feat: tup 706 conditionally serve raw markup

[wesleyboar]

Overview

Goal: Render TACC News outside of TACC (when we should not just link the user).

Important

?template=whatever.html works without this middleware.

Important

Supports requirement for LCCF website to show LCCF news from TACC.

Feature: Allow client to load raw page content markup (no header, no footer).

Use Case? Load news pages of one website (e.g. TACC) on other websites (e.g. LCCF, WeTeach CS). By having raw markup available at a URL, another website can load and inject that markup on its own page, thus borrowing news articles and lists rather than duplicating them.

Proof of Concept? In #868, I create and run an app that injects remote content. (I am still thinking how/when best to run the app.)

Bonus: Allow dev to render a page with any Core template (or one of their own).

Use Case? Test new templates for future custom CMS features without editing Core.

How to Use One of Their Own? Add (or override) a template into taccsite_cms/templates via Dockerfile, as is done in some Core-CMS-Custom projects (apcd_cms, ecep_cms) and TUP (tup-cms).

Related

• solution for TUP-706
• supports How to Load Blog Articles Across Sites #876
• required by feat: tup-706 news on other sites #868
• requires feat: tup 706 be able to serve blog markup raw #871

Changes

• added middleware to change template at runtime before render

Testing

0. In custom_app_settings.py, add new middleware to CUSTOM_MIDDLEWARE e.g.

   CUSTOM_MIDDLEWARE = ['taccsite_cms.middleware.cms_template.CMSTemplateMiddleware']

1. Load pages with recognized query parameters.

   ?raw	template=raw.html

2. Verify page loads with raw.html template.

3. Load pages with ineffectual query parameters.

   (no query)	?rawng	template=raw	template=raw

4. Verify page loads with template that the page would normally use.

[rstijerina]

Just checking: is this the most descriptive name for the middleware class name?

[wesleyboar]

I don't know. What I know:

• It allows one to explicitly swap to one of the CMS_TEMPLATES.
• It supports shorthand for implicit swap i.e. ?raw.
• It seems typical to prepend append the name of a Django class with the kind of class it is.

What about these names:

• CMSTemplateSwapMiddleware
• CMSTemplateChangeMiddleware
• CMSTemplateOverrideMiddleware

[rstijerina]

Any of those proposed is great, thanks @wesleyboar

[wesleyboar]

Renamed… but PR closed, because the ?template=….html feature already works by default. 😅

[wesleyboar]

Important

?template=whatever.html works without this middleware.

Testing

1. Load page on this branch, without registering middleware, with ?template=raw.html and again with ?raw locally without registering middleware:
   • ?template=raw.html changes CMS page template
2. Load page on old site before this PR with ?template=fullwidth.html:
   • template changes
3. Load page on Django CMS demo About page with ?template=full-width.html and then without ?template=full-width.html:
   • different page templates used
4. Load DesignSafe-CI without any ?template and with ?template=cms_homepage.html:
   • layout changes (specifically, navbar layout)

Video of Test on Official Demo

official.demo.test.template.query.param.mov

No wonder I had such difficulty debugging when this middleware worked and didn't work… half of it was supported by default!