morepath 0.4

Morepath: Python web microframework with super powers

Morepath is a Python web framework. An application consists of models. Each type of model is published on a URL path. Content is exposed to the web using views.

Documentation.

0.4 (2014-07-07)

• BREAKING CHANGE Move to class-based application registries. This breaks old code and it needs to be updated. The update is not difficult and amounts to:

  • subclass morepath.App instead of instantiating it to create a new app. Use subclasses for extension too.

  • To get a WSGI object you can plug into a WSGI server, you need to instantiate the app class first.

  Old way:

  app = morepath.App()

  So, the app object that you use directives on is an instance. New way:

  class app(morepath.App):
      pass

  So, now it’s a class. The directives look the same as before, so this hasn’t changed:

  @app.view(model=Foo)
  def foo_default(self, request):
     ...

  To extend an application with another one, you used to have to pass the extends arguments. Old way:

  sub_app = morepath.App(extends=[core_app])

  This has now turned into subclassing. New way:

  class sub_app(core_app):
      pass

  There was also a variables argument to specify an application that can be mounted. Old way:

  app = morepath.App(variables=['foo'])

  This is now a class attribute. New way:

  class app(morepath.App):
      variables = ['foo']

  The name argument to help debugging is gone; we can look at the class name now. The testing_config argument used internally in the Morepath tests has also become a class attribute.

  In the old system, the application object was both configuration point and WSGI object. Old way:

  app = morepath.App()
  
  # configuration
  @app.path(...)
  ...
  
  # wsgi
  morepath.run(app)

  In the Morepath 0.4 this has been split. As we’ve already seen, the application class serves. To get a WSGI object, you need to first instantiate it. New way:

  class app(morepath.App):
    pass
  
  # configuration
  @app.path(...)
  ...
  
  # wsgi
  morepath.run(app())

  To mount an application manually with variables, we used to need the special mount() method. Old way:

  mounted_wiki_app = wiki_app.mount(wiki_id=3)

  In the new system, mounting is done during instantiation of the app:

  mounted_wiki_app = wiki_app(wiki_id=3)

  Class names in Python are usually spelled with an upper case. In the Morepath docs the application object has been spelled with a lower case. We’ve used lower-case class names for application objects even in the updated docs for example code, but feel free to make them upper-case in your own code if you wish.

  Why this change? There are some major benefits to this change:

  • both extending and mounting app now use natural Python mechanisms: subclassing and instantation.

  • it allows us to expose the facility to create new directives to the API. You can create application-specific directives.

• You can define your own directives on your applications using the directive directive:

  @my_app.directive('my_directive')

  This exposes details of the configuration system which is underdocumented for now; study the morepath.directive module source code for examples.

• Document how to use more.static to include static resources into your application.

• Add a recursive=False option to the config.scan method. This allows the non-recursive scanning of a package. Only its __init__.py will be scanned.

• To support scanning a single module non-recursively we need a feature that hasn’t landed in mainline Venusian yet, so depend on Venusifork for now.

• A small optimization in the publishing machinery. Less work is done to update the generic function lookup context during routing.

0.3 (2014-06-23)

• Ability to absorb paths entirely in path directive, as per issue #132.

• Refactor of config engine to make Venusian and immediate config more clear.

• Typo fix in docs (Remco Wendt).

• Get version number in docs from setuptools.

• Fix changelog so that PyPI page generates HTML correctly.

• Fix PDF generation so that the full content is generated.

• Ability to mark a view as internal. It will be available to request.view() but will give 404 on the web. This is useful for structuring JSON views for reusability where you don’t want them to actually show up on the web.

• A request.child(something).view() that had this view in turn call a request.view() from the context of the something application would fail – it would not be able to look up the view as lookups still occurred in the context of the mounting application. This is now fixed. (thanks Ying Zhong for reporting it)

  Along with this fix refactored the request object so it keeps a simple mounted attribute instead of a stack of mounts; the stack-like nature was not in use anymore as mounts themselves have parents anyway. The new code is simpler.

0.2 (2014-04-24)

• Python 3 support, in particular Python 3.4 (Alec Munro - fudomunro on github).

• Link generation now takes SCRIPT_NAME into account.

• Morepath 0.1 had a security system, but it was undocumented. Now it’s documented (docs now in Morepath Security), and some of its behavior was slightly tweaked:

  • new verify_identity directive.

  • permission directive was renamed to permission_rule.

  • default unauthorized error is 403 Forbidden, not 401 Unauthorized.

  • morepath.remember and morepath.forbet renamed to morepath.remember_identity and morepath.forget_identity.

• Installation documentation tweaks. (Auke Willem Oosterhoff)

• .gitignore tweaks (Auke Willem Oosterhoff)

0.1 (2014-04-08)

• Initial public release.