simpleweb web site

Get Started

Just starting out with simpleweb? It's easy. Just follow the steps below.

Step 1: Grab and Install

You can either follow the Automated Installation (via easy_install) route or the Manual Installation route below. Also, for more functionality, you'll want to install the optional dependencies too.

Automated Installation via 'easy_install'

If you don't have setuptools and easy_install working on your system, head over to the Easy Install page for directions.

Once setuptools and easy_install are working, installing simpleweb is as simple as:

easy_install simpleweb

The above will install simpleweb and its non-optional dependencies. To enable more features, the following will also need to be installed.

Install flup to enable sessions support and FCGI hosting support

easy_install flup

Install Cheetah to enable integrated templating support.

easy_install Cheetah

Install SqlObject to enable using it as an integrated ORM

easy_install SQLObject

Optionaly, install SqlAlchemy to use it in place of SqlObject as an ORM.

easy_install SQLAlchemy

Manual Installation

Simpleweb and its dependencies (both mandatory and optional) can be installed manually, if you don't have easy_install working properly, or just prefer to do it manually. They are all distributed as standard python distutils packages, and to install them requires the following steps

Download the source .zip, .tar.gz or .tgz files
Uncompress them into a local directory
Change directory into that local directory
Type 'python setup.py install'

The list is as follows:

Non-Optional Dependencies

wsgiref : simpleweb will simply not work without this.

simpleweb Sources

simpleweb : The sources for simpleweb itself.

Optional Dependencies

Flup : Needed for Session support and FCGI hosting. Install if these features are needed.
Cheetah : Needed for an integrated templating plugin. Install this before attempting the tutorial
SqlObject : Needed if using SqlObject as an integrated ORM. Install this before attempting the tutorial
SqlAlchemy : Needed if using SqlAlchemy as an integrated ORM.

Installation Check

Check your installation by running the 'simpleweb-admin' command. You should get back a complaint of some sort at this stage. We know its properly installed anyway.

Step 2: Create a new project

You create a new project (in this case called 'todolist') with:

simpleweb-admin create-project todolist

The project naming conventions follow the Python package-naming conventions. Since every simpleweb project is just a python package.

If you didn't get any errors above, all is well.

Step 3: Launch the new project

Creating the project above, will create a folder/directory with the same name as the project in the current working directory. To launch the project with the internal development server, do:

cd todolist
simpleweb-admin

If you get no errors, all is well. You should get a message from the internal web server about host name and port.

Step 4: View your hard work!

Open your web browser and point it at http://localhost:8080

Step 5: Uhmmm...

There is really no step five to getting started. All that is left is now building the simple todolist application. To continue, head over to the example section.