[GeoNode-devel] Geonode notifications (old and new)

[Cezary Statkiewicz]

 Hi,

 I wanted to use geonode-notification app [1], but found it won't work with GeoNode master branch. I'd like to list problems I've bumped into and establish if my understanding is correct:

 * app code itself seems to be a copy of old version of pinax-notifications (renamed from django-notification) [2]. Besides renaming to geonode-notification, I can't tell if there are any functional differences between those two. Core functionality code seems to be not updated since then.

 * settings template (notification/notice_settings.html) is present both in GeoNode [3] and in app [4], and are almost the same (except for button element in the bottom). This is clear code duplication.

 * settings template inherits from notification/base.html, which inherits from account/base.html template, which is not present anywhere (not in GeoNode, not in geonode-notification/pinax-notifications). Some clue would be dependency on django-user-account in pinax app (which was also copied to geonode-user-accounts app in the past). So, settings view won't work, unless inheritance base is changed to existing template.

 * integration code in GeoNode 2.6 ([5] for example) won't work and won't populate Notification types, because signals binding has different signature. Proper signal binding involves AppConfig instance, which was introduced in Django 1.7. Working integration code is described in updated pinax app (see below for similar problem in master branch).

 * Current dev version of GeoNode introduced new notification dispatching mechanism [6], which uses notification app as a consumer (not directly, but mechanism is used in callbacks [13]). In GNIP PR, there are traces of refactoring notification app integration: [7], [8]. Code from [7] uses deprecated post_syncdb signal [9][10]. Instead it should use proper AppConfig or, as provided by Pinax app docs [11]. I'm not sure why part of NoticeTypes are created in signal handler, while other are created with script.

 * Some work for making this mechanism optional (or co-working with notification app) was started [12], but that PR seems to be in early stages.

My concerns and questions here are as follows:

 1. Why geonode-notification app was created? It doesn't provide any additional functionality over original pinax apps.

 2. It seems geonode-notificaiton app is not maintained at all (geonode-user-account app as well). Most of code base is 3-4 years old, written for pre-1.7 Django versions. There were few commits to update code with migrations, but that was whole contribution to this app. There are no issues (active nor solved), no pull requests. Is anyone using this app at all?

 3. Wouldn't it be better to advice use of pinax apps directly here? As I wrote before, geonode-notification app for doesn't provide any new functionality.

 References:

[1] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode-notification
[2] https://github.com/pinax/pinax-notifications
[3] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/blob/2.6.x/geonode/templates/notification/notice_settings.html
[4] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode-notification/blob/master/notification/templates/notification/notice_settings.html
[5] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/blob/5bd1bfa794d92bb47b2e113f22a1fe1ed1257ff4/geonode/layers/management/__init__.py#L55 
[6] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/issues/2889
[7] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/pull/2911/files#diff-3efadb31867c7c011d76f234bf4f3cf9R27
[8] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/pull/2911/files#diff-2e37d4a8264969d920999e14976b60a1R129
[9] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/pull/2911/files#diff-3efadb31867c7c011d76f234bf4f3cf9R35
[10] https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/ref/signals/#post-syncdb
[11] https://github.com/pinax/pinax-notifications/blob/master/docs/usage.md#creating-notice-types
[12] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/pull/2995
[13] https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/pull/2911/files#diff-65e028487582782a9d3e44fb6a9884bcL165


Best Regards,
Cezary Statkiewicz

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Cezary Statkiewicz
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