WaznexServer

An Online BarCamp Session Grid Viewer

Waznex Server (What's Next?) is a web application server designed for BarCamp Grand Rapids, but which should be useful for other BarCamps or conferences with a rapidly-changing physical session grid. Its purpose is to host an online version of the meatspace presentation session grid. Essentially, attendees upload a photo of the session grid to the WaznexServer instance, and the server shows the three most recently uploaded photos. This allows attendees to see what's going on in upcoming sessions without going out to the lobby.

Waznex Server is based on the Flask microframework and can easily be hosted on a Linux or OSX server. I recommend an Ubuntu LTS EC2 instance. It will probably also work on a Windows server, but this has not been tested.

A Waznex Android client based on the PhoneGap framework will soon be available.

Version 0.3 (current stable)

Changes from 0.2

Newer versions of Flask and dependencies. Diagnostic image link between sizes and mark bad. Mark bad button.

Version 0.2 (current stable)

Changes from 0.1

It now has a database backend using SQLAlchemy instead of the thread-unsafe global list. This has only been tested with Sqlite so far. You can now control how many images are shown on the main page - it's no longer hard-coded to 3.

Version 0.1

Capabilities

Version 0.1 includes the bare essentials of a working server. It can accept file uploads and will display the three most recent uploads using the mobile web theme. It generates two additional sized versions of each photo: a downsized version with maximum size of 1024x1024 pixels, and a thumbnail version with a maximum size of 316x316 pixels. The downsized version is useful for viewing on mobile platforms that limit download size (WebOS). The thumbnail version is sized to fit the mobile theme width.

Limitations

• If a blurry or innappropriate photo is uploaded, it will show until new photos bump it off of the recent list.

Tested on

• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Server
• Dreamhost

Installation

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server

sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv python-dev mercurial python-imaging libjpeg libjpeg-dev virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute WaznexServer cd WaznexServer source bin/activate pip install flask pip install flask-sqlalchemy pip install pil hg clone http://hg.code.sf.net/p/waznexserver/code waznexserver

Ubuntu 11.04

sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv python-dev mercurial python-imaging libjpeg libjpeg-dev virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute WaznexServer cd WaznexServer source bin/activate pip install flask pip install flask-sqlalchemy pip install pil hg clone http://hg.code.sf.net/p/waznexserver/code waznexserver sudo ./waznexserver/misc/fix_virtualenv_pil.sh

Configuration

Modify the image, downsized, and thumbnail paths found near the top of main.py to reflect your file system. Modify the templates/index.html file to change the page title. Modify the static/css/main.css file to change the style. Also be sure to disable debugging in a live deployment.

Running

Flask web server

python main.py

Serving photos and static files using Apache and mod_wsgi

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi

Although Waznex Server includes a way to serve photos and static files such as css and javascript using the Flask framework, a more efficient way of serving them is to use a dedicated web server such as Apache. An example Apache vhost configuration is included in misc/example_apache_vhost.txt.

Roadmap

• Ability for users to vote down a photo so it will be removed from the recent list. This should help with pranksters who upload inappropriate photos as well as get rid of obscured or blurry photos.
• A smart grid splitter that will slice up the session grid into columns for easier viewing on mobil devices.
• Include a copy of or link to the Waznex Android client (coming soon!) for download from the site.
• Also see TODO