sevyatar / open-knesset

A project aimed at making the israeli Knesset more transparent. Python and Django based

Warning

The repository state, docs and steps for the build environment are in flux and changing to virutalenv.

Important

This document contains quick start instruction. For more details, please see the Open Knesset developers documentation

Contents

• Installation
  • GitHub
  • Linux
  • MS Windows
• After basic installation: Tests and initial db
• Working process
  • Before you code
  • When you code
    • General
    • Adding a field to existing model
    • Updating the translation strings
    • After you code
  • Known issues

Installation

GitHub

• Make sure you have an account on GitHub, and you're logged in.
• Fork the repository (top right of page). This creates a copy of the repository under your user.
• See http://linux.yyz.us/git-howto.html for a short list of options with git and github.com help for more.

Linux

• Install initial requirements (since we're gonna comile PIL into the environemnt, we'll also need development tools):

  Debian and derivatives like Ubuntu and Mint

  sudo apt-get install build-essential git python python-dev python-setuptools python-virtualenv python-pip
  sudo apt-get build-dep python-imaging
  sudo apt-get build-dep python-lxml

  Fedora

  sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools" "Development Libraries"
  sudo yum install git python python-devel python-setuptools python-virtualenv python-pip libjpeg-turbo-devel libpng-devel libxml2-devel libxslt-devel

• If you haven't done so already:

  • git config --local user.name "Your Name"
  • git config --local user.email "[email protected]"

• Create the virtual environment. In the terminal cd to the directory ypu want the environment create it and run virtualenv oknesset.

• Activate the virutalenv cd oknesset; . bin/activate Note the changed prompt which includes the virtualenv's name.

• Clone the repository:

  git clone https://github.com/your-username/Open-Knesset.git
  

  This creates a copy of the project on your local machine.

• Install required packages: pip install -r Open-Knesset/requirements.txt and wait ...

• Run the tests:

  cd Open-Knesset
  python manage.py test
  

MS Windows

• Download the latest Python 2.7 MSI installer matching your architecture (32 or 64 bit). As of this writing, the latest one is 2.7.3. Install it.

• Download distribute for your architecture and install it.

• Open command windows and:

  cd c:\Python27\Scripts
  easy_install pip virtualenv
  

• Download and install the installers matching your architecture for PIL and lxml (version 2.3.x).

• Download and install GitHub for Windows.

• Run the GitHub program (should have an icon on the desktop). Sign in with your username and password.

• Run Git Shell (should have an icon on desktop). In that shell create the virtualenv:

  cd C:\
  C:\Python27\Scripts\virtualenv --distribute --system-site-packages oknesset
  

• Still in that shell activate the virutalenv:

  cd oknesset
  Scripts\activate
  

  Note the changed prompt with includes the virtualenv's name.

• Clone the repository. In the oknesset directory and run git clone [email protected]:your-name/Open-Knesset.git

• Install requirements: pip install -r Open-Knesset\requirements.txt and wait.

• Run the tests:

  cd Open-Knesset
  python manage.py test
  

After basic installation: Tests and initial db

Note

Linux users: you can replace python manage.py with ./manage.py.

• Run the tests: python manage.py test
• Download and extract dev.db.zip or dev.db.bz2 (bz2 is smaller), place dev.db into the Open-Knesset directory
• Make sure db schema is upated: python manage.py migrate
• Create a superuser if needed: python manage.py createsuperuser
• To run the development server: python manage.py runserver. Once done, you can access it via http://localhost:8000

Working process

Let's describe some development workflow.

Before you code

Important

• Linux users: you can replace python manage.py with ./manage.py
• Run the manage.py commands from the Open-Knesset directory, with the virtualenv activated.

Get your branch updated with the changes done by others. Please do this every time before you start developing.

• cd Open-Knesset
• git pull [email protected]:hasadna/Open-Knesset.git master
• pip install -r requirements.txt # only needed if the file requirements.txt was changed; but can't hurt you if you run it every time.
• python manage.py migrate # do not create a superuser account
• python manage.py test # if there are any failures, contact the other developers to see if that's something you should worry about.
• python manage.py runserver # now you can play with the site using your browser

When you code

General

• Write tests for everything that you write.
• Keep performance in mind - test the number of db queries your code performs using python manage.py runserver and access a page that runs the code you changed. See the output of the dev-server before and after your change.

Adding a field to existing model

We use south to manage database migration. The work process looks something like:

• add the field you want to model sample_model in app sample_app
• bin/django schemamigration sample_app --auto # this generates a new migration under src/knesset/sample_app/migrations. You should review it to make sure it does what you expect.
• bin/django syncdb --migrate # run the migration.
• don't forget to git add/commit the migration file.

Updating the translation strings

Currently, there is no need to update translation (po) files. Its a real headache to merge when there are conflicts, so simply add a note to the commit message "need translations" if you added any _('...') or {% trans '...' %} to the code.

After you code

• python manage.py test # make sure you didn't break anything

• git status # to see what changes you made

• git diff filename # to see what changed in a specific file

• git add filename # for each file you changed/added.

• git commit -m "commit message"

  Please write a sensible commit message, and include "fix#: [number]" of the issue number you're working on (if any).

• git push # push changes to git repo

• Go to github.com and send a "pull request" so your code will be reviewed and pulled into the main branch, make sure the base repo is hasadna/Open-Knesset.

Known issues

• Some of the mirrors may be flaky so you might need to install requirements.txt several times until all downloads succeed.
• Currently using MySQL as the database engine is not supported