DIRECT Framework Webapp

A Django webapp implementing the DIRECT competencies framework as a website that can:

• Allow browsing of all the skills.
• Allow people to score their own skills and view their skill wheels.
• Display and link the professional development resources curated for each skill.

This Django project uses:

• [pip-tools] for packaging and dependency management.
• pre-commit for various linting, formatting and static type checking. Pre-commit hooks are automatically kept updated with pre-commit.ci.
• pytest and GitHub Actions.

[pip-tools] is chosen as a lightweight dependency manager that adheres to the latest standards using pyproject.toml.

Related links

• DIRECT framework
• History of the project - including competency wheels UI
• Skills and competencies - definitions
• Contributors

Current Status

• [x] Initial research
• [x] Initial development <-- We are here
• [x] Minimum viable product
• [x] Alpha release
• [ ] Feature-complete release

Installation

You must have Python version 3.12 or later installed.

To get started:

1. Create and activate a virtual environment:

bash python -m venv .venv source .venv/bin/activate # with Powershell on Windows: `.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1`

1. Install development requirements:

bash pip install -r dev-requirements.txt

1. (Optionally) install tools for building documentation:

bash pip install -r doc-requirements.txt

1. Install the git hooks:

bash pre-commit install

1. First-time database setup:

Before running the server for the first time, initialise the database tables as follows:

bash python manage.py migrate

If you run into the following error, then you've missed this step:

django.db.utils.OperationalError: no such table: main_skilllevel

1. Run the webapp:

bash python manage.py runserver

When running the webapp for the first time you may get a warning similar to:

You have 19 unapplied migration(s). Your project may not work properly until you apply the migrations for app(s): admin, auth, contenttypes, main, sessions.

If this is the case, stop your webapp (with CONTROL-C) and apply the migrations with:

bash python manage.py migrate

then restart it.

1. Run the tests:

bash pytest

1. Create an admin account to access admin backend:

bash python manage.py createsuperuser

1. Populate the database using a snapshot of v2.0 of the framework (this is not necessarily the latest live version, so this is only used for development).

bash python manage.py loaddata direct_webapp/fixtures/framework-2-0.json

Installation with Docker

The app can be run within a Docker container and a docker-compose.yml file is provided to make this easy for development.

Requirements:

1. You have a modern version of Docker installed.
2. You have a JSON version of the framework saved at data/skills-competencies-framework.json.

To launch the server run:

docker compose up

The app will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8000/

As above, create a superuser with

docker compose exec app python manage.py createsuperuser

The framework should be automatically loaded into the database.

Updating Dependencies

To add or remove dependencies:

1. Edit the dependencies variables in the pyproject.toml file (aim to keep development tools separate from the project requirements).
2. Update the requirements files:
3. pip-compile for requirements.txt - the project requirements.
4. pip-compile --extra dev -o dev-requirements.txt for the development requirements.
5. pip-compile --extra doc -o doc-requirements.txt for the documentation tools.
6. Sync the files with your installation (install packages):
7. pip-sync *requirements.txt

To upgrade pinned versions, use the --upgrade flag with pip-compile.

Versions can be restricted from updating within the pyproject.toml using standard python package version specifiers, i.e. "black<23" or "pip-tools!=6.12.2"

Frontend Node

This project includes an NPM-based setup for managing front-end assets like styles, scripts, and other resources. The package.json file contains predefined scripts to help with building and managing assets. You don't need to run these NPM commands if you are developing the Django app locally. You should only run these commands when needed, for example if you are changing javascript dependencies or modifying SCSS files.

See Frontend Node for details on working with the NPM-based frontend asset pipeline.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the DisCouRSE Network+, which received funding through the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure Programme

Contributors

Dave Horsfall 🎨 💻 📆 🚧	Adrian D'Alessandro 🎨 💻 ⚠️ 🚧 📆	Ryan 💻 🚇 🔧 🚧	T D James 💻 ⚠️ 🚧	Connor Aird 💻 ⚠️ 🚧	Andrew Gait 🤔 💻	Bryn Noel Ubald 🔧 💻
Jason Klebes 🐛	sbland 💻 🎨 🤔 🚧	barneydobson 💻	Aleksandra Nenadic 💻 🚧	Saranjeet Kaur 🚧 💻	github-actions[bot] 🚧	pre-commit-ci[bot] 💻
Aman Goel 🚧	Phil Reed 🚧 💻	Toby Hodges 💻	geodaoyu 💻	Christopher Cave-Ayland 🚧	Sahil Raja 🚧 ⚠️ 💻	Max Gamill 💻
Kevin Rue-Albrecht 💻	mjademitchell 💻	Eli Chadwick 💻