Django wysiwyg Editor

 Django, Software Development, Uncategorized  Comments Off
Apr 122012
 

Many Django projects require a wysiwyg editor. To cover this, there is an application for making Django textareas rich text editors: django-wysiwyg.

To use it, start by installing it through

pip install django-wysiwyg

.
Then, on your HTML template, include application:

{% load wysiwyg %}

As an example, take the following form:

#
# Event Edit From
#
class EventsDataForm(forms.Form):
    """
        Event data form
    """
    min_description_chars = 10
    max_description_chars = 2000

    ltitle = ugettext("Title")    
    ltitle_help = ugettext("The title of the event.")
    ltitle_required = ugettext("Please enter the title.")
   
    ldescription = ugettext("Description")
    ldescription_help = ugettext("Enter the event description.")
    ldescription_required = ugettext("Please describe the event.")    
    ldescription_min_length = ugettext('The minimum length is %s characters.')%(min_description_chars)
    ldescription_max_length = ugettext('The maximum length is %s characters of plain text (less characters for formated text)')%(max_description_chars)

    id = forms.IntegerField(widget=forms.HiddenInput(), required=False)
    title = forms.CharField(max_length=60, required=True, label=ltitle, help_text=ltitle_help, error_messages={'required': ltitle_required})
    long_description = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea(attrs={'cols': 50, 'rows': 5}), min_length=min_description_chars, max_length=max_description_chars, required=True, label=ldescription, help_text=ldescription_help)

The “long_description” field is the field that will be wysiwyg editor.

Then, on your form, setup up the wysiwyg, draw the form and link it to your form field. Here’s an example:

{% block content %}
<form enctype="multipart/form-data" action='.' method='post'>
  {% csrf_token %}
  <table>  
    {% wysiwyg_setup %}
    {{ form.as_table }}
    {% wysiwyg_editor "id_long_description" %}
  </table>
  <input type="submit" value="Save" />
</form>
{% endblock %}

The

{% wysiwyg_setup %}

sets up the application.
The

{{ form.as_table }}

draws the form.
The

{% wysiwyg_editor "id_long_description" %}

links the form field “long_description” to the wysiwyg via the identifier.
Take special attention to the identifier, it’s the name of the field in the forms and it should be preceded by “id_”.

That is enough to make the “long_description” field a wysiwyg editor.

If one requires customization, for instance change the width or the toolbar buttons, one can do this by customizing the

django_wysiwyg_editor_config

variable. See the documentation for extra information about how to customize the component.
The trick is to perform the customization on the bottom of the page, just before closing the

</body>

tag.
First, load the “django_wysiwyg_editor_config” block, then load its code and, finally, apply your customization. Here’s and example:

<script>
{% block django_wysiwyg_editor_config %}
{{ block.super }}
django_wysiwyg_editor_config.width = "450px";
django_wysiwyg_editor_config.height = "200px";
{% endblock %}
</script>

And that’s it.

Visual Studio C# Express in x86 32 bit

 .Net, C#, Software Development  Comments Off
Mar 302012
 

Visual Studio Express edition is a striped down version of the professional version. Thus, some features are not directly, or easily, available.
One of these features is to run in 32 bit on a 64 bit computer.
To make it work, all one has to do is define the target platform as x86:

  1. Close the C# project.
  2. Open the C# Project file, .csproj, with a plain text editor, such as Notepad.
  3. Make shure that the following entry is present in all three sections of PropertyGroup:
<PlatformTarget>x86</PlatformTarget>

Here’s a snippet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
    <Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">x86</Platform>
    <ProductVersion>8.0.30703</ProductVersion>
    <SchemaVersion>2.0</SchemaVersion>
    <ProjectGuid>{E8D4119C-8E3F-4A41-84A6-70F848F3CA1A}</ProjectGuid>
    <OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>
    <AppDesignerFolder>Properties</AppDesignerFolder>
    <RootNamespace>WindowsFormsApplication1</RootNamespace>
    <PlatformTarget>x86</PlatformTarget>
    <AssemblyName>Frotas</AssemblyName>
    <TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.0</TargetFrameworkVersion>
    <TargetFrameworkProfile>Client</TargetFrameworkProfile>
    <FileAlignment>512</FileAlignment>
    <IsWebBootstrapper>false</IsWebBootstrapper>
    <PublishUrl>C:\work\MyApp\Publish\</PublishUrl>
    <Install>true</Install>
    <InstallFrom>Disk</InstallFrom>
    <UpdateEnabled>false</UpdateEnabled>
    <UpdateMode>Foreground</UpdateMode>
    <UpdateInterval>7</UpdateInterval>
    <UpdateIntervalUnits>Days</UpdateIntervalUnits>
    <UpdatePeriodically>false</UpdatePeriodically>
    <UpdateRequired>false</UpdateRequired>
    <MapFileExtensions>true</MapFileExtensions>
    <ApplicationRevision>6</ApplicationRevision>
    <ApplicationVersion>1.0.0.%2a</ApplicationVersion>
    <UseApplicationTrust>false</UseApplicationTrust>
    <PublishWizardCompleted>true</PublishWizardCompleted>
    <BootstrapperEnabled>true</BootstrapperEnabled>
  </PropertyGroup>

  [...]

After performing a rebuild, the application will be built in 32 bit.

MySQL Root Password Recovery

 Linux, MySQL, Unix  Comments Off
Mar 162012
 

When the official documentation from MySQL for root password reset does not work, here’s another solution.

Get the password for the debian-sys-maint user. Just

cat /etc/mysql/debian.cnf

and get the password.

Then

mysql -u debian-sys-maint -p

and enter the password you got in the previous step.

Once on the MySQL shell, you can define the password using

UPDATE USER SET password=password('new_root_password') WHERE USER='root';
commit;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

where new_root_password is the new password for the root.
If there are no root entries, or if you’re still getting problems logging in using root, grant all the privileges to the root user:

GRANT ALL privileges ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_root_password' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

where, again, the new_root_password is the new password for the root.

This should do work and now you can

mysql -u root -p

and enter the new password you’ve chosen for the root.

jQuery Calendar Date Picker in Django Forms

 Django, Entreprise Software, jQuery, Software Development  No Responses »
Mar 072012
 

One of Django missing features that all developers miss is the lack of a calendar component that allows a user to select a date from a visual component instead of writing the date in a text field using a predefined format.

The common solution that seems to use the calendar from the administrator graphical interface.
Unfortunately this is a hack that takes too much work for a possible failure, since a Django update may break it all.

While Django does not provide such component, the best option is to use a solid solution, such as using the independent jQuery Calendar Date Picker.
This can be set up in ten minutes and does not depend on Django version.

The first step is to download the jQuery Datepicker component.

Uncompress it and put it in your media directory, so that it looks something like “media/jquery”, or something else that is fits best with your structure. For the current example “media/jquery” will be used.

In your HTML file, include the following scripts:

<link type="text/css" href="/media/jquery/css/smoothness/jquery-ui-1.8.18.custom.css" rel="Stylesheet" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="/media/jquery/js/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/media/jquery/js/jquery-ui-1.8.18.custom.min.js"></script>

Please note that the file names will vary according to the jQuery version and the CSS will vary according with the selected template. Don’t forget to confirm the location and file names.

Next, you must bind your form objects with the jQuery Datepicker with the following script. Also include this on your HTML file

<script>
$(function() {
  $( "#id_form_date_field" ).datepicker();
});
</script>

Where “form_date_field” should be your form date field, keep the “#id_” because Django precedes the ids with “id_”

If you require internationalization, load the correspondent i18n file after the “jquery…min.js” file:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/media/jquery/development-bundle/ui/i18n/jquery.ui.datepicker-{{request.LANGUAGE_CODE}}.js"></script>

This will load the appropriate i18n file.

If you try it and it’s not working, check the files location and the name of the object you’re binding to, these are the two most common problems.

MetaMod Position Display Management

 Javascript, PHP, Software Development  Comments Off
Feb 092012
 

When using Joomla! sometimes one requires to hide some information, like a specific menu, or an entire position.

MetaMod let’s you do this in a quite easy way. One can follow their documented technique of moving stuff from an non-existing position into the real position, or one can use a simpler strategy that does not imply having virtual positions and nor moving stuff between these virtual positions and the real position.

Imagine you wish to hide all position placeholders on a marketing landing page. It’s quite easy:

  • Download and install MetMod. Don’t forget to read the documentation to know how MetaMod works.
  • The first step is to define the MetaMod position in the last one to be interpreted by Joomla!, usually the footer or the debug.
  • This guarantees that our code will be executed only when all positions are already loaded.
  • The second step is to define the MetaMod execution rules, as stated in the documentation.
  • Next, in the PHP window, include the execution code that will hide or display the position through the injection of a Javascript conde snippet.

Here’s an example: let’s say that one wishes to hide the stuff on the left of the page (usually the menu, login, etc.) when the user is located in the Virtuemart Cart plugin.
Here’s what one has to do:

  1. Identify the location through the $option and $view parameter values.
  2. Inject a Javascript script that finds the left position element and hides it.
  3. If required, adjust the size of the remaining position in order to claim the extra space.
  4. Return the current position.
Here’s an example that hides the “column_left” position. Please note that this MetaMod example is located in the “debug” position, change it if necessary.
if ($option == 'com_virtuemart' and ($view == 'cart' or $view == 'pluginresponse'))
{
echo "
 <script>
   elem = document.getElementById('column_left');
   elem.style['display']='none';
   elem = document.getElementById('content_wrap');
   elem.style['width']='960px';
 </script>";
}

return 'debug';

Obviously this must be adapted to the template in use and it may required some adjustments, like the new size of the position that should claim the extra space.

One can use Firebug to help finding the HTML div elements identifiers involved.

iSeries AS/400 Cheat Sheet

 AS/400, Operating System  No Responses »
Jan 162012
 

When IBM iSeriesAS/400 new users make contact with such a system, it’s easy to get a bit lost in the command line.

AS/400 commands are generally constructed with concatenated syntactical blocks, each having it’s own meaning. Usually the first block on a command specifies the action and the remaining act as modifiers. 
For example, the command WRKSYSSTS:

  • WRK, is the first block and means WoRK
  • SYS, is the second block and means SYStem
  • STS, is the third block and means STatuS

Here’s some useful commands:

Working Active Jobs
Description: shows working active jobs.
Command: wrkactjob

Working Submitted Jobs
Description: shows the list of the working submitted jobs
Command: wrksbmjob

Working Object Lock
Description: shows the locks on an object, like a file.
Command: wrkobjlck (library/object)

CPU Usage Statistics
Description: shows CPU usage statistics, usually filtered to show only resource usages above 2%.
Command: who

Working System Status
Description: shows system overview usage status and statistics .
Command: wrksyssts

Working Disks Statistics
Description: shows disk usage statistics.
Command: wrkdsksts

Display Message Descriptions
Description: shows detailed information about the messages in a message file.
Command: dspmsgd range(messageId) msgf(library/file)

Display File
Description: shows the contents of a file.
Command: df library/file

Work with Objects
Description: shows a list of names and attributes of specified objects in specified libraries.
Command: wrkobj file

When in trouble, strike F1, AS/400 has contextual help.

Django Inline Forms

 Django, Software Development  No Responses »
Oct 282011
 

In Django sometimes it’s more practical to have a specific HTML inline form than working with the CSS.
Django makes it particular easy. All one has to do is to define an as_inline function that uses <span> instead of <p> or <ul>/<li>.

Here’s a simple example of a form that has a text search and a country drop down list.
Note that the row ender is a combination of three blank spaces. This is obviously practical but not necessarily the best approach.

#
# Filter country
#
class FilterCountry(forms.Form):
    """
        Filter country
    """
   
    lsearch = ugettext("Search")    
    lcountry = ugettext("Only from country")
    lcountry_empty = ugettext('All')
   
    search_term = forms.CharField(required=False, label=lsearch)
    country = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=Country.objects.all(), required=False, empty_label=lcountry_empty, label=lcountry)
   
    def as_inline(self):
         """Returns this form rendered as HTML inlines."""
         return self._html_output(
                normal_row = u'<span%(html_class_attr)s>%(label)s %(field)s%(help_text)s</span>',
                error_row = u'%s',
                row_ender = ' &nbsp; ',
                help_text_html = u' %s',
                errors_on_separate_row = True)

Solr for Latin Languages

 Apache, Entreprise Software, Software Development  No Responses »
Oct 062011
 

When configuring Solr in non-english languages, in this case in Portuguese, one usually wants:

In the case one may wish to stem words, it’s also easy. Though, one should be careful in using stem, since it may produce too much false positives.
To split words by white spaces, use StandardTokenizerFactory or WhitespaceTokenizerFactory.
For stop words removal, use StopFilterFactory.
In the case of stem, use SnowballPorterFilterFactory.
Here’s an snippet of a Portuguese schema.xml:
    <fieldType name="text_general" class="solr.TextField" positionIncrementGap="100">
      <analyzer type="index">
        <tokenizer class="solr.StandardTokenizerFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.StopFilterFactory" ignoreCase="true" words="stopwords.txt" enablePositionIncrements="true" />
        <!-- in this example, we will only use synonyms at query time
        <filter class="solr.SynonymFilterFactory" synonyms="index_synonyms.txt" ignoreCase="true" expand="false"/>
        -->
        <filter class="solr.LowerCaseFilterFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.SnowballPorterFilterFactory" language="Portuguese" />
        <filter class="solr.ASCIIFoldingFilterFactory"/>
      </analyzer>
      <analyzer type="query">
        <tokenizer class="solr.StandardTokenizerFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.StopFilterFactory" ignoreCase="true" words="stopwords.txt" enablePositionIncrements="true" />
        <filter class="solr.SynonymFilterFactory" synonyms="synonyms.txt" ignoreCase="true" expand="true"/>
        <filter class="solr.LowerCaseFilterFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.SnowballPorterFilterFactory" language="Portuguese" />
        <filter class="solr.ASCIIFoldingFilterFactory"/>
      </analyzer>
    </fieldType>

Eclipse Application Export Error

 Eclipse, Entreprise Software, Java, RCP  No Responses »
Sep 222011
 

While performing an Eclipse Product export, via wizard, the following error came up:

 Cannot complete the install because of a conflicting dependency.
 Software being installed: iCANgraph 1.0.0 (Lumina 1.0.0)
 Only one of the following can be installed at once:
 Cannot satisfy dependency:

Yes, the dependecy that could not be satisfied was not stated, so there was no clue about what was causing this export error…
There was absolutely no more error information. No export log was found, thus this useless error message was all that I had…
It took some time until I realise that the “Generate metadata repository” option was enabled, causing all this problems.
This option enables the “Provisioning platform“, commonly known as P2, which builds P2 repositories and products. It creates a plugins folders (repository\plugins) that contain the same plugins as the folders in the exported application.
My guess, since I was unnable to get suficient information to know for sure, is that the automatic resolution of dependencies between software components, one of P2 features, was not doing things properly, thus the error.

Since all that was needed was a product, the P2 information was unecessary and, obvisouly, redundant and a real trouble maker.
To solve this problem, all that was required was to disable the “Generate metadata repository” option and export the product again.

Painless Django with MySQL Install

 Django, MySQL, Python, Software Development  No Responses »
Sep 082011
 

When using Django for developing a web applications, it’s common to use MySQL as a data repository.
In order to use this combination of technolgies, one needs to setup all the different pieces. Setting up all this may not be as easy as it may seem and it actually will take a bit longer than one may expect.
To ease this process, here’s a simple step-by-step guide to help seting a Django with MySQL development environment.

The first step is to download and install Python. Current Django version, 1.3, does not work on Python 3, so download the latest Python 2 version, presently 2.7.2, or use your system package manager to get it from the official repository.

The second step is to download and install MySQL.
Check your system package manager to get it from the official repository, if available.
Don’t try to use Xampp. It may work but you’ll have to hack some installation procedures, specially in Windows 64 bit. For instance, the database connector will look up  the MySQL location in the Windows registry and it will be missing.
I recommend the MySQL bundle, since it will come with useful software for database management.

The third step is to download and install Python setuptools.
If you’re using Windows 64 bits, and you’re getting a “Python not found on Registry” error, you may use this workaround.

Finally, we need to download the MySQL-Python connector so that we can use MySQL from Python.
Uncompress the file and, on a shell, perform the standard installation procedure: python setup.py install. Depending on your system, you may need to run this with administration privilidges.
If you’re using Windows, I seriously recommend that you download and install codegood build. If you don’t wish to use codegood build and are getting file not found errors originated from a registry key not found – usually in 64 bit versions – just edit the site.cfg file with a plain text editor and change the registry_key to “SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\MySQL AB\MySQL Server 5.5“, in 64 bit, taking in consideration that the version numbers should correspond to your MySQL installed version. When in doubt, use Windows Registry application, regedit.exe, to check the correct registry key.

Optionally, if you’re installing on Windows, I recommend you to install MSYS and to run the Django commands from this shell.
This will enable you a linux like shell that is helpful to process some commands like localization, e. g. the gettext tool. If you don’t wish to install MSYS, check the Django documentation on how to get the required tools to work on Windows.

Since all the technologies are always under development, make sure you get the right versions of each so that things work properly.

After following these steps, Python should connect to MySQL, and so should Django.

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