Setup And Install¶

Below are instructions for how to run your own instance of TextCritical.

Install Prerequisites¶

To run TextCritical, you will need:

• Django 1.5.*
• Python 2.7
• A database (you can use SQLite to avoid extensive database setup)

You will need to install Genshi and lxml.

Install TextCritical Application¶

Check out the source code from http://svn.lukemurphey.net/textcritical.com using a Subversion client.

Copy start_here_settings.py to settings.py (under the src directory). Update the settings.py file per your host.

Configure Initialize Database¶

Specify a database in settings.py unless you intend to use SQLite.

After configuring the database, run syncdb (from the src directory):

python manage.py syncdb

Import Works¶

You will need to import the works into the library in order to have something for the site to provide access to. The easy way to do this is to use a prebuilt library. The more difficult way is to import the works yourself.

Using Existing Library¶

To use an existing library, copy the library.sqlite file to the server. By default, it should be placed in the src directory.

Importing Works¶

If you want to import works manually, then following the steps below.

First, initialize the library database.

python manage.py syncdb --database=library

Next, download the relevant works. The Perseus works can be obtained from Perseus.tufts.edu. Make sure to get the classics library. Decompress the archive.

Start the import process by running the following command, substituting "/Users/Luke/Perseus_Directory" with the location where you placed the files:

python manage.py batch_import_perseus -d "/Users/Luke/Perseus_Directory" 

The import process may take a while (it takes about 70 minutes on a Core i7 with 8 GB of RAM). Make sure to set DEBUG to False before running the import. Otherwise, memory consumption will grow until the import completes.

Indexing Works¶

You'll need to index the works for the search engine to work properly.

After importing the works, run the following:

python manage.py make_search_indexes -c

Start Web Server¶

For production installs, you ought to use a production web-server like Apache. For development, you can use the built in Django web-server:

python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8080

Alternatively, you can use the included CherryPy server which should be good enough for production use. To use it, start "run_server.py" after setting WEB_SERVER_ADDRESS and WEB_SERVER_PORT in settings.py; example below:

# The address and port to use when using the built-in web-server
WEB_SERVER_ADDRESS = '0.0.0.0' # Use '127.0.0.1' to serve content to localhost only
WEB_SERVER_PORT    = 8080

Common Setup Issues¶

Syncdb Fails Saying it couldn't create "django_content_type"¶

This has something to do with database routing. It can be solved by adding the following to the settings.py file and re-running syncdb:

DATABASE_ROUTING = []

Once syncdb succeeds, delete this line.

Reference: https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/16039

Syncdb Fails When Creating Superuser¶

You just installed Django's auth system, which means you don't have any superusers defined.                                                 
Would you like to create one now? (yes/no): yes                                                                                             
Traceback (most recent call last):                                                                                                          
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>                                                                                                    
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)                                                                                                     
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 443, in execute_from_command_line                  
    utility.execute()                                                                                                                       
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 382, in execute                                    
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)                                                                                 
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 196, in run_from_argv                                  
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)                                                                                                 
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 232, in execute                                        
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)                                                                                                  
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 371, in handle                                         
    return self.handle_noargs(**options)                                                                                                    
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/syncdb.py", line 110, in handle_noargs                       
    emit_post_sync_signal(created_models, verbosity, interactive, db)                                                                       
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/sql.py", line 189, in emit_post_sync_signal                           
    interactive=interactive, db=db)                                                                                                         
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/dispatch/dispatcher.py", line 172, in send                                            
    response = receiver(signal=self, sender=sender, **named)                                                                                
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/management/__init__.py", line 73, in create_superuser                    
    call_command("createsuperuser", interactive=True, database=db)                                                                          
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 150, in call_command                               
    return klass.execute(*args, **defaults)                                                                                                 
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 232, in execute                                        
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)                                                                                                  
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/management/commands/createsuperuser.py", line 70, in handle              
    default_username = get_default_username()                                                                                               
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/management/__init__.py", line 105, in get_default_username               
    default_username = get_system_username()                                                                                                
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/management/__init__.py", line 85, in get_system_username                 
    return getpass.getuser().decode(locale.getdefaultlocale()[1])                                                                           
TypeError: decode() argument 1 must be string, not None   

You may need to set your locale by running the following before running syncdb:

export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" 

Delete the auth_users table and do another syncdb to try again.

Reference: https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/16017

"__init__() keywords must be strings" when running Perseus Importer¶

This is caused by a known bug in Python 2.6 in which unicode arguments are not handled correctly. Upgrading to Python 2.7 resolves the issue.