DzLibs Project

A community-driven Algerian index of reusable assets and libraries. A web app and a set of RESTful APIs to provide a platform for Algerian developers and designers to share reusable resources (Classes, Libraries, Vector files..etc) and easily access them.

For instance:

You can share/find the XML or JSON of the 48 Algerian Wilayas instead of recreating it every time you need it for your next awesome web/mobile/desktop app. the same goes for the database of the Train/Bus timetable of your city, the Algeria SVG map, the Vector file of Maqam Echahid, and countless other examples, these are reusable items we can share for the public good, from developers/designers to developers/designers, for a better Algeria.

The APIs part is mostly for developers, it consists of :

• Making some of these assets accessible via http(s) requests, for instance: a mobile developer (especially now that we've got the 3G network) could make a GET to api.dzlibs.io/wilayas/23 that returns the name of the Wilaya and other on-demand information (e.g. its prayer times).
• pushing for a kind of standardized ways to share public data among Algerian developers and different DZ organizations.

These are just examples, what we can do and share is countless. we just need to unit, and do the same as our ancestors did, the tweeza of the Algerian web. boosting the IT industry is our shared duty, and for that we need to share and think of ourselves as contributors rather than as competitors.

Installation

Before walking through the following steps, please make sure you have MongoDB installed on your system.

Start mongodb as a service/daemon:

For Ubuntu:

[sudo] service mongodb start

For systemd-based distributions:

[sudo] systemctl start mongodb

If you want it to be started automatically after system reboot:

[sudo] systemctl enable mongodb

For Mac

You need to install MongoDB first, and then start it. Just folow these steps:

# Install HomeBrew, further information at: http://brew.sh/
$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/go/install)"
# After finishing, install mongodb
$ brew install mongodb
# After that, do some configuration...
$ [sudo] mkdir -p /data/db
$ [sudo] chown `id -u` /data/db
# Now, everything is ok. Start MongoDB with:
$ mongod

For Windows:

Download MongoDB for Windows and extract the downloaded file to C:\MongoDB, then Create data directory C:\MongoDB\DATA to store all data of MongoDB and create a StartMongoDB.bat file in C:\MongoDB\bin contains this line:

C:\MongoDB\bin\mongod.exe --dbpath "C:\MongoDB\DATA"

Now, you can run that batch file to Start mongodb.

To install tweeza in windows, please make sure you have GCC-MinGW installed on your system.

Then

it's highly recommended to install Pip then Virtual env first, respectively.

For Pip under Ubuntu, try: apt-get install python-pip or search the web in case the name of the package has changed. Make sure that the pip package is for Python2 not Python3.

Once Pip installed, you can install Virtualenv by running:

$ [sudo] pip install virtualenv

Then download the source code, and do the following:

$ cd path/to/the/downloaded/source
# create a virtual isolated python2 environment
$ virtualenv venv # or it may be called virtualenv-2 or something similar...
# activate the new python environment
$ source venv/bin/activate
# now install the project requirements
$ pip install -r requirements.txt
# after downloading launch the project by running:
$ cd tweeza
# setup initial categories and licenses
$ python manage.py setup
$ python manage.py runserver

If you are using Windows edit (create if not existing) distutils.cfg file located at ENV_DIR\Lib\distutils\distutils.cfg to be :

[build]
compiler=mingw32

If all goes well, you should see something like this in your Terminal:

 * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/
 * Restarting with reloader

Then open the following URL in your browser to test the app: http://127.0.0.1:5000.

Now, follow these steps if you want customize the config file to your needs:

• under the tweeza/instance folder, copy example.cfg to config.cfg
• create new Github app for Oauth with github. set its callback URL to http://127.0.0.1:5000/callback
• back to the config.cfg file you copied under tweeza/instance, past you Github consumer key and consumer secret there, edit your email config and whatever fits you better (caching ..etc).
• restart the app to read the new condig.cfg file

That's it! to exit the virtual Python environment, type:deactivate.

automating frontend tasks with Grunt

$ cd tweeza/static # all frontend dependencies are here
 # first install grunt dependencies
$ npm install
# then run grunt with the:
$ grunt

Technical information

• Obviously, the project relies on Python, actually it's a Python2 project, however the code is forward-compatible with python3 for easier future migration.
• We use Flask, a micro -but scalable- framework for Python based on Werkzeug, Jinja 2, extensively documented, very Pythonic and has no design obligations with easier learning curve.
• MongoDB a schema-less, document-oriented NoSQL database.
• GridFs to store uploaded files instead of filesystem storage.
• MongoEngine, an ORM-like for MongoDB.
• Bcrypt for password hashing.
• SASS and Compass for CSS styling, we're using Foundation Zurb at the moment.
• Bower for grabbing and managing Javascript libraries.
• Optionally, Redis for caching.

The project structure

.
├── api # the API part (not yet developed)
│   └── tests # tests for the APIs
├── docs # where the documentation reside
├── tweeza # The Tweeza part 
│   ├── app.py # the main entry file
│   ├── babel.cfg
│   ├── config.py # where all the config goes.
│   ├── extensions.py # Initialization of the extensions we use on the project
│   ├── frontend   # where everything public    --|
│   ├── dashboard  # the administrative part    --|\ these are the blueprints
│   ├── items      # the items logic and models --|/ (the main parts of the
│   ├── users      # User Auth and profiles     --|         tweeza app)
│   ├── messages.pot # the localization strings goes here.
│   ├── static # everything static (js/css/images..)
│   │   ├── bower.json
│   │   ├── images
│   │   ├── css
│   │   ├── js
│   │   ├── scss # where the SASS files reside
│   │   └── vendors # third-party js libraries, like jQuery, Modernizr... etc
│   ├── templates # HTML templates
│   ├── tests # the test suite for Tweeza
│   ├── translations # generated and compiled translations
│   ├── utils.py # useful functions and/or classes goes here
│   └── manage.py # some useful automated scripts for the app
.

Versioning

<major>.<minor>.<fix>

Testing

Unit tests are under development.

How to contribute

Soon. but if you really want to, be sure to write a PEP-compatible Python code :)

TODO

• ☐ The APIs part (I'm considering the use of python-eve, please tell me if you have a better suggestion on how to design the APIs).
• ☐ Docs/Wiki (coming soon).

License

Before reading this, please keep in mind that this license doesn't affect the items uploaded on the host server(s), those items have their own licenses.

The source code of this web application and its APIs are under MPL (Mozilla Public License) version 2. See the LICENSE file.

In short you have the right to:

• Copy, Distribute, Modify, as long as you're giving the source code under the same license.
• Private use (e.g. using this web app inside your company or organization for managing its reusable items there) without revealing the source of your custom code you've added. You can as well make profit of it.
• Any public distribution (like another website other than dzlibs.io) has to give the added source code.