isabella232 / open_data_catalog

A Django web application to help cities easily create an open data catalog.

Open Data Catalog

A Django web application that can be used by cities to easily get an open data catalog up and running.

NOTE: This fork hasn't been touched since mid-2011. Instead, please visit:

https://github.com/azavea/Open-Data-Catalog

Setup Instructions

You should first make sure that you have git installed on your computer, so that you can clone the project.

$ git clone git://github.com/codeforamerica/open_data_catalog.git open_data_catalog
$ cd open_data_catalog

The next step is to make sure that you have both pip and virtualenv installed so you can setup and isolated environment.

$ sudo easy_install pip
$ pip install virtualenv

If you get errors from pip install virtualenv, you might need to run the command as superuser:

$ sudo pip install virtualenv

You can then set up your isolated environment independent of your system's currently installed Python modules.

$ virtualenv --no-site-packages env
$ source env/bin/activate

Next, pip can recursively install all the dependencies needed to get the Open Data Catalog up and running.

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Running the Open Data Catalog in development is then pretty simple:

$ python manage.py schemamigration data_catalog --init
$ python manage.py syncdb
$ python manage.py migrate data_catalog

You can then start up the development server.

$ python manage.py runserver

You should then be able to use your web browser to pull up the application on http://localhost:8000.

If you're looking to change the Open Data Catalog to use your city with the provided templates, then you simply need to edit the data_catalog/settings_city file. By replacing the CITY_NAME and CATALOG_URL variables, you can easily change the default locale of Boston to your specific location (for instance, the code below changes it to Tulsa).

CITY_NAME = 'Tulsa'
CATALOG_URL = 'opendatatulsa.org'

Creating the Search Index

In order to use Haystack for search, you'll need to run the following commands from the command line:

$ mkdir whoosh
$ python manage.py rebuild_index

This should create a new search index for your local catalog -- that way you can search for projects, apps, etc.

Restarting the Server

If you've closed your terminal -- and therefore killed the running server -- here's a quick couple steps to get back up running.

Make sure you cd into the open_data_catalog directory.

$ cd path/to/open_data_catalog

Now, we need to source our virtual environment again.

$ source env/bin/activate

And then we can run the server once again.

$ python manage.py runserver

Adding to the Models

If you need to add or take away from the models that you've already synced with your database (currently test.db) -- then you need to run the following commands to migrate the changes.

$ python manage.py schemamigration data_catalog --auto
$ python manage.py migrate data_catalog

Uploading to DotCloud

If you've already signed up for an account on DotCloud and installed the CLI -- pip install dotcloud -- then deploying your Open Data Catalog is pretty straightforward.

$ dotcloud create opendata
$ dotcloud push opendata .

You'll then need to make sure your database is synced properly.

$ dotcloud run opendata.www python current/manage.py syncdb
$ dotcloud run opendata.www python current/manage.py migrate

You should then be able to visit the URL returned from the previous dotcloud push command and see the Open Data Catalog running in development mode on DotCloud's servers.