doc/book/en/tutorials/base/create-cube.rst
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+.. -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
+.. _Steps:
+
+Steps for creating your cube
+----------------------------
+
+The following steps will help you to create and customize a new cube.
+
+1. :ref:`CreateYourCube`
+
+Create the directory to hold the code of your cube. The most important
+files that will be useful to customize your newly created cube are:
+
+  * schema.py: contains the data model
+  * views.py: contains your custom views
+  * entities.py: contains XXX
+
+The detailed structure of the code directory is described in :ref:`cubelayout`.
+
+2. :ref:`DefineDataModel`
+
+Define the data model of your application.
+
+3. :ref:`ExploreYourInstance`
+
+Create, run, and explore an instance of your cube.
+
+4. :ref:`DefineViews`
+
+Customize the views of your data: how and which part of your data are showed.
+
+Note: views don't concern the look'n'feel or design of the site. For that, you should use CSS instead, and default CSS or your new cube are located in 'blog/data/'.
+
+
+5. :ref:`DefineEntities`
+
+Define your own entities to add useful functions when you manipulate your data, especially when you write view.
+
+
+.. _CreateYourCube:
+
+Create your cube
+----------------
+
+The packages ``cubicweb`` and ``cubicweb-dev`` install a command line
+tool for *CubicWeb* called ``cubicweb-ctl``. This tool provides a wide
+range of commands described in details in :ref:`cubicweb-ctl`.
+
+Once your *CubicWeb* development environment is set up, you can create
+a new cube::
+
+  cubicweb-ctl newcube blog
+
+This will create in the cubes directory (``/path/to/forest/cubes`` for Mercurial
+installation, ``/usr/share/cubicweb/cubes`` for debian packages installation)
+a directory named ``blog`` reflecting the structure described in :ref:`Concepts`.
+
+
+For packages installation, you can still create new cubes in your home directory using the following configuration. Let's say you want to develop your new cubes in `~src/cubes`, then set the following environment variables:
+::
+
+  CW_CUBES_PATH=~/src/cubes
+  CW_MODE=user
+
+and then create your new cube using:
+::
+
+  cubicweb-ctl newcube --directory=~/src/cubes blog
+
+
+
+
+
+
+.. _DefineDataModel:
+
+Define your data model
+----------------------
+
+The data model or schema is the core of your *CubicWeb* application.
+It defines the type of content your application will handle.
+
+The data model of your cube ``blog`` is defined in the file ``schema.py``:
+
+.. sourcecode:: python
+
+  from yams.buildobjs import EntityType, String, SubjectRelation, Date
+
+  class Blog(EntityType):
+    title = String(maxsize=50, required=True)
+    description = String()
+
+  class BlogEntry(EntityType):
+    title = String(required=True, fulltextindexed=True, maxsize=256)
+    publish_date = Date(default='TODAY')
+    content = String(required=True, fulltextindexed=True)
+    entry_of = SubjectRelation('Blog', cardinality='?*')
+
+The first step is the import of the EntityType (generic class for entity and
+attributes that will be used in both Blog and BlogEntry entities.
+
+A Blog has a title and a description. The title is a string that is
+required and must be less than 50 characters.  The
+description is a string that is not constrained.
+
+A BlogEntry has a title, a publish_date and a content. The title is a
+string that is required and must be less than 100 characters. The
+publish_date is a Date with a default value of TODAY, meaning that
+when a BlogEntry is created, its publish_date will be the current day
+unless it is modified. The content is a string that will be indexed in
+the database full-text index and has no constraint.
+
+A BlogEntry also has a relationship ``entry_of`` that links it to a
+Blog. The cardinality ``?*`` means that a BlogEntry can be part of
+zero or one Blog (``?`` means `zero or one`) and that a Blog can
+have any number of BlogEntry (``*`` means `any number including
+zero`). For completeness, remember that ``+`` means `one or more`.
+
+
+.. _ExploreYourInstance:
+
+Create and explore your instance
+--------------------------------
+.. _CreateYourInstance:
+
+Create your instance
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+To use this cube as an instance and create a new instance named ``blogdemo``, do::
+
+  cubicweb-ctl create blog blogdemo
+
+This command will create the corresponding database and initialize it.
+
+
+.. _WelcomeToYourWebInstance:
+
+Welcome to your web instance
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Start your instance in debug mode with the following command: ::
+
+  cubicweb-ctl start -D blogdemo
+
+
+You can now access your web instance to create blogs and post messages
+by visiting the URL http://localhost:8080/.
+
+A login form will appear. By default, the instance will not allow anonymous
+users to enter the instance. To login, you need then use the admin account
+you created at the time you initialized the database with ``cubicweb-ctl
+create``.
+
+.. image:: ../../images/login-form.png
+
+
+Once authenticated, you can start playing with your instance
+and create entities.
+
+.. image:: ../../images/blog-demo-first-page.png
+
+Please notice that so far, the *CubicWeb* framework managed all aspects of
+the web application based on the schema provided at the beginning.
+
+.. _AddEntities:
+
+Add entities
+~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+We will now add entities in our web application.
+
+Add a Blog
+**********
+
+Let us create a few of these entities. Click on the `[+]` at the left of the
+link Blog on the home page. Call this new Blog ``Tech-blog`` and type in
+``everything about technology`` as the description, then validate the form by
+clicking on ``Validate``.
+
+.. image:: ../../images/cbw-create-blog.en.png
+   :alt: from to create blog
+
+Click on the logo at top left to get back to the home page, then
+follow the Blog link that will list for you all the existing Blog.
+You should be seeing a list with a single item ``Tech-blog`` you
+just created.
+
+.. image:: ../../images/cbw-list-one-blog.en.png
+   :alt: displaying a list of a single blog
+
+Clicking on this item will get you to its detailed description except
+that in this case, there is not much to display besides the name and
+the phrase ``everything about technology``.
+
+Now get back to the home page by clicking on the top-left logo, then
+create a new Blog called ``MyLife`` and get back to the home page
+again to follow the Blog link for the second time. The list now
+has two items.
+
+.. image:: ../../images/cbw-list-two-blog.en.png
+   :alt: displaying a list of two blogs
+
+Add a BlogEntry
+***************
+
+Get back to the home page and click on [+] at the left of the link
+BlogEntry. Call this new entry ``Hello World`` and type in some text
+before clicking on ``Validate``. You added a new blog entry without
+saying to what blog it belongs. There is a box on the left entitled
+``actions``, click on the menu item ``modify``. You are back to the form
+to edit the blog entry you just created, except that the form now has
+another section with a combobox titled ``add relation``. Chose
+``entry_of`` in this menu and a second combobox appears where you pick
+``MyLife``.
+
+You could also have, at the time you started to fill the form for a
+new entity BlogEntry, hit ``Apply`` instead of ``Validate`` and the
+combobox titled ``add relation`` would have showed up.
+
+
+.. image:: ../../images/cbw-add-relation-entryof.en.png
+   :alt: editing a blog entry to add a relation to a blog
+
+Validate the changes by clicking ``Validate``. The entity BlogEntry
+that is displayed now includes a link to the entity Blog named
+``MyLife``.
+
+.. image:: ../../images/cbw-detail-one-blogentry.en.png
+   :alt: displaying the detailed view of a blogentry
+
+Note that all of this was handled by the framework and that the only input
+that was provided so far is the schema. To get a graphical view of the schema,
+point your browser to the URL http://localhost:8080/schema
+
+.. image:: ../../images/cbw-schema.en.png
+   :alt: graphical view of the schema (aka data-model)
+
+
+.. _DefineViews:
+
+Define your entity views
+------------------------
+
+Each entity defined in a model is associated with default views
+allowing different renderings of the data. You can redefine each of
+them according to your needs and preferences. So let's see how the
+views are defined.
+
+
+The view selection principle
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+A view is defined by a Python class which includes:
+
+  - an identifier (all objects in *CubicWeb* are recorded in a
+    registry and this identifier will be used as a key)
+
+  - a filter to select the result sets it can be applied to
+
+A view has a set of methods complying with the `View` class interface
+(`cubicweb.common.view`).
+
+*CubicWeb* provides a lot of standard views for the type `EntityView`;
+for a complete list, read the code in directory ``cubicweb/web/views/``.
+
+A view is applied on a `result set` which contains a set of entities
+we are trying to display. *CubicWeb* uses a selector mechanism which
+computes for each available view a score: the view with the highest
+score is then used to display the given `result set`.  The standard
+library of selectors is in ``cubicweb.selector``.
+
+It is possible to define multiple views for the same identifier
+and to associate selectors and filters to allow the application
+to find the most appropriate way to render the data.
+
+For example, the view named ``primary`` is the one used to display a
+single entity. We will now show you how to create a primary view for
+BlogEntry.
+
+
+Primary view customization
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+If you wish to modify the way a `BlogEntry` is rendered, you will have
+to subclass the `primary` view, for instance in the module ``views``
+of the cube ``cubes/blog/views.py``.
+
+The standard primary view is the most sophisticated view of all. It
+has more than a call() method. It is a template. Actually the entry
+point calls the following sequence of (redefinable) methods:
+
+ * render_entity_title
+
+ * render_entity_metadata
+
+ * render_entity_attributes
+
+ * render_entity_relations
+
+ * render_side_boxes
+
+Excepted side boxes, we can see all of them already in action in the
+blog entry view. This is all described in more details in
+:ref:`primary`.
+
+We can for example add in front of the publication date a prefix
+specifying that the date we see is the publication date.
+
+To do so, please apply the following changes:
+
+.. sourcecode:: python
+
+  from cubicweb.selectors import implements
+  from cubicweb.web.views import primary
+
+  class BlogEntryPrimaryView(primary.PrimaryView):
+      __select__ = implements('BlogEntry')
+
+      def render_entity_attributes(self, entity):
+          self.w(u'<p>published on %s</p>' %
+                 entity.publish_date.strftime('%Y-%m-%d'))
+          super(BlogEntryPrimaryView, self).render_entity_attributes(entity)
+
+.. note::
+  When a view is modified, it is not required to restart the instance
+  server. Save the Python file and reload the page in your web browser
+  to view the changes.
+
+You can now see that the publication date has a prefix.
+
+.. image:: ../../images/cbw-update-primary-view.en.png
+   :alt: modified primary view
+
+
+The above source code defines a new primary view for ``BlogEntry``.
+
+Since views are applied to result sets and result sets can be tables of
+data, we have to recover the entity from its (row,col)-coordinates.
+The view has a ``self.w()`` method that is used to output data, in our
+example HTML output.
+
+.. note::
+   You can find more details about views and selectors in :ref:`Views`.
+
+
+.. _DefineEntities:
+
+Write entities to add logic in your data
+----------------------------------------
+
+By default, CubicWeb provides a default entity for each data type defined in the schema.
+A default entity mainly contains the attributes defined in the data model.
+
+You can redefine each entity to provide additional functions to help you write your views.
+
+.. sourcecode:: python
+
+    from cubicweb.entities import AnyEntity
+
+    class BlogEntry(AnyEntity):
+        """customized class for BlogEntry entities"""
+    	__regid__ = 'BlogEntry'
+    	__implements__ = AnyEntity.__implements__
+
+        def display_cw_logo(self):
+            if 'CW' in self.title:
+                return True
+            else:
+                return False
+
+Customizing an entity requires that your entity:
+ - inherits from ``cubicweb.entities`` or any subclass
+ - defines a ``__regid__`` linked to the corresponding data type of your schema
+ - implements the base class by explicitly using ``__implements__``.
+
+We implemented here a function ``display_cw_logo`` which tests if the blog entry title contains 'CW'.
+This function can then be used when you customize your views. For instance, you can modify your previous ``views.py`` as follows:
+
+.. sourcecode:: python
+
+ class BlogEntryPrimaryView(primary.PrimaryView):
+     __select__ = implements('BlogEntry')
+
+     ...
+
+     def render_entity_title(self, entity):
+	 if entity.display_cw_logo():
+	     self.w(u'<image src="http://www.cubicweb.org/doc/en/_static/cubicweb.png"/>')
+	 super(BlogEntryPrimaryView, self).render_entity_title(entity)
+
+Then each blog entry whose title contains 'CW' is shown with the CubicWeb logo in front of it.
+
+.. _UpdatingSchemaAndSynchronisingInstance:
+
+Updating the schema and synchronising the instance
+--------------------------------------------------
+
+While developping your cube, you may want to update your data model. Let's say you
+want to add a ``category`` attribute in the ``Blog`` data type. This is called a migration.
+
+The required steps are:
+1. modify the file ``schema.py``. The ``Blog`` class looks now like this:
+
+.. sourcecode:: python
+
+ class Blog(EntityType):
+   title = String(maxsize=50, required=True)
+   description = String()
+   category = String(required=True, vocabulary=(_('Professional'), _('Personal')), default='Personal')
+
+2. stop your ``blogdemo`` instance
+
+3. start the cubicweb shell for your instance by running the following command:
+
+.. sourcecode:: bash
+
+  cubicweb-ctl shell blogdemo
+
+4. in the shell, execute:
+
+.. sourcecode:: python
+
+ add_attribute('Blog', 'category')
+
+5. you can restart your instance, modify a blog entity and check that the new attribute
+``category`` has been added.
+
+Of course, you may also want to add relations, entity types, ... See :ref:`migration`
+for a list of all available migration commands.
+