parody-web 0.5.0

Django app that serves a parody build artifact as a public book site, with section-level auth gating (public = online-only subset; owner = full book).

parody-web

A reusable Django app that serves a parody build artifact as a public book site, with section-level auth gating. It's the web surface of the parody ecosystem:

• parody — core: builds the artifact (and the print/LaTeX side, for now)
• parody-web — this: renders an artifact as a website
• (future) parody-print — if/when the LaTeX side is split out of core

You pip install parody-web into a thin per-book Django project; the package is generic, so one codebase serves every book site. Each book differs only by config + content. First site: the partial Real-Time Computing book at rtcbook.org.

Access model

The site imports the full artifact and gates by section: the public sees only online_only sections (the openly-licensed subset); the private parts require login, and only the owner has an account. One deployment serves both the public partial book and — to the owner — the whole thing. (If you'd rather the full text never touch the database, import the partial parody build --online-only artifact instead — then there are no private sections.)

Why a Django app (not a static site)

Parody artifact html is Django-template-flavored — it embeds {% media %}, {% static %}, {% cite %} etc. This app renders it natively through the Django template engine (parody_web.templatetags.parody_web.render_book), so there's no second, lossy tag-resolution renderer to maintain.

Use it in a project

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [..., "parody_web"]
BOOK_SLUG = "real-time-computing"     # which imported book is the site root

# urls.py
urlpatterns = [path("", include("parody_web.urls")), ...]

pip install parody-web
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser                       # the owner (only account)
python manage.py import_artifact rtc.json --slug real-time-computing

Provides: Book/Chapter/Section models, the import_artifact command (upsert-by-slug, idempotent), index + section views, templates (override them in your project), and the rendering template tags. Reads settings.BOOK_SLUG, MEDIA_URL, LOGIN_URL.

A ready-to-copy thin project — settings, urls, Procfile, and AWS/SSM deploy glue — lives in example_site/; generate a new book site from it.

Develop

pip install -e .
python runtests.py            # standalone test suite (tests/settings.py)

Deploy

AWS via SSM + GitHub Actions, designed for reuse across book projects: each book site is a small repo (copied from example_site/) that pins this package and calls the shared reusable workflow (deploy-reusable.yml) — improve the renderer or the deploy once, every site picks it up. Runbook: example_site/deploy/AWS.md.

Status

0.x — interfaces may change. Renders the rtc artifact end to end with section-level auth gating; 9 tests. {% cite %} currently renders [key] (wire citeproc/a .bib for full citations). Not yet published to PyPI or deployed to rtcbook.org (owner steps).