Configuration for Auto-hiding Panel in Meilix with LXQt desktop

In the new LXQt desktop, we can intelligently hide the panel. For that purpose, we’ll just need to patch a new file in a location under the meilix-default-settings metapackage.
Originally the file lies in the lxqt folder of the .config of the OS with the name panel.conf like .config/lxqt/panel.conf but since we have to make changes in the metapackage, we need to patch it here meilix-default-settings/etc/skel/.config/lxqt/panel.conf. Files in etc/skel/ will be put in each users’ new home folder, a folder which does not exist yet when we build the ISO.

panel.conf

1. [panel1]
2. alignment=-1
3. animation-duration=0
4. background-color=@Variant(\0\0\0\x43\0\xff\xff\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0)
5. background-image=
6. desktop=0
7. font-color=@Variant(\0\0\0\x43\0\xff\xff\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0)
8. hidable=true
9. iconSize=22
10. lineCount=1
11. lockPanel=false
12. opacity=100
13.panelSize=32
14. plugins=mainmenu, desktopswitch, quicklaunch, taskbar, tray, statusnotifier, mount, volume, clock, showdesktop
15. position=Bottom
16. show-delay=0
17. width=100
18. width-percent=true

In the line number 8 , hidable=true is doing all the jobs. It is the only line which hides the panel by default.

How we find this approach?
Originally LXQt panel is not hidden, they are shown by default. I first try to locate panel.conf file which will carry out the configuration for the panel. I try to find the code responsible for hiding the panel, but I can’t find that. Then I copied the panel.conf in a file and then by GUI I hide the panel and reopen the config file. Then I compare the changes between this file and the old config.panel file in which I found that the new file has a new line hidable=true. We introduced the changes in this PR.

How this approach actually work?
We are using meilix-default-settings metapackage to make the things work. We made an .config file which contains the configuration file. And the .config file is present under skel folder which gets copied under the home folder of the user. Thus ultimately we get a configuration file which will overwrite the original one to get the desired changes.

Other Uses of panel.conf
The file panel.conf could be used to customize all related settings to the LXQT panel, like its alignment, volume bar, quick launch, show desktop, etc.

References:
LXQt panel hiding
Customize LXQt desktop

Continue ReadingConfiguration for Auto-hiding Panel in Meilix with LXQt desktop

Debuilding the meilix-default-settings Metapackage

In the Meilix code repository you find a metapackage named meilix-default-settings which contains custom settings in directories as debian, etc, and user. In these directories one can make changes to make them be included in the build ISO. As Meilix runs on Debian we package our custom user settings in a Debian package to be installed along all the other software packages. The process and utility to make a Debian package is called debuild.

Directories in the meilix-default-settings:

What is debuilding?

It’s Debian slang for “making a deb package” and that stirred quite some confusion in our communications. Debuild is actually a rebuilding of the metapackage. But as to rebuild the Debian package you usually type debuild -uc -us therefore I stick to the language

Suppose someone has edited a configuration file in the metapackage according to its desires to achieve a specific result in the ISO it won’t get in unless he rebuilds the metapackage.He has not only to edit the metapackage but also to rebuild it to get the desired output in the ISO. To make the process automated, we have made a tiny script which will debuild the metapackages during each and every build, we only need to modify the metapackage.

Actually the first meilix-default-settings folder is the only metapackage and inside of it is the sub-metapackage which is responsible to get the changes applied in the ISO. To see a change in the ISO, we only need to edit the meilix-default-settings usr or etc folder in the first layer. Then, we need to debuild the metapackages.

Code-Base:

This file is present here

1. #!/bin/bash
2. rm meilix-default-settings_*                                    
3. cd meilix-default-settings                                      
4. debuild -uc -us

Let’s go through the whole code base line by line:
Line 2 deletes the previous meilix-default-settings binary packages.
Line 3 in this we changed our directory to the metapackage folder that is of our concern.
Line 4 is the most important line, it builds the whole metapackage and brings back all the binary packages and metapackages after making the desired changes.

Follow the example below to know that actually how it works:

This pull request is responsible to turn off system sounds by default in the generated ISO. Pull Requests files in which I only edited the this file and rest of the files get changes in the process of debuilding the metapackage (ignore .travis.yml file).

References:
Required files under debian directory
Debian directory guideline

Continue ReadingDebuilding the meilix-default-settings Metapackage

Migration of LXDE Desktop of Meilix to LXQt

Meilix is originally based on LXDE and our task is to migrate Meilix desktop to LXQt. Originally LXQt is a fusion of LXDE and the Razor-Qt desktop.

What is LXDE and LXQt ?
Both are desktop environment. They are light weight with a beautiful GUI and a user-friendly touch.

Older code to install a LXDE desktop in a Debian-based environment is (source):

apt-get -q -y --purge install --no-install-recommends \
lxsession lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter lxterminal gvfs-backends seahorse \
network-manager-gnome xorg dbus-x11 openbox ubiquity-frontend-gtk vlc \
xfce4-mixer gstreamer0.10-alsa pulseaudio pavucontrol lxpanel \
mozilla-plugin-vlc lubuntu-core jockey-gtk

In the chroot environment, the maintainer has pick up the it’s dependencies and recommend packages and listed all packages which required to install a LXDE desktop. He keeps the size as small as possible. The maintainer had hand-picked only the required packages which can run the desktop.

What we did:
We tried with several approaches. Few worked and few did not. We removed all the packages related to desktop like gnome-games, gdm and gnome-language-en since we don’t want any sort of problem conflicts in the new desktop. We had also remove all the lines mentioned above which install LXDE.

Then I simply typed the line:

apt-get -q -y install lxqt

This way we only reach to the CLI version of the OS, and we actually don’t know whether we actually have the desktop install or not.
We tried to install lighdm their by

sudo apt-get install xinit

but that was also giving errors.

We changes the line to:

apt-get -q -y install xorg sddm lxqt

And suddenly the same approach which brought to a black screen and that was a desktop and the window manager was openbox.

Then we tried to add sddm.conf to get the desktop and realized that sddm starts plasma instead of LXQt. Then we added a config file for sddm to start up LXQt by default. This file is present in the location `/etc/sddm.conf` in the meilix-default-settings metapackage with the code as:

[Autologin]
User=hotelos
Session=lxqt.desktop

But due to a bug reported here, it still starts plasma instead of LXQt. So now I have to patch a script in the location /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/casper-bottom/15autologin

In last paragraph of the script it will first detect the presence of sddm, if that exists, it will assume that plasma will be default desktop and try to detect Lubuntu.desktop and QLubuntu.desktop .
So, change plasma.desktop to lxqt.desktop.

In the 15autologin changes line 84:

if [ -f /root/usr/bin/sddm ]; then
	sddm_session=lxqt.desktop
	if [ -f /root/usr/share/xsessions/Lubuntu.desktop ]; then
    	    sddm_session=Lubuntu.desktop
	fi
	if [ -f /root/usr/share/xsessions/QLubuntu.desktop ]; then
    	    sddm_session=QLubuntu.desktop
	fi
fi

Here, sddm is made to configure it must use lxqt desktop.

And this worked. Finally we get the LXQt desktop for Meilix.

Since this script along with other scripts will be packed into a small filesystem called initramfs, therefore we have to write `update-initramfs -u ` after the installation of the meilix-default-settings package.

I had made a table of the things that worked and that didn’t.

Things which do not work Things which work
1. Firstly, we removed all these lines and replace it with `apt-get -q -y install lxqt`, but this will take us to a CLI and ask to install xinit which takes us to another error. We want to straight forward go to GUI.
2. Removing of all the others desktop dependencies like gnome (here), LXDE. The way build.sh was written is that it includes suggests and recommends packages to take less space.
3. Giving less RAM to the live boot ISO which gives the error in the installation of xinit in CLI mode.
4. Removing single line and adding single line and keep on testing rather than testing on a big code. This helped us to find that where actually the issue lies.
5. Removing the rc.xml file which is responsible for openbox configuration that we don’t need in the LXQt. Screenshots are attached below.
6. Finally I booted into CLI and there I type startx which ask me to do apt-get install xinit then after that I did startx from where it takes me to the black screen.
7. I included lightdm but it’s not working and when i tried to start it using the terminal of openbox “systemctl start lightdm” , it gives the error as “failed to start lightdm.service: Unit lightdm.service not found”.
8. When I tried to install lightdm “sudo apt-get install lightdm-gtx-greeter” and we get the error pasted below.
9. Then I though to go for sddm which is a “Simple Desktop Display Manager” a replacement for lightdm.
10. Finally we make it something like this “sudo apt-get install -q -y xorg sddm lxqt”
11. sddm starts plasma (KDE) instead of LXQt for getting the desire result we need is to add /etc/sddm.conf and set its login default to lxqt.desktop
12. After screenshot of number 10, I clicked ok and logout myself to CLI and login and type startx to get the screenshot.
13. All of the things that I was doing is in the xenial version of meilix and when I tried the same in zesty. I get the following result.
14. We think there must be something why Casper uses plasma by default instead of lxqt. We can also try preventing plasma.desktop being installed in the first place.
15. Casper will set up the login when live cd is started, and the file will be changed too.
So writing to the config file (sddm.conf) actually does nothing.
16. apt install lubuntu installs lubuntu.desktop while Casper (It is actually responsible for setting up live environment, which also needs to takes care of auto login) checks for Lubuntu.desktop (noting the capital letter)
It is in the script `/usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/casper-bottom/15autologin`
Probably we have to patch that.
So Casper will write configs to login manager like sddm.At the time of booting the ISO into the live desktop.
The problem is, the script Casper is using, detects a different file name for LXQt.
17. We get the “15autologin file” inside chroot directory if you build the iso by yourself.
18. Then we added the line to update – initramfs (initramfs is a small filesystem that linux will mount first, which will only have basic functions, then other partitions).

Number 3

xinit error after increasing of the RAM

Number 5

Number 6

This is Openbox.

Number 8

Number 10

Number 12

Number 13.

Finally the desktop LXQt

References:
LXQt Desktop
LXDE Desktop
Switching Desktop Environment

Continue ReadingMigration of LXDE Desktop of Meilix to LXQt

Shorten the Travis build time of Meilix

Meilix is a lubuntu based script. It uses Travis to compile and deploy the iso as Github Release. Normally Travis took around 17-21 minutes to build the script and then to deploy the iso on the page. It is quite good that one gets the iso in such a small interval of time but if we would able to decrease this time even more then that will be better.

Meilix script consists of basically 2 tests and 1 deploy:

The idea behind reducing the time of Meilix building is to parallely run the tests which are independent to each other. So here we run the build.sh and aptRepoUpdater.sh parallely to reduce the time upto some extent.
This pictures denotes that both the tests are running parallely and Github Releases is waiting for them to get complete successfully to deploy the iso.

Let’s see the code through which this made possible:

jobs:
  include:
    - script: ./build.sh
    - script: 'if [ "$TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST" = "false" ]; then bash ./scripts/aptRepoUpdater.sh; fi'
    - stage: GitHub Release
      script: echo "Deploying to GitHub releases ..."

Here we included a job section in which we wrote the test which Travis has to carry out parallely. This will run both the script at the same time and can help to reduce the time.
After both the script run successfully then Github Release the iso.

Here we can see that we are only able to save around 30-40 seconds and that much matters a lot in case if we have more than 1 build going on the same time.

Links to follow:
Travis guide to build stages

Continue ReadingShorten the Travis build time of Meilix

Firefox Customization for Meilix

Meilix a lightweight operating system can be easily customized. This article talks about the way one must proceed to customize the configuration of Firefox of Meilix or on its own Linux distro and how to copy the configuration file of Firefox directly to the home folder of the user.
Meilix script contains a pref.js file which is responsible for providing the configuration. This file contains various function through which one can edit them according to its need to get the required configuration of its need.

Let’s see an example:

user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=partner-pub-6065445074637525:8941524350");

This line is used to set the browser startup page and it can be edited according to user choice to find the same page whenever he starts his Firefox.

There are several lines too which can be edited to make the required changes.

How does this work?

This is the Mozilla User Preference file and should be placed in the location /home/user_name/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/prefs.js. It actually controls the attributes of Firefox preference and set the command from here to change it.

How to use it?

One can directly go and edit it according to the choice to use it.

How meilix script uses it to change the user preference?

As we can see that .mozilla folder should be under the home directory, therefore we copy the .mozilla to the the skel folder, so that it gets automatically copied to the home location and we would be able to use.
There is also a shell script which comes in handy to implement the browser startup page and the script even copies the configuration file.

1.#!/bin/bash

2.# firefox
3.# http://askubuntu.com/questions/73474/how-to-install-firefox-addon-from-command-line-in-scripts
4.for user_name in `ls /home/`
5.do
  6.preferences_file="`echo /home/$user_name/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/prefs.js`"
  7.if [ -f "$preferences_file" ]
  8.then
    9.echo "user_pref(\"browser.startup.homepage\", \"https://google.com/\");" >> $preferences_file
  10.fi
11.done

This file is taken from here. And it used in Meilix to run the script to set the default startup page in Firefox. This will be taken input from the user end from the Meilix Generator webapp and it will change the line 9 url according to the input given by the user.
On line 3, *.default will set automatically by the script itself, it generated randomly.
After that, the script will copy the prefs.js in its location and it will implement the changes.

Links to follow:

Firefox-preference guide
Firefox-editing-configuration

Continue ReadingFirefox Customization for Meilix

Generate Requirement File for Python App for Meilix-Generator

Meilix-Generator is based upon Flask (a Python framework) which has several dependencies to fulfill before actually running the app properly. This article will guide you through the way I used it to automatically generate the requirement file for Meilix Generator app so that one doesn’t have to manually type all the requirements.

An app powered by Python always has several dependencies to fulfill to run the app successfully. The app root directory contains a file named as requirements.txt which contains the name of the dependency and their version. There are features ways to generate the requirement file for an app but the one which I will demonstrate is the best one. So I used this idea to generate the requirement file for webapp Meilix Generator.

Ways to get the requirement.txt

The internet has a featured way through which one has just to run a command to get a list of all the different dependencies within an app.

pip freeze > requirements.txt

This way will generate a bunch of dependencies that we not even required.

Why do we really require to generate a requirement file?

Yes, one may even ask that we can even write the dependency in the requirements.txt file. Why do we need a command to generate it?

Since because it will take care of two important things:
1. It will ensure that all the dependencies have been included, from user input one may forget to find some of the dependency and to include that.

  1. It will also take care of the Python Package Version Pinning which is really important. People use to version pinning for Python requirements as “>=” style. It’s important to follow “==” style because If we want to install the program in one year in the future, the required packages should be pinned to assure that the API changes in the installed packages do not break the program. Please read here for more info.

The way mentioned below will ensure to provide both these features.

How I generated it for Meilix Generator?

Meilix Generator run on Flask that require a requirement.txt file to fulfill the dependencies. Let’s get straight to the way to generate it for the project.

First we will simply create a requirements.in file in which we will simply mention all the dependencies in a simple way:

Flask
gunicorn
Werkzeug

Now we will use a command to latest packages:

pip install --upgrade -r requirements.in

#Note that if you would like to change the requirements, please edit the requirements.in file and run this command to update the dependencies

Then type this command to generate the requirements.txt file from requirements.in

pip-compile --output-file requirements.txt requirements.in

#fix the versions that definitely work for an eternity.
This will generate a file something as:

click==6.7                # via flask
Flask==0.12.2
gunicorn==19.7.1
itsdangerous==0.24        # via flask
Jinja2==2.9.6             # via flask
MarkupSafe==1.0           # via jinja2
Werkzeug==0.12.2          # via flask

Now you generated a perfect requirements.txt file with all the dependencies satisfied with proper python package pinning.

The meilix-generator repo which uses this:
https://github.com/fossasia/meilix-generator

Continue ReadingGenerate Requirement File for Python App for Meilix-Generator

Heroku Deployment through Travis for Meilix-Generator

This article will tell the way to deploy the Meilix Generator on Heroku with the help of Travis. A successful deployment will help as a test for a good PR. Later in the article, we’ll see the one-button deployment on Heroku.

We will here deploy Meilix Generator on Heroku. The way to deploy the project on Heroku is that one should connect its Github account and deploy it on Heroku. The problem arises when one wants to deploy the project on each and every commit. This will help to test that the commits are passing or not. Here we will see that how to use Travis to deploy on Heroku on each and every commit. If the Travis test passed which means that the changes made in the commit are implemented.
We used the same idea to test the commits for Meilix Generator.

Idea behind it

Travis (.travis.yml) will be helpful to us to achieve this. We will use this deploy build to Heroku on each commit. If it gets successfully deployed then it proves that the commit made is working.

How to implement it

I will use Meilix Generator repository to tell the way to implement this. It is as simple as editing the .travis.yml file. We just have to add few lines to .travis.yml and hence it will get deployed.

deploy:
  provider: heroku
  api_key:
    secure: "YOUR ENCRYPTED API KEY"     # explained below
  app: meilix-generator                    # write the name of the app
  on:
    repo: fossasia/meilix-generator                # repo name
    branch: master                        # branch name

Way to generate the api key:
This is really a matter of concern since if this gets wrong then the deployment will not occur.

Steps:

  • cd into the repository which you want to deploy on Heroku.
  • Login Heroku CI and Travis CI into your terminal and type the following.

travis encrypt $(heroku auth:token) --add deploy.api_key

This will automatically provide the key inside the .travis.yml file.

You can also configure manually using

travis heroku setup

That it, you are done, test the build.

Things are still left:

But we are still left with the test of the PR.
For this we have to create a new app.json file as:

{
    "name": "Meilix-Generator",
    "description": "A webapp which generates iso for you",
    "repository": "https://github.com/fossasia/meilix-generator/",
    "logo": "https://github.com/fossasia/meilix-generator/blob/master/static/logo.png",
    "keywords": [
        "meilix-generator",
        "fossasia",
        "flask"
    ],
    "env": {
        "APP_SECRET_TOKEN": {
            "generator": "secret"
        },
        "ON_HEROKU": "true",
        "FORCE_SSL": "true",
        "INVITATION_CODE": {
            "generator": "secret"
        }
    },
    "buildpacks": {
            "url": "heroku/python"        # this is the only place of concern
        }
}

This code should be put in a file in the root of the repo with the name as app.json.
In the buildpacks : the url should be the one which contains the code base language used.

This can be helpful in 2 ways:

  1. Test the commit made and deploy it on Heroku
    2. One-click deployment button which will deploy the app on Heroku
  • Test the deployment through the URL:

https://heroku.com/deploy?template=https://github.com/user_name/repo_name/tree/master

  • Way to add the button:

[![Deploy](https://www.herokucdn.com/deploy/button.svg)](https://heroku.com/deploy)

How can this idea be helpful to a developer

A developer can use this to deploy its app on Heroku and test the commit automatically and view the quality and status of PR too.

Useful repositories and link which uses this:

I have used the same idea in my project. Do have a look:

https://github.com/fossasia/meilix-generator
deployment on Heroku
one-click deployment
app.json file schema   

Continue ReadingHeroku Deployment through Travis for Meilix-Generator

Setting Environment Variables up in Travis and Heroku for Meilix and Meilix-Generator

Meilix Generator is a webapp whose task is to take input as a configuration and start the Meilix build. But an anonymous person cannot start the Meilix build of any user and deploy the release in the repository. There are ways which are used as authentication passes through environment variable to start the build. In this article, I show the way I used to trigger Meilix by setting up environment variables in Meilix Generator.

Environment variables are of great use when one has to supply personal token in an open-source project for accessing the repository. So down there, we will have ways to configure the variables in Heroku and Travis. There are so many wikis out there but this one is the blend of both Heroku and Travis.

Heroku

There are several ways to setup variables in Heroku. The way I’m going to describe below is used to access Travis build using Heroku.
Using the Heroku variable generated using Travis will help to trigger the build on Travis.

How:

Idea:
We will use Travis CLI to generate a token (unique and keep it secret). Then provide the token as a variable name to the Heroku.
Backdoor:
This Travis token will give access to the Heroku to trigger the build on that particular Travis account. We use variable to provide the token since in the script we will use this variable as an environment variable to fetch the token in the place of token like as $token.
Implementation:
Open your terminal and type the following:

sudo apt install ruby ruby-dev
sudo gem install travis                       	# install Travis CLI
travis login --org   					# login into Travis
travis token --org		# generate your secret personal access token

You will get a token, copy and paste it into your Heroku app’s settings config vars token. You have to use the `KEY` as the variable which is used in the script for triggering the build. Save it and you are done the setting of the token in the Heroku.

Travis

Now it’s time for Travis token.
It is used to deploy the build to that repository only.
We can use the token in two ways either paste it in the setting of that repository on Travis or pasting the encrypted form of that in the .travis.yml file in that repository. Both will work. But one thing to remember that you must have the write access to that repository.

How

,Idea:
It is used in .travis.yml file as an environment variable to successfully build and deploy the application as a Github release.
Backdoor:
The token gives the permission to Travis to deploy the build application in the GitHub release of the repo(if one using to deploy it there only).
Implementation:
Head up to Github and generate a personal access token with scope repo. Copy the generated token in a safe place.

Way 1:

Paste the token in the setting of the repo in Travis in Environment Variable option. Now it will access the Github repository since it has got the permission from the personal token generated from Github.

Way 2:
Open terminal:

cd repo_name				# cd into the cloned repo
travis encrypt secret_token	#replace secret_token with the token generated

or

travis encrypt secret_token -r user/repo 	#if you are not in the repo

Copy that encrypted token and paste it in proper format in the .travis.yml file. Now you enabled Travis giving permission to release the build.

How can this idea be helpful to a developer

A developer can use this to build the Github Release in its repository. One can secure its token using this technique. One can use it to trigger its personal project in Travis using Heroku.

Useful repositories and link which uses this:

I have used the same idea in my project. Do have a look https://github.com/fossasia/meilix-generator
about environment variable
encryption keys
triggering build

Continue ReadingSetting Environment Variables up in Travis and Heroku for Meilix and Meilix-Generator

Building Meilix in Travis using Heroku

Suppose you have to trigger (start) Travis but not through making a commit but through clicking a button on the webapp of the Meilix Generator. Through the webapp of Meilix Generator, we can pass the tag of the build which will be initiated and can also get the build link which is built by Travis.
Heroku is the place where we have deployed our webapp and through a button on the webapp that we used to start the build on the Travis. We have the access to give a tag to the build and with the help of this, we can even predict the URL of the build beforehand. So one can use it for its own personal project in a number of ways. And how I used this feature in Meilix Generator using Meilix script is described below:

How I used this idea

FOSSASIA meilix repository consists the script of a Linux Operating System based on Lubuntu. It uses Travis to build that script to result in a release of an iso file.

Now we thought an idea of building an autonomous system to start this build and get the release and in the meanwhile also make some required changes to the script to get it into the OS. We came up with an idea of a webapp which ask user its email id and tag of the build and till now a picture from the user which will be set as a wallpaper. It means the user would be able to config its distro according to its need through the graphical interface without a single line to code from the user end.

Through the webapp, a build button is taken as an input to go to a build page which triggers the Travis with the same user configuration to build the iso and deploy it on Github page. The user gets the link to the build on the next page only.

How I implemented this idea

Thanks to Travis API without which our idea is impossible to implement. We used a shell script to outframe our idea. The script takes the input of the user’s, repository, and branch to decide to where the trigger to take place.

There are two files one as travis_token as:

fossasia meilix master    # in the format of user repo branch

And script.sh as:  

#!/bin/bash
cat travis_tokens | while read line;     # this lines takes input of the user, repo and branch
do
    array=(${line})
    user="${array[0]}"
    project="${array[1]}"
    len=${#array[@]}
    for ((i=2; i<len; i++)); do
        branch="${array[i]}"            # supplied each value as variable
        body="{\"request\":{
            \"branch\":\"${branch}\",
            \"config\":{
                \"env\":{
                    \"email\":\"${email}\",    # supplied email and travis tag as environment variable
                    \"TRAVIS_TAG\":\"${TRAVIS_TAG}\"
                }
            }
    }}"
    echo "This Link Will be ready in approx 20 minutes"
    echo "https://github.com/fossasia/meilix/releases/download/${TRAVIS_TAG}/meilix-zesty-`date +%Y%m%d`-i386.iso"                  # a pre-predication of the link, we provide tag from user and date from system.
        curl -s -X POST \           # sending an API POST request to Travis to trigger the build of most recent commit 
            -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
            -H "Accept: application/json" \
            -H "Travis-API-Version: 3" \
            -H "Authorization: token ${KEY}" \     # this is stored in Heroku as KEY as environment variable and supplied from there only
            -d "${body}" \
            "https://api.travis-ci.org/repo/${user}%2F${project}/requests"  #%2 is used to interpret user and repo name as a single URL segment.
    done
done

After the trigger, you will get email which consists of a downloadable link to the iso.

How can this idea be helpful to a developer

There are lots of ways a developer can use this idea out. If a developer wants their user to automatically trigger the build and get the release build directly.

One can use it to set even the commit message through the shell script and customizing build configuration like replace, merge or deep_merge a configuration with the original .travis.yml file present in source repo.

Useful repositories and link which uses this:

Know more about Travis API v3:
Triggering the build
API blog

Have a look at our webapp and generate your own iso:
https://melix-generator.herokuapp.com/

Source code here:
https://github.com/fossasia/meilix-generator
https://github.com/fossasia/meilix

Continue ReadingBuilding Meilix in Travis using Heroku

Building the Meilix Generator with Flask

Meilix Generator is a webapp which is used to trigger the Travis build of Meilix and mail the user the link of the iso. Meilix Generator webapp is based on Flask. This blog shows that how easy is to build a webapp and take the HTML files to render it into the webapp as well as to call and pass various function. Here I used Flask, the Python framework to render the HTML templates and send requests for various purposes (mentioned later in the article) without coding everything from scratch because of import facility of the Flask.

What is Flask?

Flask is a Python micro web framework based on Werkzeug, Jinja 2 template engine. It is used as the backbone of the webapp. It features us with a whole set of Python from which we can easily generate webapp. It is micro as it has no tools and no library itself. It come up with minimum requirements and one who needs can import different library and use it. And I used several import function for Meilix Generator like render_template, send_from_directory, etc.

Implementation (The use case in Meilix Generator)

First of all, the installation process: We will do the installation in a virtual environment. We prefer virtual environment to differentiate the Python working environment since few programs are there which require different Python versions to work.
Install virtual environment 

sudo pip install virtualenv

Now go to the folder (project) and activate it using

. venv/bin/activate

Now install Flask

pip install flask
Creating your project

Now it’s time to create a simple project in the directory.
Let’s use HTML as the frontend. In the folder create styles.css for styling and index.html template for the frontend of the page.We will make one app.py file which would look similar to this: 

from flask import Flask, render_template
app = Flask(__name__)
@app.route('/')
def index():
	"""Index page"""
	return render_template("index.html")
if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run()

Flask looks for the / (root) path and here the root return the main template (index.html) which is the main function.

Compiling it to view the page:

export FLASK_DEBUG=1 FLASK_APP=app.py
flask run

You will find your page at http://127.0.0.1:5000

More options (how more it can help you)

  • Add more HTML template options and refer it in app.py
  • Easily use Github API  from a different .py file (this file should get import to app.py) to fetch data like: https://api.github.com/users/user_name : It will fetch user name, repos, followers and many more important information.

How I used this idea for FOSSASIA (Meilix Generator)

I used Flask for the backbone of project Meilix Generator. First, I used from function to import various library needed for the project and then made several functions for the same. Let’s understand the concept using few example:

from flask import Flask, render_template
@app.route('/about')
def about():
		#About page
		return render_template("about.html")

or

from flask import Flask, send_from_directory
@app.route('/uploads/<filename>')
def uploaded_file(filename):
		return send_from_directory(app.config['UPLOAD_FOLDER'],filename)

For more details file app.py can be found here of the Meilix Generator repository where we used the above idea.

Important Links and Repositories:

Continue ReadingBuilding the Meilix Generator with Flask