Introduction

HappyFlask is a hackathon project built for the purpose of learning about Flask and Python web development.

Installation Guide

These instructions aim to be more specific than those provide with the original boilerplate. These instructions were used for installing and setting up the website on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS.

Install the dependencies

Fork and clone the repository or simply clone it from the MLH github page.

git clone https://github.com/MLH/mlh-hackathon-flask-starter.git
cd mlh-hackathon-flask-starter

Install miniconda3. Download and run the .sh installer as sudo.
Create and activate a Conda environment with Python 3.6. NOTE: Python 3.8 will not build with the given list of dependencies.
```
conda create -n hackenv python=3.6
conda activate hackenv
```
Install the Python dependencies, located in requirements.txt. Make sure the correct pip is being used to install the dependencies.
```
which pip            
~/.conda/envs/hackenv/bin/pip
pip install -r requirements.txt
```
Install PostgreSQL.
```
sudo apt install postgresql
```

Check that the Postgres service has started, otherwise start it up.

systemctl status postgresql.service
sudo systemctl start postgresql.service

Setup the Postgres database

sudo -i -u postgres
psql
CREATE DATABASE happyflask;
CREATE USER test;
ALTER USER test WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'password-goes-here';
\q
exit

You need to be able to connect to a database either on your own computer (locally) or through a hosted database. You can install Postgres locally and connect to it to provide the database for your app.

You will need to know the connection URL for your application which we will call DATABASE_URL in your environment variables. Here is an example:

postgresql://localhost:5432/happyflask

Note: to get the connection working, I needed to create a new user and add their authentication to my .env file. Here is the format that worked:

postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/database_name

Create an OAuth App on GitHub

Note: the default port for Flask apps is 5000. Make sure to update the port when outside of localhost.

Go to GitHub OAuth apps and create a new OAuth app.
Choose a name for the app.
Specify a Homepage URL (the access point for the app). I used the access URL: http://localhost:5000/.
Specify a callback URL: http://localhost:5000/auth/callback/github.
A Client ID should be visible for the OAuth App. Click the Generate a new client secret button to generate the respective client secret key and copy it to the clipboard. Leave the browser window open until the next steps are completed to avoid losing access to the secret key.

Update environment variables and run the server

Make a copy of .env.example called .env.
Update the .env file with the GitHub credentials:
```
DATABASE_URL="[INSERT_DATABASE_URL]"
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID="[INSERT_CLIENT_ID]"
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET="[INSERT_CLIENT_SECRET]"
```
You replace the GitHub credentials here and update the database URL. Learn more about the required Environment Variables here.
Start the development server:
```
flask run
```
Open (http://localhost:5000)[] to view it in your browser. The app will automatically reload if you make changes to the code. You will see the build errors and warnings in the console.