Setting-up a development environment

Bootstrapping an environment

First, you need to setup an isolated developement environment for the python apps using virtualenv. If you don’t have virtualenv, you can install it using your package manager such as apt if you’re on debian:

apt-get install virtualenv
virtualenv --no-site-packages i4p-env

Since we rely on a few Ruby tools, we recommend to use a ruby-specific environment management tool like rbenv or rvm. Otherwise simply add the following lines to your bin/activate script to be able to use gems:

export GEM_HOME="$VIRTUAL_ENV/gems"
export GEM_PATH=""
export PATH="$PATH:$GEM_HOME/bin"

Then, enters the environment:

cd i4p-env && source bin/activate

Your prompt should update to something like (note the prefix):

(i4p-env)glibersat@carpe:~/Source/i4p-env

Note: For the next steps, you need to be in an activated environment.

Getting the code

Once you’re in your virtualenv directory, use:

git clone https://github.com/ImaginationForPeople/imaginationforpeople.git
cd imaginationforpeople
git branch --track develop origin/develop
git checkout develop

then, change directory to imaginationforpeople and fetch the dependencies using:

pip install -U -r requirements.txt

It may be the right to fetch a cup of coffee! :-)

Populating the Database

You need to configure a database server (PostGreSQL is recommended, see how to configure it in the Database server configuration section) and create a database for the project (such as ‘imaginationforpeople’).

Warning

If you haven’t configured your site_settings.py yet, jump to Application Configuration before going on.

Then you need to initialize your database with these commands:

python manage.py syncdb --all
python manage.py migrate --fake
python manage.py check_permissions

Django will prompt for a user creation, this is always a good idea to say yes:

You just installed Django's auth system, which means you don't have any superusers defined.
Would you like to create one now? (yes/no): **yes**

Feeding initial data

While we’d like the app to work out of the box, a few maual steps are still needed.

Site declaration

You need to declare at least one website that matches your site’s production name. This simplest way is to go through a python shell:

./manage.py shell_plus
site = Site.objects.get(id=1)
site.domain = "imaginationforpeople.org"
site.save()
exit()

Default CMS templates

We still have a few hardcoded templates that refer to specific CMS pages. Therefore, you need to create them so the url lookups work.

First, run the server using:

./manage.py runserver

Then login to the admin panel (http://localhost:8000/admin/) using the user you’ve just created.

Scroll down to the Cms section and click Add.

The following pages are required: homepage, about_us, manifesto and ipmedia.

So, for each of these names, do the following:

1. Create a page
2. Edit it and in Advanced parameters, set the id to its name (i.e. homepage)
3. If this is the homepage, select “I4PBase App” as Application
4. Go back to the page listing and check published

Once you’re done, restart the server.