Project App Development¶

This document details instructions and guidelines for developing project apps to be used with the SODAR Core framework. This also applies for modifying existing Django apps into project apps.

Hint

The package example_project_app in the projectroles repository provides a concrete minimal example of a working project app.

Project App Basics¶

Characteristics of a project app:

Provides a functionality related to a project
Is dynamically included in project views by projectroles using plugins
Uses the project-based role and access control provided by projectroles
Is included in projectroles search (optionally)
Provides a dynamically included element (e.g. content overview) for the project details page
Appears in the project menu sidebar in the default projectroles templates

Requirements for setting up a project app:

Implement project relations and SODAR UUIDs in the app’s Django models
Use provided mixins, keyword arguments and conventions in views
Extend projectroles base templates in your templates
Implement specific templates for dynamic inclusion by Projectroles
Implement plugins.py with definitions and function implementations
Implement rules.py with access rules

Fulfilling these requirements is detailed further in this document.

Prerequisites¶

This documentation assumes you have a Django project with the projectroles app set up (see the projectroles integration document). The instructions can be applied either to modify a previously existing app, or to set up a fresh app generated in the standard way with ./manage.py startapp.

It is also assumed that apps are more or less created according to best practices defined by Two Scoops, with the use of Class-Based Views being a requirement.

Models¶

In order to hook up your Django models into projects, there are two requirements: implementing a project foreign key and a UUID field.

Project Foreign Key¶

Add a ForeignKey field for the projectroles.models.Project model, either called project or accessible with a get_project() function implemented in your model.

If the project foreign key for your is not project, make sure to define a get_project_filter_key() function. It should return the name of the field to use as key for filtering your model by project.

Note

If your app contains a complex model structure with e.g. nested models using foreign keys, it’s not necessary to add this to all your models, just the topmost one(s) used e.g. in URL kwargs.

Model UUID Field¶

To provide a unique identifier for objects in the SODAR context, add a UUIDField with the name of sodar_uuid into your model.

Note

Projectroles links to objects in URLs, links and forms using UUIDs instead of database private keys. This is strongly recommended for all Django models in apps using the projectroles framework.

Note

When updating an existing Django model with an existing database, the sodar_uuid field needs to be populated. See instructions in Django documentation on how to create the required migrations.

Model Example¶

Below is an example of a projectroles-compatible Django model:

import uuid
from django.db import models
from projectroles.models import Project

class SomeModel(models.Model):
    some_field = models.CharField(
        help_text='Your own field'
    )
    project = models.ForeignKey(
        Project,
        related_name='some_objects',
        help_text='Project in which this object belongs',
    )
    sodar_uuid = models.UUIDField(
        default=uuid.uuid4,
        unique=True,
        help_text='SomeModel SODAR UUID',
    )

Note

The related_name field is optional, but recommended as it provides an easy way to lookup objects of a certain type related to a project. For example the project foreign key in a model called Document could feature e.g. related_name='documents'.

Rules File¶

Create a file rules.py in your app’s directory. You should declare at least one basic rule for enabling a user to view the app data for the project. This can be named e.g. {APP_NAME}.view_data. Predicates for the rules can be found in projectroles and they can be extended within your app if needed.

import rules
from projectroles import rules as pr_rules

rules.add_perm(
    'example_project_app.view_data',
    pr_rules.is_project_owner
    | pr_rules.is_project_delegate
    | pr_rules.is_project_contributor
    | pr_rules.is_project_guest,
)

Hint

The rules.is_superuser predicate is often redundant, as permission checks are skipped for Django superusers. However, it can be handy if you e.g. want to define a rule allowing only superuser access for now, with the potential for adding other predicates later.

ProjectAppPlugin¶

Create a file plugins.py in your app’s directory. In the file, declare a ProjectAppPlugin class implementing projectroles.plugins.ProjectAppPluginPoint. Within the class, implement member variables and functions as instructed in comments and docstrings.

from projectroles.plugins import ProjectAppPluginPoint
from .urls import urlpatterns

class ProjectAppPlugin(ProjectAppPluginPoint):
    """Plugin for registering app with Projectroles"""
    name = 'example_project_app'
    title = 'Example Project App'
    urls = urlpatterns
    # ...

The following variables and functions are mandatory:

name: App name (NOTE: should correspond to the app package name or some functionality may not work as expected)
title: Printable app title
urls: Urlpatterns (usually imported from the app’s urls.py file)
icon: Font Awesome 4.7 icon name (without the fa-* prefix)
entry_point_url_id: View ID for the app entry point (NOTE: The view must take the project sodar_uuid as a kwarg named project)
description: Verbose description of app
app_permission: Basic permission for viewing app data in project (see above)
search_enable: Boolean for enabling/disabling app search
details_template: Path to template to be included in the project details page, usually called {APP_NAME}/_details_card.html
details_title: Title string to be displayed in the project details page for the app details template
plugin_ordering: Number to define the ordering of the app on the project menu sidebar and the details page

Implementing the following is optional:

app_settings: Implement if project, user or project_user (Settings specific to a project and user) specific settings for the app are needed. See the plugin point definition for an example.
search_types: Implement if searching the data of the app is enabled
search_template: Implement if searching the data of the app is enabled
project_list_columns: Optional custom columns do be shown in the project list. See the plugin point definition for an example.
get_taskflow_sync_data(): Applicable only if working with sodar_taskflow and iRODS
get_object_link(): If Django models are associated with the app. Used e.g. by django-sodar-timeline.
search(): Function called when searching for data related to the app if search is enabled
get_statistics(): Return statistics for the siteinfo app. See details in the siteinfo documentation.
get_project_list_value(): A function which must be implemented if project_list_columns are defined, to retrieve a column cell value for a specific project.

Once you have implemented the rules.py and plugins.py files and added the app and its URL patterns to the Django site configuration, you can create the project app plugin in the Django databse with the following command:

$ ./manage.py syncplugins

You should see the following output to ensure the plugin was successfully registered:

Registering Plugin for {APP_NAME}.plugins.ProjectAppPlugin

For info on how to implement the specific required views/templates, see the end of this document.

Views¶

Certain guidelines must be followed in developing Django web UI views for them to be successfully used with projectroles.

URL Keyword Arguments¶

In order to link a view to project and check user permissions using mixins, the URL keyword arguments must include an argument which matches one of the following conditions:

Contains a kwarg project which corresponds to the sodar_uuid member value of a projectroles.models.Project object
Contains a kwarg corresponding to the sodar_uuid of another Django model, which must contain a member field project which is a foreign key for a Projectroles.models.Project object. The kwarg must be named after the Django model of the referred object (in lowercase).
Same as above, but the Django model provides a get_project() function which returns (you guessed it) a Projectroles.models.Project object.

Examples:

urlpatterns = [
    # Direct reference to the Project model
    url(
        regex=r'^(?P<project>[0-9a-f-]+)$',
        view=views.ProjectDetailView.as_view(),
        name='detail',
    ),
    # RoleAssignment model has a "project" member which is also OK
    url(
        regex=r'^members/update/(?P<roleassignment>[0-9a-f-]+)$',
        view=views.RoleAssignmentUpdateView.as_view(),
        name='role_update',
    ),
]

Mixins¶

The projectroles.views module provides several useful mixins for augmenting your view classes to add projectroles functionality. These can be found in the projectroles.views module.

The most commonly used mixins:

LoggedInPermissionMixin: Ensure correct redirection of users on no permissions
ProjectPermissionMixin: Provides a Project object for permission checking based on URL kwargs
ProjectContextMixin: Provides a Project object into the view context based on URL kwargs

See example_project_app.views.ExampleView for an example.

Templates¶

Template Structure¶

It is strongly recommended to extend projectroles/project_base.html in your project app templates. Just start your template with the following line:

{% extends 'projectroles/project_base.html' %}

The following template blocks are available for overriding or extending when applicable:

title: Page title
css: Custom CSS (extend with {{ block.super }})
projectroles_extend: Your app content goes here!
javascript: Custom Javascript (extend with {{ block.super }})
head_extend: Optional block if you need to include additional content inside the HTML <head> element

Within the projectroles_extend block, it is recommended to use the following div classes, both extending the Bootstrap 4 container-fluid class:

sodar-subtitle-container: Container for the page title
sodar-content-container: Container for the actual content of your app

Rules¶

To control user access within a template, just do it as follows:

{% load rules %}
{% has_perm 'app.do_something' request.user project as can_do_something %}

This checks if the current user from the HTTP request has permission for app.do_something in the current project retrieved from the page context.

Template Tags¶

General purpose template tags are available in projectroles/templatetags/projectroles_common_tags.py. Include them to your template as follows:

{% load projectroles_common_tags %}

Example¶

Minimal example for a project app template:

{% extends 'projectroles/project_base.html' %}

{% load projectroles_common_tags %}
{% load rules %}

{% block title %}
  Page Title
{% endblock title %}

{% block head_extend %}
  {# OPTIONAL: extra content under <head> goes here #}
{% endblock head_extend %}

{% block css %}
  {{ block.super }}
  {# OPTIONAL: Extend or override CSS here #}
{% endblock css %}

{% block projectroles_extend %}

  {# Page subtitle #}
  <div class="container-fluid sodar-subtitle-container">
    <h3><i class="fa fa-rocket"></i> App and/or Page Title/h3>
  </div>

  {# App content #}
  <div class="container-fluid sodar-page-container">
    <p>Your app content goes here!</p>
  </div>

{% endblock projectroles_extend %}

{% block javascript %}
  {{ block.super }}
  {# OPTIONAL: include additional Javascript here #}
{% endblock javascript %}

See example_project_app/example.html for a working and fully commented example of a minimal template.

Hint

If you include some controls on your sodar-subtitle-container class and want it to remain sticky on top of the page while scrolling, use row instead of container-fluid and add the bg-white sticky-top classes to the element.

General Guidelines for Views and Templates¶

General guidelines and hints for developing views and templates are discussed in this section.

Referring to Project Type¶

As of SODAR Core v0.4.3, it is possible to customize the display name for the project type from the default “project” or “category”. For more information, see Projectroles Customization.

It is thus recommended that instead of hard coding “project” or “category” in your views or templates, use the get_display_name() function to refer to project type.

In templates, this can be achieved with a custom template tag. Example:

{% load projectroles_common_tags %}
{% get_display_name project.type title=True plural=False %}

In views and other Python code, the similar function can be accessed through utils.py:

from projectroles.utils import get_display_name
display_name = get_display_name(project.type, plural=False)

Hint

If not dealing with a Project object, you can provide the PROJECT_TYPE_* constant from SODAR_CONSTANTS. In templates, it’s most straightforward to use “CATEGORY” and “PROJECT”.

Forms¶

This section contains guidelines for implementing forms.

SODAR User Selection Field¶

Projectroles offers a custom field, widget and accompanying Ajax API views for autocomplete-enabled selection of SODAR users in Django forms. The field will handle providing appropriate choices according to the view context and user permissions, also allowing for customization.

The recommended way to use the built-in user form field is by using the SODARUserChoiceField class found in projectroles.forms. The field extends Django’s ModelChoiceField and takes most of the same keyword arguments in its init function, with the exception of queryset, to_field_name, limit_choices_to and widget which will be overridden.

The init function also takes new arguments which are specified below:

scope: Scope of users to include (string)
- all: All users on the site
- project: Limit search to users in given project
- project_exclude Exclude existing users of given project
project: Project object or project UUID string (optional)
exclude: List of User objects or User UUIDs to exclude (optional)
forward: Parameters to forward to autocomplete view (optional)
url: Autocomplete ajax class override (optional)
widget_class: Widget class override (optional)

Below is an example of the classes usage. Note that you can also define the field as a form class member, but the project or exclude values are not definable at that point. The following example assumes you are setting up your project app form with an extra project argument.

from projectroles.forms import SODARUserChoiceField

class YourForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        # ...
    def __init__(self, project, *args, **kwargs):
        # ...
        self.fields['user'] = SODARUserChoiceField(
            label='User',
            help_text='Select user for your thing here',
            required=True,
            scope='project',
            project=project,
            exclude=[unwanted_user]
        )

For more examples of usage of this field and its widget, see projectroles.forms. If the field class does not suit your needs, you can also retrieve the related widget to your own field with projectroles.forms.get_user_widget().

The following django-autocomplete-light and select2 CSS and Javascript links have to be added to the HTML template that includes the form with your user selection field:

{% block javascript %}
  {{ block.super }}
  <!-- DAL for autocomplete widgets -->
  <script type="text/javascript" src="{% static 'autocomplete_light/jquery.init.js' %}"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="{% static 'autocomplete_light/autocomplete.init.js' %}"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="{% static 'autocomplete_light/vendor/select2/dist/js/select2.full.js' %}"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="{% static 'autocomplete_light/select2.js' %}"></script>
{% endblock javascript %}

{% block css %}
  {{ block.super }}
  <!-- Select2 theme -->
  <link href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/select2/4.0.6-rc.0/css/select2.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
{% endblock css %}

If using a customized widget with its own Javascript, include the corresponding JS file instead of autocomplete_light/select2.js. See the django-autocomplete-light documentation for more information on how to customize your autocomplete-widget.

Specific Views and Templates¶

A few specific views/templates are expected to be implemented.

App Entry Point¶

As described in the Plugins chapter, an app entry point view is to be defined in the ProjectAppPlugin. This is mandatory.

The view must take a project URL kwarg which corresponds to a Project.sodar_uuid.

For an example, see example_project_app.views.ExampleView and the associated template.

Project Details Element¶

A sub-template to be included in the project details page (the project’s “front page” provided by projectroles, where e.g. overview of app content is shown).

Traditionally these files are called _details_card.html, but you can name them as you wish and point to the related template in the details_template variable of your plugin.

It is expected to have the content in a card-body container:

<div class="card-body">
  {# Content goes here #}
</div>

Project Search Function and Template¶

If you want to implement search in your project app, you need to implement the search() function in your plugin as well as a template for displaying the results.

Hint

Implementing search can be complex. If you have access to the main SODAR repository, apps in that project might prove useful examples.

The search() Function¶

See the signature of search() in projectroles.plugins.ProjectAppPluginPoint. The arguments are as follows:

search_term
- Term to be searched for (string). Should be self-explanatory.
- Multiple strings or separating multiple phrases with quotation marks not yet supported.
user
- User object for user initiating search
search_type
- The type of object to search for (string, optional)
- Used to restrict search to specific types of objects
- You can specify supported types in the plugin’s search_types list.
- Examples: file, sample..
keywords
- Special search keywords, e.g. “exact”
- NOTE: Currently not implemented

Note

Within this function, you are expected to verify appropriate access of the seaching user yourself!

The return data is a dictionary, which is split by groups in case your app can return multiple different lists for data. This is useful where e.g. the same type of HTML list isn’t suitable for all returnable types. If only returning one type of data, you can just use e.g. all as your only category. Example of the result:

return {
    'all': {                     # 1-N categories to be included
        'title': 'List title',   # Title of the result list to be displayed
        'search_types': [],      # Object types included in this category
        'items': []              # The actual objects returned
        }
    }

Search Template¶

Projectroles will provide your template context the search_results object, which corresponds to the result dict of the aforementioned function. There are also includes for formatting the results list, which you are encouraged to use.

Example of a simple results template, in case of a single all category:

 {% if search_results.all.items|length > 0 %}

   {# Include standard search list header here #}
   {% include 'projectroles/_search_header.html' with search_title=search_results.all.title result_count=search_results.all.items|length %}

   {# Set up a table with your results #}
   <table class="table table-striped sodar-card-table sodar-search-table" id="sodar-ff-search-table">
     <thead>
       <tr>
         <th>Name</th>
         <th>Some Other Field</th>
       </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
      {% for item in search_results.all.items %}
        <tr>
          <td>
            <a href="#link_to_somewhere_in your_app">{{ item.name }}</a>
          </td>
          <td>
            {{ item.some_other_field }}
          </td>
        </tr>
      {% endfor %}
    </tbody>
  </table>

  {# Include standard search list footer here #}
  {% include 'projectroles/_search_footer.html' %}

{% endif %}

Tour Help¶

SODAR Core uses Shepherd to present an optional interactive tour for a rendered page. To enable the tour in your template, set it up inside the javascript template block. Within an inline javascript strucure, set the tourEnabled variable to true and add steps according to the Shepherd documentation.

Example:

{% block javascript %}
  {{ block.super }}

  {# Tour content #}
  <script type="text/javascript">
    tourEnabled = true;

    /* Normal step */
    tour.addStep('id_of_step', {
        title: 'Step Title',
        text: 'Description of the step',
        attachTo: '#some-element top',
        advanceOn: '.docs-link click',
        showCancelLink: true
    });

    /* Conditional step */
    if ($('.potentially-existing-element').length) {
        tour.addStep('id_of_another_step', {
            title: 'Another Title',
            text: 'Another description here',
            attachTo: '.potentially-existing-element right',
            advanceOn: '.docs-link click',
            showCancelLink: true
        });
    }

  </script>
{% endblock javascript %}

Warning

Make sure you call {{ block.super }} at the start of the declared javascript block or you will overwrite the site’s default Javascript setup!

API Views¶

API View usage will be explained in this chapter, currently under construction.

Warning

A unified SODAR API is currently under development and will be documented once stable. Current practices and base classes for API views are subject to change!

Ajax API Views¶

To set up Ajax API views for the UI, you can use the standard login and project permission mixins along with APIPermissionMixin together with any Django Rest Framework view class. Permissions can be managed as with normal Django views. Example with generic APIView:

from rest_framework.views import APIView
from projectroles.views import (
    LoginRequiredMixin,
    ProjectPermissionMixin,
    APIPermissionMixin,
)

class ExampleAjaxAPIView(
        LoginRequiredMixin,
        ProjectPermissionMixin,
        APIPermissionMixin,
        APIView,
):

permission_required = 'projectroles.view_project'

def get(self, request):
    # ...

Removing a Project App¶

Removing a project app from your Django site can be slightly more complicated than removing a normal non-SODAR-supporting Django application. Following the procedure detailed here you are able to cleanly remove a project app which has been in use on your site.

The instructions apply to project apps you have created yourself as well as project apps included in the django-sodar-core package, with the exception of projectroles which can not be removed from a SODAR based site.

Warning

Make sure to perform these steps in the order they are presented here. Otherwise you may risk serious problems with your site functionality or your database!

Note

Just in case, it is recommended to make a backup of your Django database before proceeding.

First you should delete all Timeline references to objects in your app. This is not done automatically as, by design, the references are kept even after the original objects are deleted. Go to the Django shell via management command using shell or shell_plus and enter the following. Replace app_name with the name of your application as specified in its ProjectAppPlugin.

from timeline.models import ProjectEvent
ProjectEvent.objects.filter(app='app_name').delete()

Next you should delete existing database objects defined by the models in your app. This is also most easily done via the Django shell. Example:

from yourapp.models import YourModel
YourModel.objects.all().delete()

After the objects have been deleted, reset the database migrations of your application.

$ ./manage.py migrate yourapp zero

Once this has been executed successfully, you should delete the plugin object for your application. Returning to the Django shell, type the following:

from djangoplugins.models import Plugin
Plugin.objects.get(name='app_name').delete()

Finally, you should remove the references to the removed app in the Django configuration.

App dependency in config/settings/base.py:

LOCAL_APPS = [
# The app you are removing
'yourapp.apps.YourAppConfig',
# ...
]

App URL patterns in config/urls.py:

urlpatterns = [
    # Your app's URLs
    url(r'^yourapp/', include('yourapp.urls')),
    # ...
]

Once you have performed the aforementioned database operations and deployed a version of your Django site with the application dependency and URL patterns removed, the project app should be cleanly removed from your site.

TODO¶

Naming conventions
Examples of recurring template styles (e.g. forms)