The What's Open project is an initiative at George Mason University by Mason Student Run Computing and Technology (SRCT) to display which dining locations are currently open on George Mason University's campus.
This repo is a simple Django Rest Framework (DRF) project that contains the database backend and API for SRCT-developed What's Open applications.
What's Open needs all the help it can get. Even if you don't feel like you can be helpful with the heavily technical aspects, we definitely need designers and technical writers.
There are many things that can be done with this project (see the project Issues section), but sometimes it's the small things that count, so don't be afraid of contributing just for a spelling mistake.
If you need help at all please contact any SRCT member in the #whats-open
channel in our slack group. We want people to
contribute, so if you are struggling, or just want to learn, then we are
willing to help.
Check out some of the other What's Open projects!
What's Open currently supports developers on Linux and macOS systems. Here's our walk-through of steps we will take:
1) Install git on your system.
git is the version control system used for SRCT projects.
with apt:
Open a terminal and run the following command:
sudo apt update
This retrieves links to the most up-to-date and secure versions of your packages.
Next, with:
sudo apt install git
you install git onto your system.
with pacman:
pacman -S git
We recommend that you use the third party Homebrew package manager for macOS, which allows you to install packages from your terminal just as easily as you could on a Linux based system. You could use another package manager (or not use one at all), but Homebrew is highly reccomended.
To get homebrew, run the following command in a terminal:
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)
Note: You do NOT need to use sudo when running any Homebrew commands, and
it likely won't work if you do.
Next, to make sure Homebrew is up to date, run:
brew update
Finally we can install git with:
brew install git
2) Clone the whats-open codebase
Now, we're going to clone down a copy of the whats-open codebase from git.gmu.edu, the SRCT code respository with SSH.
a) Configure your ssh keys by following the directions at:
b) Now, on your computer, navigate to the directory in which you want to download the project (ie. perhaps one called development/SRCT), and run
git clone git@git.gmu.edu:srct/whats-open.git
3) Get whats-open up and running
Now that we have git setup and cloned down the code you can
cd whats-open/
and get to working on setting up a development environment! There are two options
to go about doing this: Docker and Manual Setup.
Docker
We can automate the setup process through Docker containers! This allows us to quickly get started and standardize development environments across machines.
Installing Docker on your system:
- For macOS: https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/
- For Windows: https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/
- For your specific *nix distro: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/
Additionally, you will need to install docker-compose: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/
Inside the whats-open/ root directory run:
docker-compose up
You should see that the server is running by going to http://localhost:8000 in your browser. Any changes you make to your local file system will be mirrored in the server.
If you would like to log into the admin interface then use the following credentials:
user: admin@masonlive.gmu.edu
pass: admin
Django apps use fixtures to load default data for testing. To load the api's fixtures use the following command in the terminal:
docker exec whats_open_api python3 /whats-open/whats-open/manage.py loaddata --format json categoriesFixture locationFixture openTimeFixture scheduleFixture settingsFixture
Manual Setup
Manual Setup involves all of the same steps as Docker, but just done manually.
First, install python, pip, and virtualenv on your system.
pythonis the programming language used for Django, the web framework used by whats-open.pipis the python package manager.virtualenvallows you to isolate pip packages within virtual environments
Open a terminal and run the following command:
sudo apt update
Next, with:
sudo apt install python3 python3-dev python3-pip
sudo pip3 install virtualenv
you install python, pip, and virtualenv.
You will also need the following gdal packages for GeoDjango support:
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:ubuntugis/ubuntugis-unstable
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade # if you already have gdal 1.11 installed
sudo apt install gdal-bin python-gdal python3-gdal # if you don't have gdal 1.11 already installed
What's Open is built on top of a MySQL database and thus, we must set it up.
Run:
sudo apt install mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient-dev python-mysqldb
to install mysql packages onto your system.
Load up the mysql shell by running
mysql -u root -p
and putting in your mysql password.
Create the database by running:
CREATE DATABASE wopen;
You can choose a different name for your database if you desire.
Double check your database was created by running:
SHOW DATABASES;
Though you can use an existing user to access this database, here's how to create a new user and give them the necessary permissions to your newly created database:
CREATE USER 'wopen'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
For local development, password strength is less important, but use a strong passphrase for deployment. You can choose a different username.
GRANT ALL ON wopen.* TO 'wopen'@'localhost';
This allows your database user to create all the tables it needs on the What's Open database.
Run:
GRANT ALL ON test_wopen.* TO 'wopen'@'localhost'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
When running test cases, django creates a test database so your 'real' database doesn't get screwed up. This database is called 'test_' + whatever your normal database is named. Note that for permissions it doesn't matter that this database hasn't yet been created.
The .* is to grant access all tables in the database, and 'flush privileges' reloads privileges to ensure that your user is ready to go.
Exit the mysql shell by typing:
exit
At this point we will need to set some environment variables.
If you are using bash then just copy paste the following into your terminal:
export WOPEN_SECRET_KEY=$(dd if=/dev/urandom count=100 | tr -dc "A-Za-z0-9" | fold -w 60 | head -n1 2>/dev/null)
export WOPEN_EMAIL_DOMAIN="@masonlive.gmu.edu"
export WOPEN_DB_NAME="wopen"
export WOPEN_DB_USER="wopen"
export WOPEN_DB_PASSWORD="password"
export WOPEN_DB_PORT=3306
export WOPEN_DB_HOST=
Virtual environments are used to keep separate project packages from the main computer, so you can use different versions of packages across different projects and ease deployment server setup.
It's often recommended to create a special directory to store all of your virtual environments together (ie. development/virtualenv/), though they can be placed wherever is most convenient.
Then in your virtual environment directory run:
virtualenv -p python3 whats_open
source whats_open/bin/activate
to create your virtual environment and activate it. If you ever need to exit your virtual environment, simply run:
deactivate
Now, the packages you need to install for Go are in in the top level of the project's directory structure(whats-open/).
Next with,
pip install -r requirements.txt
cd whats_open/
python3 manage.py makemigrations
python3 manage.py migrate
you setup the project.
Now that everything is set-up you can run the server on your computer.
python3 manage.py runserver
Go to http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in your browser and you should see the website.
Initially, there won't be any restaurants showing. You will need to add them to the database.
Run,
python manage.py createsuperuser
to create a superuser to use when signing in to the admin interface.
Go to http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/ to add new Restaurant and Schedule objects to your database.
With that, everything should be good to go!
Django apps use fixtures to load default data for testing. To load the api's fixtures use the following command:
python3 manage.py loaddata --format json categoriesFixture locationFixture openTimeFixture scheduleFixture settingsFixture
With the means of testing the website, you can really start contributing.
If you're new to Django and don't know where to start, I highly recommend giving the tutorial a try. However, it leaves out a lot of important things, so remember, Google is your friend.
This document goes into detail about how to contribute to the repo, including guidelines for commit messages and details on the workflow of the project.
There are templates for issue descriptions located on the new issue page. I will close issues with poor descriptions or who do not follow the standard.
You should adhere to the style of the repo code. Consistency is key! PEP8 guidelines are strongly recommended but not enforced at the time. Please comment your code, I will not accept commits that contain uncommented code.
I encourage you to join the #whats-open channel in SRCT's Slack Group if you have any questions on setup or would like to contribute.