windows

Windows Installation

This file describes installation on a modern Windows OS (This process was tested on Windows 7). If you run into difficulty, please submit an issue on the Github repository: https://github.com/metacademy/metacademy-application/issues?state=open

Preliminary Requirements

1. Install Git for Windows if you haven't already, and make sure that you include command-line execution http://msysgit.github.io

2. Install Python 2.7X for Windows to C:\Python27 (or another directory if desired- just change the fitems below to match) http://www.python.org/getit/

   Note: Using a 32-bit Python build is the most reliable way to get a working installation on Windows with NumPy / Django.

3. Install NodeJS for Windows http://nodejs.org/

Python Environment Set-up

1. Append environment PATH variable to include the following (if they aren't there already). See this stack overflow post if you're unfamiliar with setting paths in windows.

    C:\Python27;C:\Python27\Lib;C:\Python27\Scripts;C:\Python27\Tools\Scripts;C:\Python27\DLLs
   

2. Append (or create) environment PYTHONPATH variable to include the following

    C:\Python27;C:\Python27\Lib;C:\Python27\Lib\lib-tk;C:\Python27\DLLs
   

3. Download ez_setup.py at https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/raw/bootstrap/ez_setup.py

4. Open PowerShell (close and re-open if you already have it open)

5. Navigate to ez_setup.py and execute it

    python ez_setup.py
   
    easy_install pip
   
    pip install virtualenv
   
    pip install wheel
   

   Note: If you are behindy a proxy, you'll need to define that proxy for pip. To set the proxy globally (so you don't have to pass the proxy option each time pip is called) make a pip.ini file in the directory `~\pip` with the following contents:

   [global]

   proxy = http://proxyaddress:proxyport

6. Make sure that you can execute unsigned scripts; the following should return RemoteSigned, Unrestricted, or Bypass:

    Get-ExecutionPolicy
   

   If the previous command returns Restricted or AllSigned, then run either:

    Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
   

   or (if you don't have admin rights):

    Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope CurrentUser
   

   (you can use "Process" instead of "CurrentUser" if you'd rather, but you will have to call that command if you re-start your session)

Metacademy Installation

1. Now, make a top level directory for Metacademy, and then cd to your new dirctory in powershell:

    mkdir  `~\MyProjects\metacademy`
   
    cd `~\MyProjects\metacademy`
   

2. Get the git repository and the cd to the directory:

    git clone https://github.com/metacademy/metacademy-application.git
   
    cd metacademy-application\windows
   

3. Run the powershell script:

    .\win32build.ps1
   

   Note: This installation process uses pre-compiled versions of NumPy and Pillow, and does not require the user to have c or fortran compilers in their toolchain. Markupsafe will be compiled during the automated installation if the user has a working compiler, but it will fall back on pure python if not.

4. After the build process is complete, run:

    .\run_test_servers.sh
   

   Open a modern web browser and navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8080 to verify the installation.

Optional: create a superuser

    python app_server/manage.py createsuperuser

Execution

The win32build.ps1 script will automatically activate the virtual environment for Metacademy. To deactivate, simply call the global

    deactivate

To activate a new sessions, navigate to the top level scripts directory and run the activate script:

    cd `~\MyProjects\metacademy\scripts`

    .\activate.ps1