Orientation

Orientation for COMP 353/453

Below are installation and setup instructions for each module of the course:

General course orientation

Syllabus

Here is the syllabus

Video walkthrough of the syllabus and tour of the course
Please submit a screenshot on Sakai, for the assignment named Orientation: Syllabus Video Screenshot, when instructed to do so on the video

Text editor of your choice (I am using Notepad++. You may want to use Sublime, Atom or any other text editor.)
Database design and SQL

All students may skip installation entirely and simply use the Virtual Machine that is available. You still have to submit Orientation Screenshots, to demonstrate that you are able to login, to access your database, to build a basic application using Flask, and so forth, but you may do these activities using the Virtual Machine. Further, it is not an "either/or" choice. You may install the environment on your own computer, and you may also use a Virtual Machine when it is convenient for you to do so, or in case you have any database connection issues. Mac users in particular are encouraged to use the VM if you any issues with installation on your Mac.
Instructions to install XAMPP (If you are using a Mac, skip to the bullet point "What about Mac users?")

Why XAMPP? We're not using PHP!!!

XAMPP is a convenient way to install MySQL (or its clone, MariaDB) and Apache, without having to install each component separately and getting them to work together.
PHPMyAdmin widely used as a convenient GUI that comes with XAMPP. It is used to manage/view/test MySQL databases, regardless of the application language.
You could certainly use the localhost setup by XAMPP together with your python programs. In our case, we will not, since it's easier to use flask for that. But you certainly could, and many do.

Do you have to use XAMPP?

NO! If you want to use WAMP-Server, or AMPS, or even install each component separately, you may do so.

Do you have to use PHPMYAdmin to see and work on my database? What about IDLE for editing my Python code?

NO! I will demonstrate many of our queries on PHPMyAdmin, and use it for "quick-and-dirty" database checks, even when using Python. You may use WorkBench, or HeidiSQL, or pyMySQL, of Raspberry Pi, or PyCharm, or any type of database connection and any IDE you want to use. If you use an alternative setup, please make sure you can access and view your database, and send similar screenshots to the ones required in this orientation. On the Mac, since we'll be installing Anaconda, you might want to use Sypder, especially on the Mac, if you don't have a separate Python 3 installation beyond Anaconda's. (Sypder comes with your Anaconda installation.)

possible configuration issues

What about Mac users?

I suggest that Mac users install MAMP. Occasionally on the Mac, there may be a problem with XAMPP, with some of the the icons not showing up properly in Safari. Although I have not encountered any issues using XAMPP on the Mac, some students have reported some problems when trying to connect to their localhost database from Python, when using XAMPP. They reported that the problem disappeared when they used MAMP.
https://www.mamp.info/en/
MAMP stack installation

This is an installation video of the another MampStack, prepared by a wonderful former student, Harrison Mbugi.
Please note that MAMP has updated its installation screens.

using MAMP (also prepared by Harrison!)
using the terminal with MAMP installation The original instructions didn't include how to use the terminal window when you are using MAMP. this link should help with that.
If you are using XAMPP, Mac users may find the following links helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glafmFhd0Ds&vl=en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmklVBO89MM

Please submit a screenshot on Sakai, for the assignment named Orientation: XAMPP/MAMP Installation screenshot , as per the instructions in the assignment.

Configure PHPMyAdmin and set up a root user and a new user username and password

If you are using the VM, you do not have to configure phpmyadmin. It is already configured.
The username and password for phpmyadmin on the VM is "student" and "student"
You still have to test the installation, just to show me that you know how to access everything.
Instructions to test your XAMPP/MAMP installation Please take a screenshot (as per instructions) and submit on Sakai to the assginment named Orientation: Test MySQL/PHP Installation
Instructions to test your command-line (Terminal) installation Please take a screenshot (as per instructions) and submit on Sakai to the assginment named Orientation: Test Terminal (Command Line) Installation
If you have difficulty with the installation, or for some reason you feel that you cannot install it, or if you do not a laptop available for this installation, you can request from me a Virtual Machine that has a WAMP stack already installed. Please let me know as soon as possible, as I have to request this VM from our tech support staff!!

If you are installing on the VM, you may see a pop up warning about the activated User Account Control, etc. Ignore it. It should install in C:\ instead of in the Programs(86) folder.

You may also want to install SublimeText, atom, TextWrangler (or any good text editor) on the mac, or Notepad++ on Windows. (You can even install Notepadd++ on the Mac, using Winebottler, but that's really out of scope for this course.)
For modeling your ER diagrams, use any modeling tool you want. As a fallback position, you may use even Word or PPT. MUCH BETTER: try ERDPlus (seems cool and very clear!) has been a student favorite in past semesters; ER Assistant (Windows only); Gliffy;something like Draw.io (I don't prefer their EER notation, but no biggie); StarUML; ErDraw (ok EER notation) Dia (Windows or mac); Lucid (You can keep renewing the free trial)

Python, Flask, flask-sqlAlchemy

Python: https://www.python.org/ There is a checkbox in the installation box to add Python to the Windows path. Check that box!! See note below under Installation of Database Packages, regarding some incompatibilities of Python with some of the standard database packages. You may want to install Python 3.6 instead.
If you want to use PyCharm or any other IDE, feel free to do so, but you are responsible for making sure that you can run flask, install all packages, and connect to the database both through flask_sqlalchemy and through the other database connectors that we use in class.
Anaconda: https://www.anaconda.com/download/ It will redirect you to "products" and select the Anaconda Products Individual, which will scroll you to the bottom of the page to select your OS. As of this writing, it's using Python 3.8 for Windows. For the Mac, be very careful to install the Anaconda version for Python 3.x!!

Mac users: https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/installing-anaconda-mac-os-x

On Windows: I already had Python installed, and installing Anaconda over my existing Python installation works just fine.
On Mac: Python 2 comes installed with a Mac OS. However, you want Python 3. You do not have to install it separately (although you certainly may). When you install Anaconda 3, Python 3.x will be installed, if you are careful to select the Python 3.x version when you download/install.
Windows: Anaconda installation will give you an option to add python to the path. Say "Yes"!!!
Mac: Anaconda will automatically add python and anaconda to the $PATH. You can always check: https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/installing-anaconda-mac-os-x
It is recommended to create a new “virtual environment” in Anaconda for each project. For this course, I will only use one environment; therefore I will be using the (base) environment. Feel free to setup multiple environments, but it is not required for this course, nor will I demonstrate it.
Flask installation: from within your Anaconda environment:
(This means, on Windows, Start-->Anaconda-->Anaconda prompt. If you are using the VM, you have to run Anaconda as administrator. Right-click the little Anaconda prompt icon-->more--run as administrator). On Mac, start the Anaconda Navigator, and open a terminal window. In both cases, you should see the prompt with your acanconda environment, for instance (base), as part of the prompt.)

pip install flask
pip install flask-sqlalchemy
pip install flask-login
pip install flask-bcrypt
pip install flask-wtf
pip install email-validator
Then go into Python (type python at the command prompt, from within anaconda)
type import flask. There should be no error.
type import flask_sqlalchemy
type exit()
Take a screenshot from within Anaconda terminal/command, showing import flask with no error.

Flask test HelloWorld

Download the zip file which contains the sample code that you will need for the Python ORM part of the course. Unzip. There will be a few (very few) changes in the Mac version, so here is the Mac zip file. The Virtual Machine already has everything downloaded onto the Desktop. However, if you mess it up or need a fresh version, here is the VM zip file.

Review the HelloWorld video.

Watch the first three minutes of the video, and duplicate the HelloWorld app.
Take a screenshot of "Hello, World!" on your web browser .
Submit the import Flask screenshot and the Flask HelloWorld screenshot for the assignment named Orientation: Screenshot of Fask Installation and HelloWorld.
***Please note: The folder structure in the video is slightly different from the one that I give you in the zip file that you downloaded. In the video, the flaskHelloWorld.py program is in the folder FlaskDemoLectures. However, I changed it slightly after making the video. Your flaskHelloWorld.py program is in Flask-Demo/Lectures/1-GettingStarted of your unzipped folder structure. When I navigate to the folder containing the flaskHelloDemo.py program, be sure that you navigate to the folder where your program is located

Installation of database packages: (There are no specific orientation assignments for this part, since Lab-4a-connect covers this material. However, I am including it here, so that all installation instructions are in one place, and also because you may want to get things up and running earlier than required. Recommended. Strongly.)

Instructions for Windows users:

MySQL connector: From within your Anaconda environment:

pip install mysql-connector-python (or this link)

MySQL Client and MySQLdb: We want to use Flask-mysqldb. It has a dependency of Mysqlclient, so that must be installed first. However, on the most recent installations (newest upgrades on Anaconda), you can try to pip install Flask-mysqldb. It worked for me, and it never did before, not even last semester. So try that first. If that is successful, you can skip the rest of this document.

From within your Anaconda environment, attempt:

pip install mysqlclient

Mac users: continue 6 below, where it says "Instructions for Mac Users". Be aware that you should also attempt to pip install Flask-mysqldb first, and maybe you will be as lucky as the Windows users and you can then skip the whole conversation about mysqlclient.
Windows: You may get an error that you don't have the VB Build Tools installed (I have not experienced that error on the Mac, nor have I found others who have encountered it.)
Go to: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/

install as per instructions

Close Anaconda terminal
Run the Anaconda prompt as administrator
right-click the prompt icon and select run as administrator

Windows and Mac, continue here:

type: conda install -c bioconda mysqlclient (Ignore any warnings about conda packages being deprecated. It is a bug in conda and is being fixed as of this writing.)
IMPORTANT NOTE: A student has encountered an incompatibility error when trying to install mysqlclient while using python 3.8.7. This may indeed be an incompatibility or it may be a conda thing. Apparently, 3.8 is having some compatibility issues with several packages (not just database ones).

So I tried this on a clean VM, using Anaconda with Python 3.8.5, and I also got this error. Before trying some of the suggestions below, I just went ahead and did pip install Flask-mysqldb, and lo and behold, it installed Flask-mysqldb and also installed the dependency mysqlclient!! If this works for you, you can ignore the next two bullet points.
You can try to install MySQLClient manually. See this video, with a link to where the package can be downloaded and installed manually (not installed through either PIP or Conda). Just be sure to install it from within Anaconda.
You can opt to install python 3.6 instead. Or, you can use python 3.8 with everything else (I hope!!), and use the VM for the few labs which require flask mysqldb (which has mysqlclient as a dependency). I do know that students ran everything successfully in the Fall, 2020, semester. So its possible that the December, 2020, update to 3.8.7 is where the incompatibility arose.

So if you want to be safe, install python 3.6 (you can specify that when you install anaconda, and/or when you install directly from the python site). Or, as I said, use python 3.8 and use the VM if you run into problems. For many of the labs, you don't need flask mysqldb anyway. There are many proposed solutions to this incompatibility on the web, but I don't want to mess up my installation in order to test them, right when the semester is beginning. I will set something up and continue testing on another computer. But meanwhile, if anyone finds a workable solution, please share it with the rest of us on Teams. We are not using this package until just before 3/22, so I'll have some kind of answer for you before then.

Flask-Mysqldb (install after MySQLClient is successfully installed):

pip install Flask-mysqldb
If you were unable to install MySQLClient correctly, the you will not be able to install Flask-mysqldb. You may to use the VM, or downgrade to Python 3.6

Instructions for Mac Users:
->BTW, Mac users. Sometimes, there are just too many configuration issues or conflicts to make this local installation worth your while. You may want to seriously consider using the VM.

https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/installing-anaconda-mac-os-x
- Python 2 comes installed on macOS, however, you want Python 3. You do not have to install it separately (although you certainly may). When you install Anaconda 3, Python 3.x will be installed, if you are careful to select the Python 3.x version when you download/install.
- Anaconda will automatically add python and anaconda to the $PATH.
- Open a terminal window (either by starting Anaconda Navigator or a terminal app of your choosing), you should see the prompt with your acanconda environment, for instance (base), as part of the prompt.
- Download the Mac zip file which contains the sample code that you will need for the Python ORM part of the course. Unzip.
- Installation of database packages: (There are no specific orientation assignments for this part, since Lab-4a-connect covers this material. However, I am including it here, so that all installation instructions are in one place, and also because you may want to get things up and running earlier than required. Recommended. Strongly.)

Other: As we build our applications, we may be required to install additional components

MongoDB