Inspired by Flask's amazing Tutorial.
- Used W3.CSS for basic UI and ability to change colour themes
- Used layout UI from What's the Scoop™
- Markdown - type Markdown text into the
textareaand the blog post displays as HTML - Added The MIT License to the main project so that it's the same license as Flask
- Added more config variables (with sane defaults) to the
flasker/__init__.pyfile - Changed font to Raleway for a more professional look
- Added permalink (blog detail) for each blog post on the main index page
- Added pagination with one blog post showing on the index page which also works properly with the permalinked posts
- Added footer displaying copyright, Creative Commons license line, and Powered By line pointing to the inspiration for the blog layout
- Added full Font Awesome Free Version 7.0.0 support
To make the Flaskr blog server dynamic, the following variables are set, by default and can be overridden in the instance/config.py file:
ALLOW_REGISTRATION– enables/disables user registration- default:
True
- default:
BLOG_LICENSE– the name of the Creative Commons license for your blog- default: Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
BLOG_LICENSE_URL– the URL to the License DeedBLOG_OWNER– you or the owner of the blog- default: Pallets
BLOG_TITLE– the title of your blog- default: Flaskr
SECRET_KEY– The Flask secret key which should be changed for production, see the Tutorial for further instructions- default: dev
SHOW_LOGIN– enable/disable the Login button in thenavbar- default:
True
- default:
W3_CSS_COLOUR_THEME– the W3.CSS Colour Template that you want to use
Fortunately, installation is very simple.
Get the code from GitHub:
git clone [email protected]:SarahRogue81/Flaskr.git Flaskr
Setup the Python environment:
cd Flaskr
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install flask markdown
Initialize the database:
flask init-db
Configure the blog:
vi instance/config.py
Run the blog on a dev server:
flask run --debug
For information on running on a production server, please consult the Deploy to Production section of the Flaskr Tutorial.
There are many to choose from but Flaskr has been setup to be developed and deployed to Replit as well as PythonAnywhere.
There's nothing that needs be changed to get this to work on either. The uv.log and .replit files are for Replit and the flask_app.py file is for PythonAnywhere. Again, this is all setup for you.
Also, GitHub Codespaces is pretty good to develop on as well. It's like an online VS Code editor. And with their CI/CD cycle, you can't go wrong for any project.
You can't go wrong with vi. It's the only editor that's 100% guaranteed to be there when you SSH into a server, unlike atom. Yes, there's a steep learning curve but at least learn enough for basic editing.
One of my favorites is Zed. It's super light weight and works on any platform.
And, of course, VS Code works as well. It's big plus is the use of Copilot, which is also on GitHub.
While there are others, my all time favorite Python IDE is PyCharm. Its AI doesn't get in the way and it's easy to use.
With the ALLOW_REGISTRATION and SHOW_LOGIN variables in the instance/config.py file, it's really easy to lock down this version of Flaskr.
Once registration is not allowed, the following non-Flask commands can be used to manage users:
adduser.py– to add a new userusermod.py– to modify an existing useruserdel.py– to remove an existing user
And, for passwords, they are auto-generated with a length of 42 characters consisting of upper & lower case characters, numbers, and symbols.
Just copy the generated password into your Password Manager and you're good to go.
If you can't run those commands in production, have a sane instance/flaskr.sqlite database file ready and deploy it along with the WHL file. No need to flask init-db.