two things you need to change:

Change the DEPLOYMENT_MODE value to prod in syte_settings.py located in syte > syte_settings.py
Change the SITE_ROOT_URI value to your heroku app url in syte_settings.py see the available example to how it should be formatted.

Credit

Syte was developed by Rigo (rodrigo neri). Check his personal site out at http://rigoneri.com and follow him on twitter @rigoneri

License

The MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

####There is only one rule####

You choose a different adjacent color as the ones used by the people listed up above. Once you have chosen your color and deployed your Syte based site, please send a pull request with an image of you containing the color on the border.

timchurch/syte