Project ALES's Website

Website that serves as a database and framework for the ALES Project

Instructions to run locally

Setting up

1. Install Python 3
2. Install virtualenv (Accomplish this by running pip3 install virtualenv)
3. Install Postgres
4. Open a terminal window at the project's root:
5. virtualenv -p python3 venv to create a virtual machine for the website

• source venv/bin/activate to activate the virtual machine
• pip install -r requirements.txt to install the requirements
• python manage.py migrate to migrate the database
• python manage.py createsuperuser to create the website's admin. Take note of the username and password for later
• python manage.py collectstatic to collect the staticfiles so that the app is self-contained

You can now start the server with python manage.py runserver, but follow the local instructions below first to set your environment variables.

Local settings

You can modify the settings directly or create a .env to keep your local settings secret.

To use a .env simply create a new .env file at the root of the project and write the settings that you wish to alter, followed by their content.

A typical .env for this project should look like this (some settings may be missing):

EMAIL_PASSWORD=supersecretpassword
[email protected]
DJANGO_SECRET=longstringofrandomcharacters
[email protected]
SITE_URL=http://localhost:8000

If you wish, just go to project/settings.py and manually change the settings

Don't forget to erase your passwords before pushing changes, though!

General settings

SECRET_KEY Django's signing key. No need to change it if running with DEBUG = True

SITE_URL is the website's domain. If running locally, yours wil probably be something like http://localhost:8000

Email settings

To properly sign users in the website uses a email verification system.

You'll need a valid email account to serve as host

DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL the default email address to be used as 'from' field

EMAIL_HOST_USER email address that'll be used as host

EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD the password of the above host

You can leave EMAIL_USE_TLS, EMAIL_HOST and EMAIL_PORT as is if you are using gmail

SERVER_EMAIL the email address that django will use when sending error reports

ADMINS List of tuples with admin names and emails. Used when sending error reports

Now you are all set.

To start the website, do python manage.py runserver

Using the website

Start by going to the index page and clicking Login

Use your admin username and password to login

Now you'll see some options. Start at the top and create a City.

Proceed by creating schools, courses, etc. Create as many as you want.

Whenever you create a Teacher or a Student, a confirmation email is sent to them. Within it you'll find a unique confirmation url. Use it to activate and set a password for the teacher or student.

You'll now be able to login as the activated teacher or student and do some other things as them, like enroll in courses or create events.