Merengue community

[Ross Laird]

Hi;

I'm making the transition from a Rails-based website to a Django-based
setup, and I've been looking around at various Django CMS offerings.
So far, Merengue seems like an excellent candidate. However, I have a
question about the community: I am not a python programmer (I know CSS
and HTML very well, but that's the extent of my "programming"
knowledge), and I build my websites myself, so I am always running
into issues and challenges. Typically, I join the community for a
given application and ask newbie-type questions until I get things
sorted out. Is there such a community for Merengue, or is the
community mostly comprised of the developer group? I just worry a bit
that if I get into trouble I might become annoying to people in the
developer group by asking questions that are too simple.

Anyway, Merengue seems like a great application (I got it up and
running in about four minutes), and hopefully I can start to use it to
build my website.

[Manuel Saelices]

2012/1/25 Ross Laird <ro...@rosslaird.com>

Hi;

I'm making the transition from a Rails-based website to a Django-based
setup, and I've been looking around at various Django CMS offerings.
So far, Merengue seems like an excellent candidate.

Excellent. We are using Merengue in several sites and the 0.8 version is quite good. You can try it.
 

However, I have a
question about the community: I am not a python programmer (I know CSS
and HTML very well, but that's the extent of my "programming"
knowledge), and I build my websites myself, so I am always running
into issues and challenges. Typically, I join the community for a
given application and ask newbie-type questions until I get things
sorted out. Is there such a community for Merengue, or is the
community mostly comprised of the developer group? I just worry a bit
that if I get into trouble I might become annoying to people in the
developer group by asking questions that are too simple.

Currently the Merengue community has only a group both for developers and users. Don't worry about newbie questions.
 

Anyway, Merengue seems like a great application (I got it up and
running in about four minutes), and hopefully I can start to use it to
build my website.

You can ask here whatever you want.


Regards,
Manuel Saelices.

--

Manuel Saelices msae...@yaco.es Yaco Sistemas http://www.yaco.es/ C/ Rioja 5, 41004 Sevilla Móvil    +34 606 039 750 Teléfono +34 954 500 057 Fax      +34 954 500 929

[Ross Laird]

Thanks for the feedback.
The only issue I've experienced so far involves the plugins. I seem to
be having the same problem as described in ticket 2229 (http://
dev.merengueproject.org/ticket/2229). Any suggestions on how to fix
this?

Also (just a suggestion): the default intro page (at /) indicates that
the Sections area can be found by going to the main admin page ("Go to
the admin site and click in the sections link"), but I found, after
much head-scratching, that the sections area can only be accessed
through the "Django admin" link on the right side of the admin page.
So, maybe this text (and its links) should say something like this:
"Go to the main admin page, select the Django admin link at right, and
click through to the Sections area."

Again, Merengue seems very promising. Thanks for putting it together.

Ross

On Jan 26, 5:09 am, Manuel Saelices <msaeli...@yaco.es> wrote:
> 2012/1/25 Ross Laird <r...@rosslaird.com>

> Manuel Saelicesmsaeli...@yaco.es
>
> Yaco Sistemashttp://www.yaco.es/

[Ross Laird]

I should add that I have noticed there is a patch on the trac site for
this issue, but I have only patched things very infrequently, and
never in this type of environment, so I'm not sure how to apply the
patch (happy to try, though). If there are simple steps, feel free to
just send along a link and I can figure it out.

[Jesaja Everling]

Hi Ross,

I can confirm that the patch that akanouras attached to the ticket resolves the issue.
I just applied it manually, by opening merengue/pluggable/utils.py, and replacing line 70 with

    try:
        return urlresolvers.get_resolver(import_module(urlresolvers.get_urlconf(settings.ROOT_URLCONF)))
    except AttributeError:
        return urlresolvers.get_resolver(import_module(settings.ROOT_URLCONF))

As long as the identation is right, it should work.
If you don't want to apply the patch manually, you can execute "patch -p0 < 2229-01.diff" from the folder where the "merengue" directory is located in.
Great, now activating plugins finally works for me! :)

Best Regards,

Jesaja Everling

[Manuel Saelices]

2012/1/26 Ross Laird <ro...@rosslaird.com>

Thanks for the feedback.
The only issue I've experienced so far involves the plugins. I seem to
be having the same problem as described in ticket 2229 (http://
dev.merengueproject.org/ticket/2229). Any suggestions on how to fix
this?

I tried again to reproduce it and I cannot :( I can go to the /admin/pluggable/registeredplugin/register-new-plugins/ perfectly

Do you use any package besides Merengue dependencies? Maybe other Django application which changes the URLResolvers behaviour?

I'd like to understand the error before applying the patch.
 

Also (just a suggestion): the default intro page (at /) indicates that
the Sections area can be found by going to the main admin page ("Go to
the admin site and click in the sections link"), but I found, after
much head-scratching, that the sections area can only be accessed
through the "Django admin" link on the right side of the admin page.
So, maybe this text (and its links) should say something like this:
"Go to the main admin page, select the Django admin link at right, and
click through to the Sections area."

Mmm... the "sections link" is the same link as "browse by hierarchy" link which is found in the admin home.

The problem is that the text is obsolete. I have fixed it in http://dev.merengueproject.org/ticket/2295
 

Again, Merengue seems very promising. Thanks for putting it together.

Thank you for the report and the suggestion.

Regards,
Manuel Saelices
 

--

Manuel Saelices msae...@yaco.es Yaco Sistemas

[Jesaja Everling]

Hi Manuel,

I just installed merengue in a fresh VM, where nothing like Django was installed.
I didn't use virtualenv, and followed the documentation as closely as possible.
This is basically what I did:

easy_install merengue
merengue-admin.py startproject testproject
cd testproject/
vi settings.py (to update db settings)
python manage.py syncdb
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver

http://localhost:8000/admin/pluggable/registeredplugin/register-new-plugins/ raises "'module' object has no attribute 'startswith'"


There is another way that might work for you to reproduce the error.
If I execute "python manage.py register_new_plugins", and access the "Change registered plugin" page, this works for me.
For example this url:

http://localhost:8000/admin/pluggable/registeredplugin/40/

However, once I check "Installed" and click on save, the familiar "'module' object has no attribute 'startswith'" error pops up.
I honestly have no idea what leads to the error.
django.core.urlsresolvers.get_urlconf tries to look up the attribute "value" on a threadlocal object _urlconfs (and falls back to the urlconf-module, which is correct).
Maybe the object sometimes has a value attribute?
I hope you manage to reproduce the bug one way or the other.

Best Regards,

Jesaja Everling

[Ross Laird]

Thanks for all the help.
I have managed to apply the patch directly, using "patch" etc. (after
getting the indentation wrong when I tried to do it manually). I
received the message "patching file pluggable/utils.py," which I
assume means that the patch was applied correctly. But I am still
getting errors: both the "startswith" error mentioned above; and, when
I click on "Detect New Plugins," I get a second error of
"DoesNotExist" (at merengue/registry/managers.py in get_by_item_class,
line 109). Plugins do show up in the plugins list at /admin/#plugins,
but their urls lead to yet a third error (e.g. a 404 for admin/
plugins.standingout/).

I have installed Merengue on four different machines over the last day
(Mac Lion, and Ubuntu Oneiric x3), and I get this error on all of
them. However, I wonder if part of my difficulty might be that I am
sharing files across the machines, through Dropbox. I am using sqlite3
as the database, so on each of the machines I can run the server from
the Dropbox files that are shared across the machines. Could this be
part of the problem? (On the other hand, I already had this problem on
the first machine, before any sharing of files took place, so this is
probably not the issue...)

Manuel, I am not using anything "extra" with Merengue. I do have
various Django-related things on my machine, but these errors are
happening on vanilla installs. One more thing: "python manage.py
register_new_plugins" runs without errors.

Ross

On Jan 26, 11:59 am, Jesaja Everling <jeverl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Manuel,
>
> I just installed merengue in a fresh VM, where nothing like Django was
> installed.
> I didn't use virtualenv, and followed the documentation as closely as
> possible.
> This is basically what I did:
>
> easy_install merengue
> merengue-admin.py startproject testproject
> cd testproject/
> vi settings.py (to update db settings)
> python manage.py syncdb
> python manage.py migrate
> python manage.py runserver
>

> http://localhost:8000/admin/pluggable/registeredplugin/register-new-p...

> "'module' object has no attribute 'startswith'"
>
> There is another way that might work for you to reproduce the error.
> If I execute "python manage.py register_new_plugins", and access the
> "Change registered plugin" page, this works for me.
> For example this url:
>
> http://localhost:8000/admin/pluggable/registeredplugin/40/
>
> However, once I check "Installed" and click on save, the familiar "'module'
> object has no attribute 'startswith'" error pops up.
> I honestly have no idea what leads to the error.
> django.core.urlsresolvers.get_urlconf tries to look up the attribute
> "value" on a threadlocal object _urlconfs (and falls back to the
> urlconf-module, which is correct).
> Maybe the object sometimes has a value attribute?
> I hope you manage to reproduce the bug one way or the other.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Jesaja Everling
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 6:37 PM, Manuel Saelices <msaeli...@yaco.es> wrote:
>
> > 2012/1/26 Ross Laird <r...@rosslaird.com>

> > Manuel Saelicesmsaeli...@yaco.es

[Jesaja Everling]

If only "patching file" was printed, this should mean that the patch
was applied successfully.
You can just open the file and check if line 70 has been replaced by
the try: except: block.

That you continue to experience the bug could be due to another
(unpatched) merengue installation in your Python path, that is used
instead of the one that has been linked to from your project folder by
"merengue-admin.py startproject".
I would search for "merengue", and check if more than one folder comes up.
A great way in python to have separate environments for different
projects is virtualenv. It lets you create different virtual python
environments for different projects, which means that you can work
with different versions of packages without them interfering.
http://virtualenv.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html#virtualenv

You can create a new environment using:
"virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute your_virtual_env"

--no-site-packages is now the default behaviour, but I would just type
it anyway to make sure no packages from your normal, global python
install are used.
--distribute is a replacement for python_setuptools, and most people
recommend using it.

You can now activate the environment by typing "source
your_virtual_env/bin/activate".
To install merengue, all you have to do now is to type "pip install -E
/full/path/to/your_virtual_env merengue"

The -E switch is important, because it's telling pip that you want to
install into a virtual environment, and not globally.
Alternatively, you can set an environment variable that tells pip to
respect virtualenvs: export PIP_RESPECT_VIRTUALENV=true
I do this in my ~/.bashrc, so I don't have to remember it and can just
do pip install.
http://charlesleifer.com/blog/using-virtualenv-pip-and-django-site-gen-to-quickly-start-new-django-projects/

There is also virtualenvwrapper, which makes working with multiple
virtual environments easier.
http://www.doughellmann.com/projects/virtualenvwrapper/

I highly recommend starting to use virtualenv for python programming,
it makes a lot of things much easier.

Best Regards,

Jesaja Everling

[Ross Laird]

Thanks very much for the detailed feedback.
Your assessment of my ongoing situation seems totally correct. In
fact, I did see some type of message about a duplicate path problem
yesterday, when I started Merengue on my Mac. I will have to make sure
to correct this. Actually I have been playing around with virtualenv,
and two of the four Merengue installs from the last few days were
created using virtualenv.

And yes, I did inspect the patched file, and the patch was applied
correctly. So maybe what I'll do is just remove the various Merengue
projects that I've created and start again with a fresh virtualenv
setup. Then, I'll re-apply the patch. That should do it. I'll be able
to get to this later today, hopefully, and will report back if I have
any other issues.

Thanks again for the help.

Ross

On Jan 27, 4:01 am, Jesaja Everling <jeverl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If only "patching file" was printed, this should mean that the patch
> was applied successfully.
> You can just open the file and check if line 70 has been replaced by
> the try: except: block.
>
> That you continue to experience the bug could be due to another
> (unpatched) merengue installation in your Python path, that is used
> instead of the one that has been linked to from your project folder by
> "merengue-admin.py startproject".
> I would search for "merengue", and check if more than one folder comes up.
> A great way in python to have separate environments for different
> projects is virtualenv. It lets you create different virtual python
> environments for different projects, which means that you can work

> with different versions of packages without them interfering.http://virtualenv.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html#virtualenv

>
> You can create a new environment using:
> "virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute your_virtual_env"
>
> --no-site-packages is now the default behaviour, but I would just type
> it anyway to make sure no packages from your normal, global python
> install are used.
> --distribute is a replacement for python_setuptools, and most people
> recommend using it.
>
> You can now activate the environment by typing "source
> your_virtual_env/bin/activate".
> To install merengue, all you have to do now is to type "pip install -E
> /full/path/to/your_virtual_env merengue"
>
> The -E switch is important, because it's telling pip that you want to
> install into a virtual environment, and not globally.
> Alternatively, you can set an environment variable that tells pip to
> respect virtualenvs: export PIP_RESPECT_VIRTUALENV=true
> I do this in my ~/.bashrc, so I don't have to remember it and can just

> do pip install.http://charlesleifer.com/blog/using-virtualenv-pip-and-django-site-ge...

>
> There is also virtualenvwrapper, which makes working with multiple

> virtual environments easier.http://www.doughellmann.com/projects/virtualenvwrapper/

[Manuel Saelices]

I've tried again to reproduce the error with unsuccessfully :(

But, I'm sure the bug exists because your feedback, and I have applied the patch both in trunk/ and 0.8.X branch.

Thank you!

2012/1/27 Ross Laird <ro...@rosslaird.com>

--

Manuel Saelices msae...@yaco.es

[Mario Menezes]

Hi Manuel,

  Could you kindly put a notice on Merengue documentation regarding this bug. It's now the third time I'm trying to install Merengue and only this time I could find this patch as well as the instruction to use the register_new_plugins.

  Puting a text on Docs could save newcomers precious time trying to figure out what it's going on.

  Thanks.

Mario O. de Menezes

Em terça-feira, 13 de março de 2012 06h06min49s UTC-3, Manuel Saelices escreveu:

I've tried again to reproduce the error with unsuccessfully :(

But, I'm sure the bug exists because your feedback, and I have applied the patch both in trunk/ and 0.8.X branch.

Thank you!

2012/1/27 Ross Laird

Thanks very much for the detailed feedback.

Your assessment of my ongoing situation seems totally correct. In
fact, I did see some type of message about a duplicate path problem
yesterday, when I started Merengue on my Mac. I will have to make sure
to correct this. Actually I have been playing around with virtualenv,
and two of the four Merengue installs from the last few days were
created using virtualenv.

And yes, I did inspect the patched file, and the patch was applied
correctly. So maybe what I'll do is just remove the various Merengue
projects that I've created and start again with a fresh virtualenv
setup. Then, I'll re-apply the patch. That should do it. I'll be able
to get to this later today, hopefully, and will report back if I have
any other issues.

Thanks again for the help.

Ross

On Jan 27, 4:01 am, Jesaja Everling wrote:

[Manuel Saelices]

Hi,

You are right. The thing was I couldn't reproduce the error and find out its origin. But two days ago I've applied the patch both in trunk/ and the 0.8.X branch.

Now I've published a new 0.8.1 version which fix the problem:

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/merengue/0.8.1

Thank you.

2012/3/14 Mario Menezes <mo.me...@gmail.com>

--

Manuel Saelices msae...@yaco.es