CoGs Leaderboard Server

Aims to be a website that can manage TrueSkill based leaderboards for game players of any kind.

Basics:

• The CoGs webserver is written in python3 using the Django web framework.
• I use the Eclipse IDE with PyDev (LiClipse bundles this too) and while there are plenty of other options I can recommend it because:
  • Pretty awesome visual debugging. Can set breakpoints and examine all internals.
  • Pretty nice code collapse and outline features in its editor
  • Platform independent (runs on Linux and Windows). In fact I started development on Windows and moved to Linux.
  • Supports inline task management TODO comments appearing as tasks in a task list. I love that.
  • It's free, free, free, not freemium - no features you'll run into that suddenly throw up a paywall.
  • Which is all I'm after really ;-).
• This is a very incomplete project with much learning going on. Contributions are welcome.
• I wrote a generic django extensions module (django-rich-views) that needs tidy up and documentation as time permits:
  • Django had awesome generic forms, but total lack of generic detail views I wanted some for easy generic display of individual records
  • Django does not supply in the context, any information on related objects. I implemented a system for doing that - for the Session form in particular, introducing the idea of a rich object, one that only makes sense as a small family of related objects. Here, the Session is such an object, it only makes sense along with Game, Location, Rank and Performance objects and Player possibly Team objects as well. A session has no real meaning outside of this little family of objects for a single game Session.
  • Once it's tidy and well documented it could be a community contrib to Django I suspect.

How to build a site like CoGs

Great site describes it here:

​ http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/reference/create-a-django-python-project-with-pydev.html

But read that only if you get stuck I guess following the steps below. I've tried to be complete but it can be improved with each new effort. So if you're starting out, note anything that you would improve below, and improve it - or ask me to!

How to build the CoGs site

1. Install needed dependencies, in a venv ideally. What follows is a Linux based approach (Windows will be different and if someone wants to write up a Windows set of steps please do) and makes two key assumption you need to modify as you desire:

   1. That you want to store you venvs in ~/.virtual-envs. A totally arbitrary subsumption to illustrate the steps and just where I happen to keep mine. You can keep yours wherever you like, just replace ~/.virtual-envs with a directory you want to home for your venvs.
   2. That you house your development projects in ~/workspace. Again, you can keep them wherever you like, bust just substitute ~/workspace with the directory you choose to call home for your development projects.

   # Get the basic together
   sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-venv postgresql pgadmin4 git
   
   # Create an activate a venv
   mkdir ~/.virtualenvs # if necessary
   python3 -m venv ~/.virtualenvs/CoGs
   source ~/.virtualenvs/CoGs/bin/activate
   
   # Prep the venv for use
   pip install --upgrade pip
   pip install wheel
   
   # Get the CoGs code base (because we need requirements.txt which describes the Pyhton packages we'll need)
   mkdir ~/workspace # if necessary
   cd ~/workspace
   git clone https://github.com/bernd-wechner/CoGs.git # Or Fork on GitHub first and clone your repo (better)
   
   # Install the requirements
   pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Install Eclipse and Pydev

   Recommend avoiding the ubuntu package and just going straight to https://www.eclipse.org and get the latest Eclipse from there.

   Then install PyDev from within Eclipse by adding these repositories:
   pydev - http://pydev.org/updates Django Template Editor - http://eclipse.kacprzak.org/updates

   I had enormous troubles getting PyDev to work from the ubuntu repositories and the PyDev support guys suggested the above which worked a breeze.

   Now load the project in Eclipse:

   1. Work out where you want it to live. On a Linux system I'd recommend ~/workspace (if in 1. above you set one up use that)
   2. If you didn't already (in step 1. above) fetch it from github with: git clone https://github.com/bernd-wechner/CoGs.git (or fork on github and clone your repo which is generally better) and
   3. Open the Eclipse project file in Eclipse (TODO: Work out how to do that and update this!)

3. Seed your database

   I want to find a way to do this in a simple command but in the mean time.

   Database tips:

   • In pgAdmin4 a user is called a Role.
   • Create a new Role "CoGs" (i.e. a login).

   • Make sure you can log in to the database. That is edit the file: pg_hba.conf It migth be in /var/lib/pgsql/data or /etc/postgresql/vv/main where vv is the postgresql version.

     And make sure the connection METHOD for local is "md5" not "peer".

     Peer authentication will mean you're always trying to login with your account name, but CoGs uses the CoGs user, and you want to be able to log in as the CoGs user by providing a username and password.

     Restart the postgresql server after editing it with: service postgresql restart

   Export data was done with:

   python3 manage.py dumpdata --format xml --indent 4 > data.xml
   python3 manage.py dumpdata --format json --indent 4 > data.json
   python3 manage.py dumpdata --format yaml --indent 4 > data.yaml

   Just to get all possible formats for the heck of it. Only need one.

   Import data is then done with:

   python3 manage.py loaddata <file>
   
   where <file> is one of the three files I dumped with dumpdata. 

   That should see you with a seeded database.

4. Try it out

   5. Open the CoGs project in Eclipse

   6. Right click the project then click Debug As... then PyDev: Django

   7. In your Console panel you should see something like:

   Performing system checks...
   
   System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
   December 05, 2016 - 11:52:55
   Django version 1.10.1, using settings 'CoGs.settings'
   Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
   Quit the server with CONTROL-C.

   4. In your favourite web browser open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ and play around.

Now dive in ...

Some Database documentation tips

Two tools I've used:

postgresql_autodoc

sudo apt install postgresql-autodoc
postgresql_autodoc -d CoGs -u CoGs --password=ManyTeeth

Had login problems and had to fix var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf making local connections use md5 connection method.

This produces CoGs.dia and Cogs.dot which you need dia to view:

sudo apt install dia
sudo apt install xdot   

Alas the dia file seems to have all tables coincident though neatly moverable yet I can't find a cool layout option. The dot file is well laid out. Butit proves to be large and so schemaSpy produces a more navigable result.

schemaSpy downloaded schemaSpy from: https://sourceforge.net/projects/schemaspy/ Installed the file:

mv schemaSpy_5.0.0.jar ~/bin/schemaSpy
chmod +x ~/bin/schemaSpy

downloaded the Java postgresql driver from: https://jdbc.postgresql.org/download.html

Installed the file:

sudo mv postgresql-9.4.1211.jar /usr/share/java

ran schemaSpy in my Doc folder:

schemaSpy -t pgsql -cp /usr/share/java/postgresql-9.4.1211.jar -host localhost -db CoGs -s public -u CoGs -p ManyTeeth -o .

Produces a rich documentation site under index.html including a better schema diagram, but you cna't move things around, it's well layed out but fixed in place.

You can click on any table and get a cool relative view though. And if you install xdot can view the .dot files.