PyGreSQL is a python library that allows you to write python code to interact with a PostgreSQL database. I can see some utility here if I start wanting to write Django methods that do things like create views of some of my tables.

May be useful in not too long! Don't forget about it!

Documentation: http://pygresql.org/pg.html

Installation:

sudo apt-get install python-pygresql

Use:

By default, metadata records that are harvested into the Geoportal are not editable. This includes any records in the Geoportal that were not created explicitly with interface provided by the web application ("Use dedicated editor to create metadata manually"). The SQL below creates a database trigger that allows harvested records to be edited.

Be aware that there is the potential for a lossy data translation when you do this. The harvested record is completely rewritten using the schema definitions that your Geoportal implements. If the original harvested record has any data that is not included in your schema implementation, that data will be lost after the original is edited. Another way to put that is, if you edit a harvested record, the edited version will only contain information that you see in the editor interface. If the original started with anything else in it, that will be lost.

Introduction

I'm relatively new to Django, and maybe to servers in general, but setting up Django is a chore. Or at least figuring out how to set it up is. There is no installer. You have to have a pretty good understanding of how your HTTP server (IIS, Apache, whatever) works before you're going to be able to get anywhere. Then you'll have to know how to set up quite a few ancillary applications (e.g. Python, WSGI, FastCGI, Flup, MySQL, PostgreSQL). The details of which other applications you want to set up depend entirely on the evironment you're building - so that means it is a little different every time - and that means it is pretty hard to write one single "walkthrough" for how you should do it.

What I want to do here is detail my setup, and along the way make some suggestions about what seems to make things easier. So here goes:

Suggestion: Use Ubuntu (Most recent stable version, always.)

I say this because that apt system really makes installations a breeze. I fumbled for a while to try and setup WSGI (a module for Apache) to work on my Windows machine, to no avail. In Ubuntu it is so easy:

"Restarting" the Virtual Machine

You can't actually restart it, instead you essentially delete it and roll-back to a prior machine image.