The application is hosted at: imagomundi.hum.uu.nl
The “Images of the World” Manuscripts Database of the Imago Mundi Tradition is part of the 3-year research project Defining ‘Europe’ in Medieval European Geographical Discourse: the Image of the World and its Legacy, 1110-1500, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme VENI. The project commenced on February 1, 2017, at The Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON), Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University.
The database includes over 350 manuscripts containing the Imago Mundi of Honorius Augustodunensis and its vernacular adaptations. Manuscripts containing fragments, extracts, and extensive quotations in compilations are also included. Vernacular texts loosely based on the Imago mundi, as well as texts that constitute translations in the conventional sense of the word are included in the database. (For a full list of texts currently included, see below).
The database is intended both a tool for researchers interested in the Imago Mundi tradition and a way of presenting the results of the Defining Europe project. One of the goals of the project is to establish how the medieval geographical definition of Europe as found in the Imago Mundi spread in the period 1110-1500. The dissemination of Honorius’s text through Europe is thus a central interest of the database. The manuscript catalogue presented in the database is thus complemented by an interactive map, permitting the user to track the historical locations of individual manuscripts (where known).
You need to install the following software:
- PostgreSQL >= 9.3, client, server and C libraries
- Python >= 3.4, <= 3.6
- virtualenv
- WSGI-compatible webserver (deployment only)
- Visual C++ for Python (Windows only)
- Node.js >= 8
- Yarn
- WebDriver for at least one browser (only for functional testing)
For local development, you need to request an API key, and load it into your local env:
export GMAPS_APIKEY={your-api-key}
Do this in the same shell as where you start the application.
This project integrates three isolated subprojects, each inside its own subdirectory with its own code, package dependencies and tests:
backend
, the server side web application based on Django and DRF;frontend
, the client side web application based on Backbone;functional-tests
, the functional test suite based on Selenium and pytest.
Each subproject is configurable from the outside. Integration is achieved using "magic configuration" which is contained inside the root directory together with this README. In this way, the subprojects can stay truly isolated from each other.
If you are reading this README, you'll likely be working with the integrated project as a whole rather than with one of the subprojects in isolation. In this case, this README should be your primary source of information on how to develop or deploy the project. However, we recommend that you also read the "How it works" section in the README of each subproject.
First time after cloning this project:
$ python bootstrap.py
Running the application in development mode (hit ctrl-C to stop):
$ yarn start
This will run the backend and frontend applications, as well as their unittests, and watch all source files for changes. You can visit the frontend on http://localhost:8000/, the browsable backend API on http://localhost:8000/api/ and the backend admin on http://localhost:8000/admin/. On every change, unittests rerun, frontend code rebuilds and open browser tabs refresh automatically (livereload).
For each new feature, we suggested that you work through the steps listed below. This could be called a back-to-front or "bottom up" order. Of course, you may have reasons to choose otherwise. For example, if very precise specifications are provided, you could move step 8 to the front for a more test-driven approach.
Steps 1–5 also include updating the unittests. Only functions should be tested, especially critical and nontrivial ones.
- Backend model changes including migrations.
- Backend serializer changes and backend admin changes.
- Backend API endpoint changes.
- Frontend model changes.
- Other frontend unit changes (templates, views, routers, FSMs).
- Frontend integration (globals, event bindings).
- Run functional tests, repair broken functionality and broken tests.
- Add functional tests for the new feature.
- Update technical documentation.
For release branches, we suggest the following checklist.
- Bump the version number in the
package.json
next to this README. - Run the functional tests in production mode, fix bugs if necessary.
- Try using the application in production mode, look for problems that may have escaped the tests.
- Add regression tests (unit or functional) that detect problems from step 3.
- Work on the code until new regression tests from step 4 pass.
- Optionally, repeat steps 2–5 with the application running in a real deployment setup (see Deployment).
The package.json
next to this README defines several shortcut commands to help streamline development. In total, there are over 30 commands. Most may be regarded as implementation details of other commands, although each command could be used directly. Below, we discuss the commands that are most likely to be useful to you. For full details, consult the package.json
.
Install the pinned versions of all package dependencies in all subprojects:
$ yarn
Run backend and frontend in production mode:
$ yarn start-p
Run the functional test suite:
$ yarn test-func [FUNCTIONAL TEST OPTIONS]
The functional test suite by default assumes that you have the application running locally in production mode (i.e., on port 8080
). See Configuring the browsers and Configuring the base address in functional-tests/README
for options.
Run all tests (mostly useful for continuous integration):
$ yarn test [FUNCTIONAL TEST OPTIONS]
Run an arbitrary command from within the root of a subproject:
$ yarn back [ARBITRARY BACKEND COMMAND HERE]
$ yarn front [ARBITRARY FRONTEND COMMAND HERE]
$ yarn func [ARBITRARY FUNCTIONAL TESTS COMMAND HERE]
For example,
$ yarn back less README.md
is equivalent to
$ cd backend
$ less README.md
$ cd ..
Run python manage.py
within the backend
directory:
$ yarn django [SUBCOMMAND] [OPTIONS]
yarn django
is a shorthand for yarn back python manage.py
. This command is useful for managing database migrations, among other things.
Manage the frontend package dependencies:
$ yarn fyarn (add|remove|upgrade|...) (PACKAGE ...) [OPTIONS]
$ yarn gulp [SUBCOMMAND ...] [OPTIONS]
Both the backend and the functional test suite are Python-based and package versions are pinned using pip-tools in both subprojects. For ease of development, you most likely want to use the same virtualenv for both and this is also what the bootstrap.py
assumes.
This comes with a small catch: the subprojects each have their own separate requirements.txt
. If you run pip-sync
in one subproject, the dependencies of the other will be uninstalled. In order to avoid this, you run pip install -r requirements.txt
instead. The yarn
command does this correctly by default.
Another thing to be aware of, is that pip-compile
takes the old contents of your requirements.txt
into account when building the new version based on your requirements.in
. You can use the following trick to keep the requirements in both projects aligned so the versions of common packages don't conflict:
$ yarn back pip-compile
# append contents of backend/requirements.txt to functional-tests/requirements.txt
$ yarn func pip-compile
The purpose of development mode is to facilitate live development, as the name implies. The purpose of production mode is to simulate deployment conditions as closely as possible, in order to check whether everything still works under such conditions. A complete overview of the differences is given below.
dimension | Development mode | Production mode |
---|---|---|
command | yarn start |
yarn start-p |
base address | http://localhost:8000 | http://localhost:8080 |
backend server (Django) | in charge of everything | serves backend only |
frontend server (gulp-connect) | does not run | primary gateway |
static files | served directly by Django's staticfiles app | collected by Django, served by gulp-connect |
backend DEBUG setting |
True |
False |
backend ALLOWED_HOSTS |
- | restricted to localhost |
livereload | yes | no |
frontend sourcemaps | yes | no |
frontend optimization | no | yes |
HTML embedded libraries | taken from frontend/node_modules |
taken from CDN |
Both the backend and frontend applications have a section dedicated to deployment in their own READMEs. You should read these sections entirely before proceeding. All instructions in these sections still apply, though it is good to know that you can use the following shorthand commands from the integrated project root:
# build the frontend with overridden settings
$ yarn gulp dist --production --config path/to/your/config-override.json
# collect static files of both backend and frontend, with overridden settings
$ yarn django collectstatic --settings SETTINGS --pythonpath path/to/SETTINGS.py
You should execute these commands in the order shown, i.e., build the frontend before collecting all static files.