GettingStarted.wiki

#summary How to get started with Melange
#labels Featured,Phase-Guidelines,Contents-Draft,Importance-Featured

<wiki:toc max_depth="1" />

= Prerequisites =

[MelangeIntro Melange] is a web application written in Python 2.7 that runs on
[http://code.google.com/appengine/ Google App Engine].

= TL;DR = 

You should read the text below, but if you want a quick refresher on how to get running, here's the TL;DR.

== Prerequisites == 

Building, testing, and running Melange depends on installation of a few system packages:
 * git
 * libxml2-dev
 * libxslt-dev
 * openjdk-7-jdk
 * python (version 2.7)
 * python-dev
 * python-lxml
 * virtualenv (version 1.10 or later)
 * xvfb

== Setting up ==

If you do not yet have a melange directory set up, run the following commands.

{{{
git clone http://code.google.com/p/soc/
cd soc
virtualenv venv
venv/bin/pip install -U lxml setuptools
venv/bin/python bootstrap.py
bin/buildout
bin/gen-app-yaml local-devel
bin/paver build
}}}

== Running locally ==

If you want to run melange locally, run the following command

{{{
thirdparty/google_appengine/dev_appserver.py build
}}}

== Creating an !AppEngine instance ==

If you do not already have an !AppEngine instance, follow these steps, otherwise you can skip this part.

 * Go to http://www.appspot.com and sign in with a Google Account
 * Click "Create an application"
 * Verify your account if prompted
 * In the "Create an Application" page, fill in an identifier (cannot be changed), you will need this later on when deploying
 * Fill in a title (can be changed later)
 * Set the "Authentication Options" on either "Open to all Google Accounts users (default)" or "Restricted to the following Google Apps domain".
 * Hit "Create Application"

== Deploying to your own instance ==

Assuming you have an !AppEngine instance called 'your-melange-instance'

{{{
scripts/gen_app_yaml.py -o devvin -f your-melange-instance &&
thirdparty/google_appengine/appcfg.py update build
}}}


== Running the test suite ==

If you want to run the test suite, run the following

{{{
bin/run-tests
}}}

This will run, by default, all types of tests. This is the same as running

{{{
bin/run-tests -t js,pyunit
}}}

So, using {{{ -t }}} switch it's possible to choose a list of comma-separated types of tests to run.

To run only pyunit tests:

{{{
bin/run-tests -t pyunit
}}}

To run only js tests:

{{{
bin/run-tests -t js
}}}

To run only functional tests(Headless):

{{{
bin/run-tests -t functional
}}}

To run only functional tests(In a browser):

{{{
bin/run-tests -t functional --browsers-gui
}}}

= Checking Out the Code =

To check out Melange source code run the following command:

Using Git repository:

{{{
git clone http://code.google.com/p/soc/
}}}

= Setting up your Client =
Change directories into the working directory (the one created by checking out the code). Google App Engine requires a file `app.yaml` in the application directory. For now, you can create a dummy `app.yaml` file by running:
{{{
scripts/gen_app_yaml.py local-devel -o devvin
}}}

= Running the Code Locally =
You can start the server on your computer by running:

{{{
thirdparty/google_appengine/dev_appserver.py build
}}}

You should now be able to see the running server at [http://localhost:8080/] .  Congrats!  You've got Melange running!

(If you want to run on a different port, you can use the `--port` argument.  Other arguments are described [http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/thedevwebserver.html here].)

(Since you are starting from scratch, you will probably want some sample data.
You can use Melange generated data to save yours fingers for code. First you need to login, visit [http://localhost:8080/login] for the same. After login visit [http://localhost:8080/seed_db] to have Melange generated data for you.)

= Running on and Deploying to App Engine's cluster =
If you want to run an instance of Melange on Google's App Engine infrastructure, there are a few more steps to make sure it deploys the right data to the right place.

== Set the application name ==
In `app/app.yaml` there's an application name that in the above steps was set to fake-application-name.  After registering an application on Google App Engine, use any text editor to change the line that starts with `application: fake-application-name` to instead read `application: <your-instance-name>`. You can also run the script again:

{{{
scripts/gen_app_yaml.py -o devvin -f proper-application-name 
}}}

== Building With Paver ==

Because
[http://code.google.com/p/soc/source/browse/#svn/trunk/app/tiny_mce Tiny MCE]
(and possibly some other third-party content and JavaScript incorporated
into Melange) is large,
[http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/source/browse/#svn/trunk/google/appengine/ext/zipserve zipserve]
is used to combine this content into `.zip` archive files (to avoid
file-count limits in Google App Engine).  A side effect of this is that,
for Tiny MCE to work in the `textarea` controls on your local working copy,
launched with `thirdparty/google_appengine`, you still need to run a build script
to produce these <tt>.zip</tt> files at least once.

To do this, you will need to execute the `bin/paver` script, using the following command

{{{
bin/paver build
}}}

This script will create a `build/` directory at the same level as the
`app/` directory (and the `scripts/` directory) in the `hg` working copy.

== Deploying to Google App Engine ==

Once you have your application configured correctly and you have
executed the `paver` script found in the `bin` folder,
you are ready to deploy your Melange image to your specific Google
App Engine instance.

You can run the contents of the `build/` directory, in
order to test what would actually be uploaded by `appcfg.py upload`
to Google App Engine by using:

{{{
bin/gae_develop build
}}}

Once you are satisfied that `build/` contains everything needed, you can deploy
to your Google App Engine instance with:

{{{
thirdparty/google_appengine/appcfg.py update build
}}}

= Contributing =

There are a number of ways that you can contribute to the Melange project.

== Discussion ==

If you are interested in contributing to the Melange project, please join our
[MailingListsGuidelines#General_discussion_list general discussion mailing list].
Also,feel free to join us [IrcChannelGuidelines on IRC].


== Bug Hunting and Feature Requests ==

If you are (or were) a mentor or student participant in GSoC or GCI but do not have the time to contribute patches to Melange, we can still use your help.  While a great deal of code is already done, some parts of the web application are not entirely bug free yet, or feature complete.
Please consider writing up a feature request, or bug report. Please be precise when you file a [http://tinyurl.com/new-issue New Issue].

== Patches ==

[ContributionReviews#Patches Patches] to the code are also welcome,
[ContributionReviews#Suggested_patches_from_casual_contributors even from non-committers].

The code that is used for showing pages can be found in app/soc/modules/`<module_name>`/views.