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:

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Implementing MVC on Engelsystem

Engelsystem is an MVC based PHP application, but there was a 4th ties, Pages, introduced with the traditional MVC pattern. It seems to have everything an event manager could want.

The Model-View-Control (MVC) pattern, originally formulated in the late 1970s, is a software architecture pattern built on the basis of keeping the presentation of data separate from the methods that interact with the data. In theory, a well-developed MVC system should allow a front-end developer and a back-end developer to work on the same system without interfering, sharing, or editing files either party is working on.

Like everything else in software engineering, it seems, the concept of Model-View-Controller was originally invented bySmalltalk programmers. More specifically, it was invented by one Smalltalk programmer, Trygve Reenskaug. Trygve maintains a page that explains the history of MVC in his own words.

Block Diagram for MVC
                                                                  Block Diagram for MVC

 

The components of an MVC pattern are explained as follows:

  1. MODEL: The Model is the name given to the permanent storage of the data used in the overall design.
    Models represent knowledge. A model could be a single object (rather uninteresting), or it could be some structure of objects.
  2. VIEW: The View is where data, requested from the Model, is viewed and its final output is determined. A view is a (visual) representation of its model. It would ordinarily highlight certain attributes of the model and suppress others. It is thus acting as a presentation filter.
    Traditionally in web apps built using MVC, the View is the part of the system where the HTML is generated and displayed. The View also ignites reactions from the user, who then goes on to interact with the Controller.
  3. CONTROLLER: The final component of the triad is the Controller.A controller is the link between a user and the system. It provides the user with input by arranging for relevant views to present themselves in appropriate places on the screen.
    Its job is to handle data that the user inputs or submits, and update the Model accordingly. The Controller’s life blood is the user; without user interactions, the Controller has no purpose.

 

Even though MVC was originally designed for personal computing, it has been adapted and is widely being used by web developers due to its emphasis on separation of concerns, and thus indirectly, reusable code. The pattern encourages the development of modular systems, allowing developers to quickly update, add, or even remove functionality.

layercake

 

Initially, in Engelsystem there were files distributed in 4 tiers, Model, View, Controller, Pages, which are mentioned as follows:

Pages:

admin_active.php
admin_arrive.php
admin_export.php
admin_free.php
admin_groups.php
admin_import.php
admin_log.php
admin_news.php
admin_questions.php
admin_rooms.php
admin_settings.php
admin_shifts.php
admin_user.php
guest_credits.php
guest_login.php
guest_start.php
guest_stats.php
user_atom.php
user_ical.php
user_messages.php
user_myshifts.php
user_news.php
user_questions.php
user_settings.php
user_shifts.php

Model:

AngelType_model.php
LogEntries_model.php
Message_model.php
NeededAngelTypes_model.php
Room_model.php
Settings_model.php
ShiftEntry_model.php
ShiftTypes_model.php
Shifts_model.php
UserAngelTypes_model.php
UserDriverLicenses.model.php
User_model.php

Controller

angeltype_controller.php
rooms_controller.php
shifts_controller.php
shifttypes_controller.php
user_angeltypes_controller.php
user_driver_licenses_controller.php
user_controller.php

View

AngelTypes_view.php
Questions_view.php
Rooms_view.php
ShiftEntry_view.php
ShiftTypes_view.php
Shifts_view.php
UserAngelTypes_view.php
UserDriverLicenses_view.php
User_view.php

 

There were 26 Pages files, in which there were both sql queries along with the controller code. All these files were refactured into Controller and Model(which contains sql queries) files seperately to implement proper MVC pattern in Engelsystem.

 

We are developing new feature for Engelsystem and we will be applying this WordPress like update system toEngelsystem in the upcoming weeks. Developers who are interested in contributing can work with us.

Development: https://github.com/fossasia/engelsystem             Issues/Bugs:https://github.com/fossasia/engelsystem/issues

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