# Development

## Building documentation

The full documentation is located in the “doc” subfolder. It can be generated in various formats once you have installed Sphinx. To generate the HTML documentation, run the following command:

    make -C doc html

The HTML files will be available in the `doc/_build/html` directory.

The documentation can also be browsed online at: https://hyperkitty.readthedocs.org.

## Communication channels

Hang out on IRC and ask questions on `#mailman` or join the mailing list `mailman-users@mailman3.org`.

## Setting up HyperKitty for development

The recommended way to develop on HyperKitty is to use VirtualEnv. It will create an isolated Python environment where you can add HyperKitty and its dependencies without messing up your system Python install.

First, create the virtualenv and activate it:

    virtualenv venv_hk
    source venv_hk/bin/activate

Then download the components of HyperKitty:

    git clone https://gitlab.com/mailman/hyperkitty.git
    cd hyperkitty
    pip install -e '.[dev]'

You will also need to install the Sass CSS processor using your package manager or the project’s installation documentation. You can either use the dart-sass version (dartsass) or the C/C++ version, called libsass (the binary is `sassc`). The configuration file in `example_project/settings.py` defaults to the `sassc` version, but you just have to edit the `COMPRESS_PRECOMPILERS` mapping to switch to the dart-sass implementation, whose binary is called `sass` and which doesn’t recognize the short form of the `-t/--style` option.

We no longer recommend ruby-sass as there have been compatibility issues with recent versions.

Recent Debian and Ubuntu have a `sassc` package, which you can install with:

    sudo apt-get install sassc

## Configuration

For a development setup, you should create a file `example_project/settings_local.py` with at least the following content:

    DEBUG = True
    TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG
    USE_SSL = False

It’s also recommended to change the database access paths in the `DATABASES` and `HAYSTACK_CONNECTIONS` variables. Absolute paths are required.

If you ever want to turn the `DEBUG` variable to `False` (by removing it from `settings_local.py`), you’ll have to run two additional commands then and each time you change the static files:

    django-admin collectstatic --pythonpath example_project --settings settings
    django-admin compress --pythonpath example_project --settings settings

Normally, to generate compressor content, you’ll need to set `COMPRESS_ENABLED` to `TRUE` and `COMPRESS_OFFLINE` to `TRUE` in `settings_local.py`. However, you can force the generation of compressor content by adding the `--force` switch to the `django-admin compress` command, which will run the compressor even if the `COMPRESS` settings are not `TRUE`.

But for development purposes, it’s better to keep `DEBUG = True`.

Note

Your `django-admin` command may be called `django-admin.py` depending on your installation method.

## Setting up the databases

The HyperKitty database is configured using the `DATABASE` setting in Django’s `settings.py` file, as usual. The database can be created with the following command:

    django-admin migrate --pythonpath example_project --settings settings

HyperKitty also uses a fulltext search engine. Thanks to the Django-Haystack library, the search engine backend is pluggable, refer to the Haystack documentation on how to install and configure the fulltext search engine backend.

HyperKitty’s default configuration uses the Whoosh backend, so if you want to use that you just need to install the `Whoosh` Python library.

## Importing the current archives

If you are currently running Mailman 2.1, you can run the `hyperkitty_import` management command to import existing archives into the mailman database. This command will import the Mbox files: if you’re installing HyperKitty on the machine which hosted the previous version of Mailman, those files are available locally and you can use them directly.

The command’s syntax is:

    django-admin hyperkitty_import --pythonpath example_project --settings settings -l ADDRESS mbox_file [mbox_file ...]

where:

- `ADDRESS` is the fully-qualified list name (including the `@` sign and the domain name)

- The `mbox_file` arguments are the existing archives to import (in mbox format).

The archive mbox file for a list is usually available at the following location:

    /var/lib/mailman/archives/private/LIST_NAME.mbox/LIST_NAME.mbox

If the previous archives aren’t available locally, you need to download them from your current Mailman 2.1 installation. The file is not web-accessible.

Before importing an archive mbox, it is a good idea to check its integrity with the hyperkitty/contrib/check_hk_import script and with Mailman 2.1’s bin/cleanarch script.

After importing your existing archives, you must add them to the fulltext search engine with the following command:

    django-admin update_index --pythonpath example_project --settings settings

Refer to the command’s documentation for available switches.

## Running HyperKitty

If you’re coding on HyperKitty, you can use Django’s integrated web server. It can be run with the following command:

    django-admin runserver --pythonpath example_project --settings settings

Warning

You should use the development server only locally. While it’s possible to make your site publicly available using the dev server, you should never do that in a production environment.

## Testing

Use the following command:

    django-admin test --settings hyperkitty.tests.settings_test hyperkitty

All test modules reside in the `hyperkitty/tests` directory and this is where you should put your own tests, too. To make the django test runner find your tests, make sure to add them to the folder’s `__init__.py`: