COMRADE

Canvassing & Organisation: Making Regular Activism Downright Easy.

To use this, you'll need quite a lot of additional software.

#Installation

PostgreSQL Database

It uses a recent PostgreSQL server, complete with PostGIS extension. Or SQLite, with the SpatiaLite extension. I work with PostgreSQL. Install it.

sudo apt-get install postgresql-server-9.x-all postgresql-9.x-postgis-2.1 

Where x is the latest version of PostgreSQL available in the system repository.

Create your database user, then database "ssp_canvassing".

Enter the database

psql ssp_canvassing

then issue the command:

CREATE EXTENSION postgis;

This will install the postgis extensions you will need to use COMRADE.

Virtualenv

I use virtualenvwrapper, but you can set up your environment or server as you see fit.

Enter your virtualenv, change to the project directory and use pip to install the python requirements.

pip install -r requirements/local.txt

or

pip install -r requirements/production.txt

Web components

The COMRADE build process relies extensively on npm - the Node Package Manager.

This relies on the Foundation library, and the Leaflet map display library. I have included a bower.json file which will help.

Install bower:

npm install -g bower

Then install the client-side packages

bower install

Build pipeline

I use grunt to build the JavaScript and CSS deliverables.

Install the dependencies (there's a package.json included):

npm install

And then type:

grunt

Other data requirements

There are other data requirements.

Visit the Ordnance Survey OpenData site and obtain the following packages:

• Code-Point® Open - This contains latitude and longitude data for every postcode in the country.
• Boundary-Line™ - This contains the boundaries for Scottish constituencies and regions, and Westminster constituencies

The postcode_locator "fill_up_db" script expects a CSV file with the fields "postcode","latitude" and "longitude". Save that as "postcodes.csv", and run the following:

./manage.py fill_up_db postcodes.csv