Integration with Postorius, etc

[Adam Clark]

I'm trying to build a Mailman 3 front-end, integrating Postorius and HyperKitty into
an existing Django system.  I'm assuming from the docs and various components of
HyperKitty (eg. the postorius_info context processor) that this is an anticipated use
case, but it seems unnecessarily difficult.

I suppose the first question is whether this is wholly premature.  I realize that all
these components are still in beta, but on their own they seem relatively full-featured so
it doesn't seem like a stretch to try to stitch them together, but perhaps there was
some decision to punt all the integration to some later stage of development.  (Or perhaps
these really aren't meant to be integrated at all?)

Anyway, a few of the things I've run into:

- HyperKitty uses the top-level template directory (eg. it has a templates/base.html
file), which is generally reserved for site-level templates.
- HyperKitty's base templates aren't broken up into blocks in such a way that they
can easily be used to extend a different base template.  The base template defines both
the overall page structure and various HyperKitty components, so it's impossible to,
say, modify the navigation bar without replicating a large chunk of HyperKitty stuff.
- Both HyperKitty and Postorius have independent user profile systems, but both are set up
to use global user settings like LOGIN_URL.  The result is that one or the other is
generally invisible and unnavigable.  
- Moreover, both apps use the same view names in places.  For example, the HyperKitty
user_profile page loads Ajax content from the "user_subscriptions" view, but
Postorius defines its own "user_subscriptions" view that returns a full page. 
The result is that if the main urls.py includes Postorius URLs after HyperKitty URLs, the
HyperKitty subscriptions tab tries to load the Postorius page via Ajax and fails.
- Postorius uses BrowserID authentication through social_auth, while HyperKitty includes a
separate browser_id library
- Both connect to the Mailman API in the same way, but using different settings names
(HyperKitty uses MAILMAN_REST_SERVER/MAILMAN_API_USER/MAILMAN_API_PASS, while Postorius
uses MAILMAN_API_URL/MAILMAN_USER/MAILMAN_PASS).

I was hoping to get a sense of the big picture here before either filing a bunch of
tickets or working on a pull request to try to address some of these.

Thanks
Adam

[Aurelien Bompard]

Hello Adam,
Thanks for your interest in HyperKitty / Postorius!
We do want to offer a way to run HyperKitty alongside Postorius in the same
Django system, and we want it to be as easy as possible, so your comments
are very welcome.


- HyperKitty uses the top-level template directory (eg. it has a
>  templates/base.html file), which is generally reserved for
> site-level
>  templates.
>  - HyperKitty's base templates aren't broken up into blocks in such a way
>  that they can easily be used to extend a different base template.  The base
>  template defines both the overall page structure and various HyperKitty
>  components, so it's impossible to, say, modify the navigation bar without
>  replicating a large chunk of HyperKitty stuff.
>  
I am not very familiar with Django conventions, so please feel free to
point me to the right direction. Pull requests are even more appreciated!


>  - Moreover, both apps use the same view names in places.  For
> example, the
>  HyperKitty user_profile page loads Ajax content from the
>  "user_subscriptions" view, but Postorius defines its own
>  "user_subscriptions" view that returns a full page.  The result is that if
>  the main urls.py includes Postorius URLs after HyperKitty URLs, the
>  HyperKitty subscriptions tab tries to load the Postorius page via Ajax and
>  fails.
>  
Do you recommend prefixing the view names?


>  - Postorius uses BrowserID authentication through social_auth, while
>  HyperKitty includes a separate browser_id library
>  
Yes, we are both migrating to the separate browser_id library, for security
reasons.


>  I was hoping to get a sense of the big picture here before either
> filing a
>  bunch of tickets or working on a pull request to try to address some of
>  these.
>  
Thanks a lot for your comments and your help!

Aurélien

[Aurelien Bompard]

Oh, one thing I forgot to add. I have developed a script / setup system to
make a fresh install of mailman + postorius + hyperkitty, all configured to
run together. It's called mailman-bundler, you can find the doc here: <
http://mailman-bundler.readthedocs.org> and the code here: <
https://launchpad.net/mailman-bundler
> . 
The
Django settings files I use are viewable here: <
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~abompard/mailman-bundler/mailman-bundler/fil...
> . 
I hope it'll help you a bit. If you have suggestions on
that too, I'm all
ears :-)

Aurélien

[Joseph Ottinger]

Thanks, Aurelian - I'll give it a run through myself as soon as I can.


On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Aurelien Bompard <
abompard(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:

>  Oh, one thing I forgot to add. I have developed a script / setup
> system to
>  make a fresh install of mailman + postorius + hyperkitty, all configured to
>  run together. It's called mailman-bundler, you can find the doc here: <
>  http://mailman-bundler.readthedocs.org> and the code here: <
>  https://launchpad.net/mailman-bundler>;.
>  The Django settings files I use are viewable here: <
>
> http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~abompard/mailman-bundler/mailman-bundler/fil...
>  >.
>  I hope it'll help you a bit. If you have suggestions on that too, I'm all
>  ears :-)
>
>  Aurélien
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  hyperkitty-devel mailing list
>  hyperkitty-devel(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/hyperkitty-devel
>
>  

-- 
Joseph B. Ottinger
http://www.enigmastation.com <http://enigmastation.com>
*Memento mori.*

[Adam Clark]

Hi Aurélien,

Thanks for the info!  Some replies inline:

>  - HyperKitty uses the top-level template directory (eg. it has a
> templates/base.html file), which is generally reserved for site-level templates.
>  - HyperKitty's base templates aren't broken up into blocks in such a way that
> they can easily be used to extend a different base template.  The base template defines
> both the overall page structure and various HyperKitty components, so it's impossible
> to, say, modify the navigation bar without replicating a large chunk of HyperKitty stuff.
>  
>  I am not very familiar with Django conventions, so please feel free to point me to the
> right direction. Pull requests are even more appreciated!  
I can work on a pull request.  The best practice that I've seen with regard to
template naming is to put the templates under an application-specific subdirectory, eg.
"templates/hyperkitty/template.html".  I'm less sure about the template
layout -- I typically have a base layout that breaks the page into functional blocks
(header, navigation, breadcrumbs, body, footer) which get extended in application
templates, but that's just the product of my own trial and error, I'll look and
see if there's some more formal best practice documented somewhere.

>  - Moreover, both apps use the same view names in places.  For
> example, the HyperKitty user_profile page loads Ajax content from the
> "user_subscriptions" view, but Postorius defines its own
> "user_subscriptions" view that returns a full page.  The result is that if the
> main urls.py includes Postorius URLs after HyperKitty URLs, the HyperKitty subscriptions
> tab tries to load the Postorius page via Ajax and fails.
>  
>  Do you recommend prefixing the view names? 
I've seen that suggested, but I feel like that results in awkwardly verbose view
names.  Django supports namespacing (so you could say {% url
"hyperkitty:user_subscriptions" %}) but I haven't used this much and my
initial impression from trying it is that it's fairly fragile.

>  - Postorius uses BrowserID authentication through social_auth, while
> HyperKitty includes a separate browser_id library
>  
>  Yes, we are both migrating to the separate browser_id library, for security reasons.
Thanks, I will use that.

Also, I tried out the mailman-bundler package -- very convenient, thanks!  Its config
lists the HyperKitty URLs last, so the HyperKitty pages look fine but you can see the view
name conflict from the Postorius page at
http://localhost:8000/mailman3/accounts/mailmansettings/ -- the "Profile" and
"Subscriptions" links go to HyperKitty.

Cheers,
Adam