State of SchoolTool

schooltool

What it is:

SchoolTool trunk is the most up to date, bleeding edge distribution of schooltool code. SchoolTool nightly eggs get built from it and include all of the core packages of schooltool (which is most of the schooltool code that is in trunk). It is tested by buildbot after every commit.

Where it is:

The code:

http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/schooltool

svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/trunk/schooltool

Buildbot:

http://source.schooltool.org/buildbot/

Nightly (more like every checkin’ly) releases:

http://ftp.schooltool.org/schooltool/releases/nightly/

Setting up:

Look at schooltool-buildout

Plans:

  • Split up into separate eggs. schooltool.gradebook going first, then if it goes well maybe everything else.

Overview:

This is the development trunk, which means that most of the new features appear in here. It breaks, API backwards compatibility gets broken sometimes, old databases become unusable, kittens get eaten. Don’t use it unless you want only to try it out. Never use it in production unless you are sure you can handle broken databases (and you can’t, trust me).

schooltool2007

What it is:

SchoolTool release branch. Release tarball gets packed from it. Debian packages are made from the code that is in there.

Where it is:

http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/branches/schooltool-2007/

svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/branches/schooltool-2007/

Setting up:

Look at schooltool-buildout

Plans:

  • Only bugfixes get backported to this branch. Some day soon stable debian packages will be built using PPA in launchpad.

Overview:

A test release. We didn’t make it in time for Gutsy. But still, as we had mostly everything set up, we are releasing the packages, even if just to test whether an Ubuntu release for schooltool is possible at all.

schooltool.devtools

What it is:

As we are moving from schooltool as a single package to schooltool as a set of eggs, I have started putting some utilities that should help developing schooltool eggs into a separate package.

Where it is:

https://code.launchpad.net/~ignas/schooltool/stdevtools

Setting up:

Look at schooltool-buildout

Plans:

  • Get rid of coverage_reports, start using z3c.coverage
  • Add a README.txt
  • Add some kind of description in setup.py
  • Add Paste templates for “schooltool extension” and “school setup” projects that would create a nice buildout for you to use thus making writing schooltool extensions as easy as: 
                easy_install schooltool.devtools

            make-schooltool-plugin plugin

            or

            make-school-setup myschool

Overview:

At the moment this package has these scripts:

  • runfdoctest – a very very nasty hack, that should in theory allow you to run a functional test, and then if it fails “rerun” the functional test without reloading all the Zope3 stuff.
  • i18nextract – a script that I am using to build “pot” files for schooltool and lyceum. As it is outside of schooltool it could be used to extract translation templates from any egg.
  • coverage_reports – a script that “transforms” ./test –coverage output into a set of browsable html files

schooltool.cas

What it is:

CAS authentication plugin for schooltool. CAS is a popular single-sign-on server.

Where it is:

https://code.launchpad.net/~ignas/schooltool-cas/schooltool.cas

Setting up:

  bzr get http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ignas/schooltool-cas/schooltool.cas

  cd schooltool.casmake

  make test

  make ftest

Plans:

  • Make it only check the password in the begining of the session.
  • Make it handle POST forms (now they do not work at all).
  • Make it handle POST forms when redirecting to login before the actual POST.
  • Add a zcml directive that sets it up with some specific CAS authentication server.
  • Add a way to configure it through schooltool.conf

Overview:

It kind of works already, but quite a lot of work needs to be done. It is not usable yet, but you can grasp the concept of how CAS works by looking at its internals.

schooltool.ldap

What it is:

LDAP authentication plugin for schooltool.

Where it is:

http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/schooltool.ldap/

svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/trunk/schooltool.ldap/

Setting up:

  svn co svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/branches/schooltool.ldap/

  cd schooltool.ldap

  makemake test

  make ftest

Plans:

  • Add bootstrap.py and Makefile so that instructions above would work.
  • I will work on schooltool.cas first anyway. As soon as I am done with schooltool.cas I will make schooltool.ldap work in a similar way, just using ldap server instead of CAS server.
  • Add a zcml configuration directive for setting up LDAP authentication.
  • Add a way to configure LDAP authentication through schooltool.conf.

Overview:

The code is more like a sketch. There is no way to functionaly test LDAP authentication. You can’t even set up LDAP authentication without changing the code of schooltool.ldap. A lot needs to be done to make this thing into a component. I will “stub” it into tizard school setup, just to make it “work”. But I would not suggest anyone to try using it before fixing it to be more reliable or waiting until I am done with CAS/schooltool authentication utility refactoring.

lyceum

What it is:

A “school setup” that is using schooltool but overriding some views and adding additional functionality specific to Vilnius Lyceum.

Where it is:

https://code.launchpad.net/~ignas/schooltool/lyceum

Setting up:

Look at lyceum-buildout

Plans:

  • Add more features and customizations to make it as usable for lyceum as possible.
  • Integrate with schooltool.cas to provide single sign on support.
  • Extract some code out of lyceum.journal and make a schooltool section attendance tracking package.

Overview:

A pilot “school setup” project so it is not perfect, but it works and is helping me to understand what things schools need from the point of schooltool custiomization. As it is running on unmodified schooltool trunk it shows areas of schooltool that need to be pluggable and allows for testing of different ways to extend a Zope3 application.

lyceum-buildout

What it is:

A buildout sandbox for lyceum developers. It allows me to easily work on lyceum and schooltool at the same time even though both of them are in separate repositories.

Where it is:

https://code.launchpad.net/~ignas/schooltool/lyceum-buildout

Setting up:

  bzr get https://code.launchpad.net/~ignas/schooltool/lyceum-buildout

  make

  make test

  make ftest

  make run

Plans:

  • Package up a tarball or create a separate bzr branch for a user sandbox (for people who don’t have commit access to schooltool or lyceum but still want to try out the bleeding edge version reliably)

Overview:

The whole thing works only on Linux. The benefit over a standard schooltool checkout is that such buildout sandbox is as isolated from system packages as possible, so there should not be any unexpected conflicts, because of packages installed on your system. And there should be no problems, because of missing python packages too.

tizard

What it is:

A “school setup” package for Ian Benson and Jens Vagelpohl

Where it is:

http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/tizard/

svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/trunk/tizard/

Setting up:

  svn co svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/trunk/tizard/

  cd tizard

  make run

Plans:

  • Help Ian and Jens to import all the data they have.

Overview:

As it depends on schooltool.ldap it depends on some python ldap packages that are quite easy to set up on your average Ubuntu system, but as we have moved to buildout – I had to “release” these packages as eggs so most of the breakages are related to these eggs becoming unavailable.

schooltool.jelkner2007

What it is:

A “school setup” package for Jeff Elkner.

Where it is:

http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/jelkner2007/

svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/trunk/jelkner2007/

Setting up:

Look at jelkner2007-buildout

Plans:

  • Make it a buildout sandbox by itself so that developers could manage only 1 checkout instead of 2.

Overview:

This school setup has gradebook and dashboard enabled by default and is being worked on by Alan Elkner.

jelkner2007-buildout

What it is:

A buildout sandbox for jelkner2007 school setup.

Where it is:

http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/jelkner2007-buildout/

svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/trunk/jelkner2007-buildout/

Setting up:

  svn co http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/jelkner2007-buildout/

  cd jelkner2007-buildout

  make run

Plans:

  • Some time in the future release jelkner2007 egg using buildbot so users would not have to deal with version control at all.

schooltool-buildout

What it is:

A buildout sandbox for schooltool.

Where it is:

http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/st-buildout/

svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/trunk/st-buildout

Setting up:

Users:
Nightly:

  wget http://ftp.schooltool.org/schooltool/buildout/schooltool-buildout.tar.gz

  tar -xvzf schooltool-buildout.tar.gz

  cd schooltool-buildout

  make run

Release:

  wget http://ftp.schooltool.org/schooltool/buildout/schooltool2007-buildout.tar.gz

  tar -xvzf schooltool2007-buildout.tar.gz

  cd schooltool2007-buildout

  make run
Developers:
Trunk:

  svn co http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/st-buildout/

  cd st-buildout

  make run

Release:

  svn co http://svn.schooltool.org/schooltool/trunk/st-buildout/

  cd st-buildout

  svn co svn+ssh://source.schooltool.org/svn/schooltool/branches/schooltool-2007/ schooltool

  make run

Plans:

  • Test, test, test and test some more.

Overview:

The right way of developing schooltool. Everyone should start switching their development sandboxes to this way of development. No one should be using schooltool trunk checkout without buildout, there are just too many problems with conflicting system eggs, you can’t work on schooltool extensions or school setups witohut buildout.

cando

What it is:

CanDo is a competency gradebook based on schooltool.

Where it is:

Don’t know what the definitive place is.

Setting up:

Don’t know what is the recomended way of setting up CanDo.

Plans:

Cando is using lxml which is a nice replacement for the usual libxml wrappers, but I have not been able to build lxml egg while having libxml built in buildout. I should fix it some time.

Overview:

  • At the momend CanDo is extending schooltool in an “ugly” way – it overrides make-schooltool-instance script and makes the script create CanDo instances. I would suggest doing it the way other “school setup’s” are – adding a school type entry point in setup.py and passing instance-type=cando or something like that in the makefile to create schooltool that is running with CanDo.

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