Ubuntu Wiki

   1 [17:02] <mhall119> Hello everyone
   2 [17:02] <mhall119> my name is Michael Hall, and I'm one of the developers of the Ubuntu LoCo Directory
   3 [17:03] <mhall119> I hope you've all been to http://loco.ubuntu.com already, but does anybody not know what it is?
   4 [17:04] <mhall119> alright, quick overview then
   5 [17:05] <mhall119> the loco directory is a community-driven project, meaning decisions and implementation are determined by the community, not Canonical
   6 [17:05] <ClassBot> techbreak asked: mhall119, idk what is this sessoin about ? loco directory ???
   7 [17:05] <mhall119> techbreak_: http://loco.ubuntu.com
   8 [17:05] <mhall119> this session is going to get you ready to start hacking and contributing to it
   9 [17:06] <mhall119> the loco-directory is written in Python, and uses the Django web framework
  10 [17:06] <mhall119> you will need at least working knowledge of python, and some basic understanding of Django to work on LD
  11 [17:07] <mhall119> if you don't currently have Django knowledge, don't worry, it's very easy and I'll go over some of it this hour
  12 [17:07] <mhall119> the main developers of LD are myself, cjohnston, dholbach, Ronnie and daker
  13 [17:07] <mhall119> we all hang out in #ubuntu-locoteams, and that's usually where we discuss LD development
  14 [17:08] <mhall119> since loco.ubuntu.com is hosted on one of Canonical's servers running Ubuntu 10.04, we're restricted to the versions software in those repositories
  15 [17:09] <mhall119> specifically python 2.6, Django 1.1, jQuery 1.3 and jQuery-ui 1.7
  16 [17:09] <mhall119> if you're running Lucid, you're all set
  17 [17:09] <mhall119> if you're running Maverick or Natty, you'll need to grab those versions manually
  18 [17:11] <mhall119> < YoBoY> QUESTION : we can't develop with earlier versions of python, django, ... or
  19 [17:11] <mhall119>                it's just recomended ?
  20 [17:12] <mhall119> since we develop on 2.6, and it'll be running 2.6 in production, it's generally a good idea for you to use 2.6
  21 [17:12] <mhall119> I can't say for sure that it won't work with 2.4, but it's likely
  22 [17:13] <mhall119> I'm assuming you have all been introduced to the basics of bzr by now, but if not just ask about it as I go
  23 [17:13] <mhall119> alright, lets get the code!
  24 [17:13] <mhall119> cd to where you want it to live
  25 [17:13] <mhall119> then run: bzr branch lp:loco-directory
  26 [17:13] <mhall119> that'll get you a copy of the latest trunk
  27 [17:14] <mhall119> trunk is almost always stable
  28 [17:14] <ClassBot> RawChid asked: IS there a manual or webpage which describes how to do this?
  29 [17:14] <mhall119> not that I know if, but ask us in #ubuntu-locoteams (after this session) and we can help you with it
  30 === cmagina is now known as cmagina-lunch
  31 [17:15] <mhall119> okay, by now you should all have a local branch of loco-directory
  32 [17:15] <mhall119> so cd loco-directory and let's take a look
  33 [17:16] <mhall119> quick Django info:
  34 [17:16] <mhall119> Django projects are divided between the root 'project' folder, and sub 'application' folders
  35 [17:17] <mhall119> in the root of the branch, 'loco_directory' is the django project folder
  36 [17:17] <mhall119> so cd loco_directory
  37 [17:17] <mhall119> under there you'll see 'common', 'events', 'meetings', 'services', 'teams', 'userprofiles' and 'venues'
  38 [17:18] <mhall119> those are all of the Django applications that make up LD
  39 [17:18] <mhall119> 'common' is just what it sounds like, it's for things that don't fit elsewhere
  40 [17:19] <mhall119> 'teams' contains all the code for LoCo Team records
  41 [17:19] <mhall119> ls ./teams/
  42 [17:19] <mhall119> a Django app typically has several standard files
  43 [17:20] <mhall119> models.py is where you define your data models, Django will automatically turn these into SQL tables for you (you'll see that later)
  44 [17:20] <mhall119> views.py is where you write the code that is responsible for responding to an HTTP request
  45 [17:21] <mhall119> and urls.py maps a URL pattern to a view
  46 [17:21] <mhall119> any questions so far?
  47 [17:21] <mhall119> ok, moving on
  48 [17:22] <mhall119> the 'events' and 'venues' are the apps that handle LD's event tracker, if you've used LD before you'll know what they do
  49 [17:22] <mhall119> they have the same basic structure as 'teams', with models.py, views.py and urls.py
  50 [17:23] <mhall119> same for 'meetings' and 'userprofiles'
  51 [17:23] <mhall119> now, Django has a built-in templating system that we use.  Our views.py code will usually make use of one or more templates in rendering an HTTP response
  52 [17:24] <mhall119> templates live under the 'templates' directory in the project folder
  53 [17:24] <mhall119> if you ls ./templates/ you'll see that they're separated out by app as well
  54 [17:24] <mhall119> so, to recap
  55 [17:25] <mhall119> if you want to change data structures, it'll likely be in a models.py
  56 [17:25] <mhall119> if you want to change the logic behind a display, it'll likely be in a views.py
  57 [17:25] <mhall119> and if you want to change the interface (html), it'll likely be in the templates
  58 [17:25] <mhall119> everybody with me so far?
  59 [17:26] <mhall119> alright, let's get you guys setup with a working instance of LD
  60 [17:27] <mhall119> first things first, lets look at settings.py in the project folder
  61 [17:27] <mhall119> there's a lot of stuff in here, but the key piece is down around line 116: INSTALLED_APPS
  62 [17:27] <mhall119> this is a list of apps that Django will use for this project
  63 [17:28] <ClassBot> monish001 asked: does Django works on MVC (model view controller framework)?
  64 [17:28] <mhall119> yes, though they call it Model-View-Template, and things are slighting shifted
  65 [17:29] <mhall119> specifically, the typical 'controller' logic is in the view, and most of the display stuff is in the templates
  66 [17:29] <mhall119> okay, lets loot at INSTALLED_APPS
  67 [17:29] <mhall119> the first 4 are the standard Django apps, auth gives us User and Group models, plus permissions
  68 [17:30] <mhall119> contenttypes is really internal stuff you won't likely ever need to worry about
  69 [17:30] <mhall119> sessions gives us automatic session tracking, just like any good web framework should
  70 [17:30] <mhall119> admin is the best of them all, it'll give you a fully functional interface to manage the data in your database for all your defined models
  71 [17:31] <mhall119> if you look in most of the application folders, you'll see amdin.py, which tells the admin app how to present your models
  72 [17:31] <mhall119> the next 6 items in INSTALLED_APPS are the LD apps we've already gone over
  73 [17:32] <mhall119> django_openid_auth is what let's us tie our users and groups to the Ubuntu Single Signon
  74 === Mkaysi is now known as OmgBot
  75 [17:32] <mhall119> south is a special Django app, by default Django will create DB tables based on your models, but it won't change existing tables, which means once you create them you have to make any future changes manually
  76 === OmgBot is now known as Guest83509
  77 [17:33] <mhall119> south lets you track your model structure, and will provide migration scripts whenever you make changes to them
  78 [17:33] <mhall119> we make good use of south in the loco directory
  79 === Guest83509 is now known as Mkaysi
  80 [17:33] <mhall119> if you look under most of the application folders, you'll see a 'migrations' folder, these are the south scripts
  81 [17:33] <mhall119> ok, that's all for settings.py
  82 [17:34] <mhall119> next step, copy local_settings.py.sample to local_settings.py
  83 [17:34] <mhall119> we use local_settings.py for settings that are specific to a running instance of LD, they aren't checked into bzr
  84 [17:35] <mhall119> there's not really anything you need to do with it right now, except make the copy
  85 [17:35] <mhall119> everyone with me still?  The next part is setting it all up
  86 [17:36] <mhall119> alright, lets get our database
  87 [17:36] <mhall119> from the project folder, run "./manage.py syncdb"
  88 [17:36] <mhall119> it will ask you for a superuser, select yes and give it a username, email and password
  89 [17:37] <mhall119> syncdb is the Django command that created your initial database tables
  90 [17:37] <mhall119> by default, LD will use a local sqlite3 file for it's database
  91 [17:37] <mhall119> in production, it runs against postgres
  92 [17:38] <mhall119> you're also free to use MySQL
  93 [17:38] <mhall119> when syncdb finishes, you'll see a message about some apps not being synced because they're under south's migration control
  94 [17:38] <mhall119> so after syncdb, run: ./manage.py migrate
  95 [17:39] <mhall119> this will cause South to run through all  of it's migration scripts
  96 [17:39] <mhall119> which will leave you with the proper table structures
  97 [17:39] <mhall119> if you're using sqlite, you'll see some warnings because it doesn't support some contraints, don't worry about those
  98 [17:40] <mhall119> finally, we'll need to initialize your setup, so run: ./manage.py init-ld
  99 [17:41] <mhall119> init-ld does several things, it'll setup a group in your database for the LoCo Council, it will create necessary symlinks for jquery, and finally it'll grab a copy of lp:ubuntu-website/light-django-theme
 100 [17:41] <mhall119> that last bit is important
 101 [17:41] <mhall119> light-django-theme provides the base templates and CSS for several Django powered Ubuntu sites
 102 [17:42] <mhall119> loco.ubuntu.com (of course), but also summit.ubuntu.com and 10.cloud.ubuntu.com
 103 [17:42] <mhall119> everybody run all of those steps okay?
 104 [17:42]  * mhall119 looks at the clock
 105 [17:44] <mhall119> okay, typically the next step is to either refresh your database with data from Launchpad,or refresh it with data from loco.ubuntu.com
 106 [17:44] <mhall119> but, both of those take a while to run, so we're going to skip them and I'll just have you download a copy of loco_directory.db
 107 [17:44] <mhall119> http://ubuntuone.com/p/fn1/
 108 [17:44] <mhall119> put that into your project folder (over-writing the one you made with syncdb)
 109 [17:45] <mhall119> for reference, "./manage.py lpupdate" will refresh teams and some users from Launchpad, but won't get events, venues or meetings
 110 [17:45] <mhall119> "./manage.py import-live-data" will use LD's REST/Json services to download data from loco.ubuntu.com
 111 [17:46] <mhall119> once you have the database file, run: ./manage.py runserver
 112 [17:46] <mhall119> this will run django's built in webserver on localhost:8000
 113 [17:47] <mhall119> which you can then visit in your browser to see your local instance running
 114 [17:48] <mhall119> oh yes, Ronnie brings up a point that I missed
 115 [17:48] <mhall119> INSTALL file in the root of the branch has instructions for getting things setup
 116 [17:48] <mhall119> one of the lines is a long apt-get install, which will get you all the dependencies
 117 [17:49] <mhall119> okay, hopefully I've gotten you guys a working (or mostly working) isntance of the LD code
 118 [17:50] <mhall119> the next step is to find a bug at https://bugs.launchpad.net/loco-directory to work on
 119 [17:50] <mhall119> if you need help figuring out what needs to be done, just ask us in #ubuntu-locoteams
 120 [17:51] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
 121 [17:51] <mhall119> but remember, data=models.py, logic=views.py, UI=templates
 122 [17:51] <mhall119> that'll get you to the right place 90% of the time
 123 [17:51] <mhall119> after you make the fix, test it locally first
 124 [17:51] <mhall119> once you're happy with it, run: bzr commit -m "You message" --fixes lp:12345
 125 [17:51] <mhall119> where 12345 is the bug number you're working on
 126 [17:52] <mhall119> that'll help launchpad associate your code with that bug
 127 [17:52] <mhall119> then: bzr push lp:~you/loco-directory/fixes-12345
 128 [17:52] <mhall119> agian, I hope you've all been introduced to bzr and distributed development, so this should be familiar
 129 [17:53] <mhall119> then go to https://code.launchpad.net/loco-directory, select your branch, and click the "Propose for merging" link
 130 [17:54] <mhall119> then one of the main developers will review your code (when we have time, we all have actual jobs too)
 131 [17:54] <mhall119> < chadadavis> QUESTION, doe the push statement make a new branch as well, or just
 132 [17:54] <mhall119>                     upload the current branch?
 133 [17:55] <mhall119> it will create a new branch in Launchpad, based off the lp:loco-directory branch
 134 [17:55] <mhall119> these are very lightweight in launchpad, so don't hesitate to push stuff
 135 [17:55] <mhall119> we typically have one branch per fix or feature
 136 [17:56] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
 137 [17:56] <mhall119> once your code bases a review, we will merge it into lp:loco-directory
 138 [17:56] <mhall119> from there it will get translated and wait for the next release of LD
 139 [17:56] <mhall119> anything that lands in trunk will be in the next release
 140 [17:57] <mhall119> we don't have a fixed release schedule though, so it's hard to say if it'll take days or weeks to get it out
 141 [17:57] <mhall119> < YoBoY> QUESTION : can you point us some easy bugs to start working on ?
 142 [17:58] <mhall119> we try to mark small/easy fixes as 'bitesize' in launchpad, you can get a list of them from https://bugs.launchpad.net/loco-directory/+bugs?field.tag=bitesize
 143 [17:58] <mhall119> if you get stuck or have other questions, come find one of us in #ubuntu-locoteams
 144 [17:58] <mhall119> and happy hacking!