RapidGiza 0.1.4

Set of paster templates for rapid Pyramid development

Introduction

RapidGiza is a set of Paster templates that provide out of the box:

• An application based on the Pyramid web application framework

• Default SQLAlchemy engine/session-factory setup

• All .html files matched as Jinja2 templates

• Werkzeug setup for running the app in development mode

• RESTful setup using Pyramid traversal

Important URL’s

• Project Location - http://dist.serverzen.com/pypi/d/rapidgiza/

• PyPi Entry - http://pypi.python.org/pypi/RapidGiza

• Source Control (svn) - https://dev.serverzen.com/svn/public-sandbox/RapidGiza/

Setting up a New Project

Install RapidGiza into a Python environment (ie virtualenv) with a working Paster. Once this has been done, you can create a new RapidGiza project by simply running (where Something is the name of your new egg):

paster create -t rapidgiza Something

Once the template egg has been created you should set it up in develop mode to start working on your project.

cd Something
python setup.py develop

Using the New Project

Command Runner

By default a new script named something will be created in the bin directory of your python envionment. This script is a command runner that provides the following:

usage: something <action> [<options>]
       something --help

actions:
  runserver:
    Run the development server.

    :param debug: run in debug mode
    :param verbosity: increase level of logging for more verbose logging

    -h, --hostname                string    0.0.0.0
    -p, --port                    integer   8080
    -d, --debug
    -v, --verbosity               integer   0

  syncdb:
    Ensure tables exist in the configured database.

Paster

A development.ini file will be created inside the Something directory. This can be used with the standard paster commands:

# use builtin paster http server
paster serve development.ini

# use the pyramid pshell command
paster --plugin=pyramid pshell development.ini pyramid-Something

Apache mod_wsgi

There is a preconfigured Something.wsgi file generated which is necessary for plugging your app into a mod_wsgi environment.

Developing With the New Project

Base Framework

RapidGiza is based on the amazing Pyramid web application framework. As such, the Pyramid api will always be the go-to api for building up the web application. Please see the Pyramid docs for further details.

Templating

Any file ending with the .html extension located inside the Something/something/templates directory will be rendered using the Jinja2 templating system. This template language is based on the Django templating language.

RapidGiza produces two template files by default, one containing the overall layout called, layout.html and one for the default main page called, main.html. These pages include HTML5 markup by default.

Data Access

All data access is handled by the SQLAlchemy ORM framework which wraps relational databases. Out of the box, any new project created by RapidGiza will have a SQLAlchemy database session factory setup.

RapidGiza puts the data model classes inside the models.py Python file. Retrieving a db session inside of a view is done with:

db_session = request.registry.settings['something.db_session_factory']()

Transaction Support

Transactions are used to ensure all or nothing is performed. With the very useful repoze.tm2 and transaction packages this can be accomplished easily in Pyramid applications.

RapidGiza ensures all requests join a new transaction so that if any error/exception occurs, the transaction is automatically rolled back. Any db sessions created via the provided session factory automatically join this transaction and will be rolled back in the event an error occurs.

RESTFul Interface

The Pyramid web application framework provides a convenient mechanism to traverse an object graph and map that graph to url’s. This lends itself to RESTful interfaces quite well.

RapidGiza stores it’s RESTful traversal mechanism inside of the traversal.py file.

Developing/Debugging

The Werkzeug library is used to provide two things:

1. A very useful debugging middleware

2. A command runner

Credits

RapidGiza is written and maintained by Rocky Burt (rocky AT serverzen DOT com).

Changes

0.1.4 - Dec 1, 2010

• yet another missing file (won’t happen again)

0.1.3 - Nov 30, 2010

• Added yet another missing file to MANIFEST.in

0.1.2 - Nov 29, 2010

• Changed make_app() signature

• Added development.ini for out-of-the-box use with Paster serve

• Generated projects now include two Paster apps

  1. <<project>>:app - Web app with included middleware

  2. <<project>>:pyramid-app - Web app without middleware

0.1.1 - Nov 29, 2010

• Fixed MANIFEST.in so sdist contains appropriate files

0.1 - Nov 29, 2010

• Initial version