Installation

============

In order to use django-profiles, you will need to have a

functioning installation of Django 1.0 or newer.

There are three basic ways to install django-profiles: automatically

installing a package using Python's package-management tools, manually

installing a package, and installing from a Mercurial checkout.

Using a package-management tool

-------------------------------

The easiest way by far to install django-profiles and most other

interesting Python software is by using an automated

package-management tool, so if you're not already familiar with the

available tools for Python, now's as good a time as any to get

started.

The most popular option currently is `easy_install`_; refer to its

documentation to see how to get it set up. Once you've got it, you'll

be able to simply type::

    easy_install django-profiles

And it will handle the rest.

Another option that's currently gaining steam (and which I personally

prefer for Python package management) is `pip`_. Once again, you'll

want to refer to its documentation to get up and running, but once you

have you'll be able to type::

    pip install django-profiles

And you'll be done.

Manually installing the 0.2 package

-----------------------------------

If you'd prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, you can manually

download the `django-profiles 0.2 package`_ from the Python

Package Index. This will get you a file named

"django-profiles-0.2.tar.gz" which you can unpack (double-click on

the file on most operating systems) to create a directory named

"django-profiles-0.2". Inside will be a script named "setup.py";

running::

    python setup.py install

will install django-profiles (though keep in mind that this

defaults to a system-wide installation, and so may require

administrative privileges on your computer).

Installing from a Mercurial checkout

------------------------------------

If you have `Mercurial`_ installed on your computer, you can also

obtain a complete copy of django-profiles by typing::

    hg clone http://bitbucket.org/ubernostrum/django-profiles/

Inside the resulting "django-profiles" directory will be a

directory named "profiles", which is the actual Python module for

this application; you can symlink it from somewhere on your Python

path. If you prefer, you can use the setup.py script in the

"django-profiles" directory to perform a normal installation, but

using a symlink offers easy upgrades: simply running ``hg pull -u``

inside the django-profiles directory will fetch updates from the

main repository and apply them to your local copy.

.. _easy_install: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall

.. _pip: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip/

.. _django-profiles 0.2 package: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-profiles/0.2

.. _Mercurial: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/

If you spot a bug

=================

Head over to this application's `project page on Bitbucket`_ and

check `the issues list`_ to see if it's already been reported. If not,

open a new issue and I'll do my best to respond quickly.

.. _project page on Bitbucket: http://www.bitbucket.org/ubernostrum/django-profiles/overview/

.. _the issues list: http://www.bitbucket.org/ubernostrum/django-profiles/issues/

If the default behavior of the profile views is acceptable to you,

simply use a line like this in your root URLConf to set up the default

URLs for profiles::

    (r'^profiles/', include('profiles.urls')),

But if you'd like to customize the behavior (e.g., by passing extra

arguments to the various views) or split up the URLs, feel free to set

up your own URL patterns for these views instead. If you do, it's a

good idea to keep the name ``profiles_profile_detail`` for the pattern

which points to the ``profile_detail`` view, since several views use

``reverse()`` with that name to generate a default post-submission

redirect. If you don't use that name, remember to explicitly pass

``success_url`` to those views.