edan_f0/docs/source/internals/sandbox.rst

=====================
Sample Oscar projects
=====================

Oscar ships with two sample projects: a 'sandbox' site, which is a vanilla install of Oscar using the
default templates and styles, and a fully featured 'demo' site which demonstrates how Oscar can be
re-skinned and customised to model a domain. 

The sandbox site
----------------

The sandbox site is a minimal implementation of Oscar, where everything is left
in its default state.  It is useful for exploring Oscar's functionality
and developing new features.

It only has two customisations on top of Oscar's core:

* Two shipping methods are specified so that the shipping method step of
  checkout is not skipped.  If there is only one shipping method (which is true of core
  Oscar) then the shipping method step is skipped as there is no choice to be
  made.

* A profile class is specified which defines a few simple fields.  This is to
  demonstrate the account section of Oscar, which introspects the profile class
  to build a combined User and Profile form.

Note that some things are deliberately not implemented within core Oscar as they
are domain-specific.  For instance:

* All tax is set to zero
* No shipping methods are specified.  The default is free shipping.
* No payment is required to submit an order as part of the checkout process

The sandbox is, in effect, the blank canvas upon which you can build your site.

The demo site
-------------

The demo site is *the* reference Oscar project as it illustrates how Oscar can
be redesigned and customised to build an e-commerce store. The demo site is a
sailing store selling a range of different product types.

The customisations on top of core Oscar include:

* A new skin
* A variety of product types including books, clothing and downloads
* Payment with PayPal Express using django-oscar-paypal_.
* Payment with bankcards using Datacash using django-oscar-datacash_.

.. _django-oscar-paypal: https://github.com/tangentlabs/django-oscar-paypal
.. _django-oscar-datacash: https://github.com/tangentlabs/django-oscar-datacash

.. note::

    Both the sandbox and demo site have the Django admin interface wired up.
    This is done as a convenience for developers to browse the database at
    ORM level. It also serves as an easy method to manually create a product
    class or partner.

    Having said that, the Django admin interface is *unsupported* and will fail
    or be of little use for some models. At the time of writing, editing
    products in the admin is clunky and slow, and editing categories is
    not supported at all.

Browse the external sandbox site
================================

An instance of the sandbox site is build hourly from master branch and made
available at http://latest.oscarcommerce.com 

.. warning::
    
    It is possible for users to access the dashboard and edit the site content.
    Hence, the data can get quite messy.  It is periodically cleaned up.

Browse the external demo site
=============================

An instance of the demo site is built periodically (but not automatically) and
available at http://demo.oscarcommerce.com

Running the sandbox locally
===========================

It's pretty straightforward to get the sandbox site running locally so you can
play around with the source code.

Install Oscar and its dependencies within a virtualenv::

    $ git clone git@github.com:tangentlabs/django-oscar.git
    $ cd django-oscar
    $ mkvirtualenv oscar
    (oscar) $ make sandbox
    (oscar) $ sites/sandbox/manage.py runserver

If you do not have mkvirtualenv, then replace that line with::

    $ virtualenv oscar
    $ . ./oscar/bin/activate
    (oscar) $

The sandbox site (initialised with a sample set of products) will be available
at: http://localhost:8000.  A sample superuser is installed with credentials::

    username: superuser
    email: superuser@example.com
    password: testing

Running the demo locally
========================

Assuming you've already set-up the sandbox site, there are two further services
required to run the demo site:

* A spatially aware database such as PostGIS.  The demo site uses
  django-oscar-stores which requires a spatial capabilities for store searching.

* A search backend that supports faceting, such as Solr.  You should use the
  sample schema file from ``sites/demo/deploy/solr/schema.xml``.

Once you have set up these services, create a local settings file from a template
to house your creds::
    
    (oscar) $ cp sites/demo/settings_local{.sample,}.py
    (oscar) $ vim sites/demo/settings_local.py  # Add DB creds

Now build the demo site::

    (oscar) $ make demo
    (oscar) $ sites/demo/manage.py runserver

The demo (initialised with a sample set of products) will be available
at: http://localhost:8000.