Pyramid starter seed template powered by Yeoman (part 2)

In the previous blog post we have seen what are the benefits of using the Yeoman workflow fully integrated with a web development framework like Pyramid. See:

• http://davidemoro.blogspot.com/2014/09/pyramid-starter-seed-yeomam-part-1.html

Now we'll add more technical details about:

• how to install pyramid_starter_seed and its prerequisites

How to install pyramid_starter_seed

Prerequisites

As you can imagine, nodejs tools are required.

I strongly suggest to:

• avoid system packages because they are too old
• install nodejs with nvm (Node Version Manager)

I won't cover the nodejs installation but it is quite simple if you follow these instructions provided by this useful link:

• https://github.com/creationix/nvm

The nvm achronym stands for NodeJS Version Manager. Once installed nvm, installing nodejs it is as simple as typing nvm install VERSION (at this time of writing 0.10.32).

Nodejs is shipped with the command line utility named npm (Nodejs Package Manager) and we will use npm for installing what we need.

We need to install our global (-g option) dev dependencies, so just type:

$ npm install -g bower
$ npm install -g grunt-cli
$ npm install -g karma

Starter seed project installation

Create an isolated Python environment as explained in the official Pyramid documentation and instal Pyramid.

Once installed you can clone pyramid_starter_seed from github:

$ git clone git@github.com:davidemoro/pyramid_starter_seed.git
$ cd pyramid_starter_seed
$ YOUR_VIRTUALENV_PYTHON_PATH/bin/python setup.py develop

Not finished yet, continue.

Yeoman initialization

Go to the folder where it lives our Yeoman project and initialize it.

These are the standard commands (but, wait a moment, see the "Notes and known issues" subsection):

$ cd pyramid_starter_seed/webapp
$ bower install
$ npm install --loglevel verbose

Known issues:

• if you are behind a proxy you'll have to configure properly npm
• if you have a slow internet connection you might experience timeout problems.

Build phase

Just type:

$ grunt

and... probably it will fail because of a couple of known issues shipped with the latest version of generator-webapp or its dependencies.

Probably these issues will be fixed in newer generator-webapp releases. However here it is how to solve these problems, so don't worry:

1. grunt-contrib-imagemin fix
   Problem with grunt:
   

   Warning: Running "imagemin:dist" (imagemin) task
   Warning: Bad argument Use --force to continue.

   Solution:

   $ npm cache clean
   $ rm -fR node_modules       # not sure it is needed, don't remember
   $ npm install grunt-contrib-imagemin

2. Mocha/PhantomJS issue

Problem with Mocha/PhantomJS launching grunt

Warning: PhantomJS timed out, possibly due to a missing Mocha run() call. Use --force to continue.

Solution:

$ cd test
$ bower install

Run bower install in the test directory of webapp (pyramid_starter_seed/webapp/test). This is a known issue, see https://github.com/yeoman/generator-webapp/issues/446.

Run you Pyramid app

Now can choose to run Pyramid in development or production mode.
Just type:

$ YOUR_VIRTUALENV_PYTHON_PATH/bin/pserve development.ini

or:

$ YOUR_VIRTUALENV_PYTHON_PATH/bin/pserve production.ini

Done!

In the next blog post with topic Pyramid + Yeoman (coming soon) I'm going to talk about:

• how to manage things with grunt and personalize pyramid_starter_seed registering other assets
• how to clone pyramid_starter_seed. Yes, you can easily customize it creating something of more sophisticated and create your own starter seed with another name. Without having to write a package generator

 So stay tuned..

Links

• pyramid_starter_seed (github repo): https://github.com/davidemoro/pyramid_starter_seed
• part 1 (benefits of yeoman fully integrated with a web framework like Pyramid): http://davidemoro.blogspot.com/2014/09/pyramid-starter-seed-yeomam-part-1.html
• part 2 (how to install pyramid_starter_seed ant its prerequisites, this blog post) - http://davidemoro.blogspot.com/2014/09/pyramid-starter-seed-yeoman-part-2.html
• part 3 (how to manage things with grunt, personalize pyramid_starter_seed and create your own starter template) - http://davidemoro.blogspot.com/2014/09/pyramid-starter-seed-yeoman-part-3.html