volunteer-planner.org

A platform to schedule shifts of volunteers.

TODO: Add general project description and goals, ie. link to wiki.

Project Setup

0. Prerequisites (Ubuntu 14.04 example)

If your machine is setup to work on Django projects, you might skip this step.

0.1 Installing required OS packages

sudo apt-get install python-dev python-pip git npm

This will install Python libraries and Git.

0.2 Using MySQL locally (optional)

Using MySQL locally for development is optional.

0.2.1 Installing MySQL (optional)

If you are going to use a local MySQL server, additionally install

sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev mysql-client mysql-server

This will install MySQL server, it will ask you to set a root password [ROOT_PASSWORD] for the MySQL server, if you haven't already set up MySQL in the past. Remember the password.

0.2.2 Creating a local MySQL database and user (optional)

Open the MySQL shell

mysql -u root -p

and execute following queries to setup the DB

CREATE DATABASE volunteer_planner;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON volunteer_planner.* to vp identified by 'volunteer_planner';

Note: For the local environment, the DB username is assumed to be 'vp' and their password is assumed to be 'volunteer_planner'.

1. Fork us on GitHub

Please fork us on GitHub and clone your fork

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_GITHUB_ACCOUNT/volunteer_planner.git

1.1 Creating Pull Requests

Please do Pull Requests against the develop branch.

If you have questions concerning our workflow please read the Development Rules wiki page.

2. Setup your virtual environment

2.1. Create a virtual env

Create an virtualenv (using virtualenvwrapper):

$ mkvirtualenv vp

Note: using vp as your virtualenv's name is a recommendation, not a requirement.

The virtual environment should be enabled afterwards. For starting/continuing working on the project using the virtualenv, activate the virtual env using

$ workon vp

2.2 Installing required python packages

Update pip

pip install -U pip

For a local sqlite DB install

pip install -r /path/to/volunteer_planner.git/requirements/dev.txt

or, if you intend to use MySQL locally, install

pip install -r /path/to/volunteer_planner.git/requirements/dev_mysql.txt

Note: /path/to/volunteer_planner.git means the path of your local clone of the GitHub project. Replace it accordingly with the actual path.

2.3 Setup your virtualenv postactivate hook (optional)

This step is optional but recommended.

Every time, a virtualenv is activated with virtualenvwrappers' workon command, a postactivate script is executed. This comes in handy to autmatically setup a projects' environment variables and automate some reoccuring tasks. For more details on virtualenvwrapper hooks, see virtualenvwrapper: Per-User Customization.

You might consider to use this example postactivate script (located at $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/postactivate)

#!/bin/bash
# This hook is run after this virtualenv is activated.
​
export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="volunteer_planner.settings.local"
cd /path/to/volunteer_planner.git/
​
git fetch --all
git status

Note: You'll need to re-active your virtual environment after each change to it's postactivate hook to take effect. Just run workon vp again, to make sure your current venv session has executed the postactivate hook.

2.3.1 ... settings module for using MySQL

When you prefer to use MySQL locally, you'll probably need to use the settings module volunteer_planner.settings.local_mysql instead of volunteer_planner.settings.local.

2.3.2 Setup your local environment (optional)

Also, if you need to use non-default settings values, setting (exporting) the environment variables in your virtualenvs' postactivate hook is a good place if you're not using an IDE to configure your environment variables.

3. Initialize the database with Django

Activate your env and change dir to your local forks' git repository (if not done yet).

workon vp
cd /path/to/volunteer_planner.git

3.1 Run migrate management command to setup non-existing tables

./manage.py migrate

3.2 Add a superuser

./manage.py createsuperuser

You will be asked for username, email and password (twice). Remember that username and password.

4. Try running the server

./manage.py runserver

Try opening http://localhost:8000/ in your browser.

5. Adding content

To add new organizations and shifts, you have to access the backend at http://localhost:8000/admin. If prompted, login with the username/password of the superuser you created earlier (in case you don't see an error page here).

http://localhost:8000/admin

The Project

Create Dummy Data

run management command " python manage.py create_dummy_data 5 --flush True " with activated virtualenv to get 5 days of dummy data and delete tables in advance.

The number (5 in the above example) creates 5 days dummy data count from today. If you just use "python manage.py create_dummy_data 5" without --flush it is NOT deleting data before putting new data in.

Running Tests

Note: we're committed to testing and hope, the next paragraph will not be a lie any longer soon :-)

We are using test driven development (TDD) with py.test.

A good read on TDD is the free o'Reilly eBook "Test-Driven Development with Python"

To run the tests, run the following command (with your virtual env activated, see 3.)

$ py.test -v [/path/to/volunteer_planner.git/]

If you want to generate a coverage report as well, run

$ py.test --cov=. --cov-report html --cov-report term-missing --no-cov-on-fail -v

This generates a nice HTML coverage page, to poke around which can be found at /path/to/volunteer_planner.git/htmlcov/index.html.

Note: The directory htmlcov is git-ignored.

Translations

Can create/update the translations file with

./manage.py makemessages --no-obsolete --no-wrap

The options are intended to make the output more git-friendly.

Compile the messages file with

./manage.py compilemessages

Your local installation should be translated then. The .mo file created by compilemessages is gitignored, you'll need to (re-)generate it locally every time the .po file changes.

CSS / Less

We use less for precompiling css. The less file you will find in scheduler/static/bootstrap/less/project.less To make this work you can just initialize the folder with "npm install -g" and then let grunt watch for changes.