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Development recipes for Modoboa
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You would like to work on Modoboa but you don't know where to start?
You're at the right place! Browse this page to learn useful tips.

.. _venv_for_dev:

Prepare a virtual environment
=============================

A `virtual environment
<http://virtualenv.readthedocs.org/en/latest/>`_ is a good way to
setup a development environment on your machine.

.. note::

   ``virtualenv`` is available on all major distributions, just
   install it using your favorite packages manager.

To do so, run the following commands::

  $ virtualenv <path>
  $ source <path>/bin/activate
  $ git clone https://github.com/tonioo/modoboa.git
  $ cd modoboa
  $ python setup.py develop

The ``develop`` command creates a symbolic link to your local copy so
any modification you make will be automatically available in your
environment, no need to copy them.

Deploy an instance for development
==================================

.. warning::

   Make sure to :ref:`create a database <database>` before running
   this step.

Now that you have a :ref:`running environment <venv_for_dev>`, you're
ready to deploy a test instance::

  $ modoboa-admin.py deploy --devel --dburl <database url> <path>
  $ cd <path>
  $ python manage.py runserver

You're ready to go!

Manage static files
===================

Modoboa uses `bower <http://bower.io/>`_ (thanks to `django-bower <https://github.com/nvbn/django-bower>`_)
to manage its CSS and javascript dependencies.

Those dependencies are listed in a file called :file:`dev_settings.py`
located inside the :file:`<path_to_local_copy>/modoboa/core`
directory.

If you want to add a new dependency, just complete the
``BOWER_INSTALLED_APPS`` parameter and run the following command::

  $ python manage.py bower install

It will download and store the required files into the
:file:`<path_to_local_copy>/modoboa/bower_components` directory.