Hunch Application Framework

This application is a starting point for developers who want to build applications using the Hunch API. The application is built to run either as a standalone Django application or using Google App Engine.

This sample application will display recommendations for a single Hunch user by placing that user's AUTH_TOKEN in app/config.py. If you would like to generate recommendations for arbitrary Hunch users, obtain an APP_ID and APP_SECRET by e-mailing [email protected]. You will them be able to Hunch Connect (OAuth) users into your application and store their auth_tokens.

Other libraries used include:

• jQuery JavaScript Framework
• Mustache JavaScript templating library
• Hunch JavaScript SDK
• djangoappengine

Getting started

1. Download the Google App Engine Python SDK

2. Configure initial settings

   • in app/config.py, edit AUTH_TOKEN. Your AUTH_TOKEN can be found at the bottom of the Hunch developer docs (login and select "show my auth_token")

3. Test your app loads the test page

   • run python dev_server.sh (this defaults to running on port 80 which may require root permissions)
   • open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost
   • ensure that you see the success page
   • now navigate to http://localhost/app/
   • ensure that you see the recommendations being populated correctly

4. If you want to Hunch Connect users into your application

   • E-mail [email protected] to request an APP_ID and APP_SECRET
   • in app/config.py, edit APP_ID and APP_SECRET you will receive for your Hunch application

5. When ready, deploy the app to GAE

   • in settings.py, create a SECRET_KEY
   • in app.yaml, edit app-name; in app/config.py, edit APP_HOSTNAME
   • python manage.py deploy

Useful commands

Start the development server sh dev_server.sh

Publish your app to GAE python2.5 manage.py deploy

Launch a local Python console for interecting with the app and datastore python2.5 manage.py shell

Launch a remote Python console for interacting with the app and datastore python2.5 manage.py remote shell

Notes and gotchas

• GAE will penalize your app if requests take over 1000 ms to complete, so push as many calls to the frontend as possible by using the Hunch Javascript SDK

• This application is packaged with djangoappengine for creating Django projects that run on GAE. It is worthwhile to read the overview of using the helper.

• GAE uses Python 2.5, so running scripts like manage.py with python2.5 is recommended. The scripts dev_server.sh and fresh_dev_server.sh use python2.5

• You can access the GAE admin console at http://localhost/_ah/admin/

• For testing, it is useful to redirect your-app-name.appspot.com to your local machine. To accomplish this, edit your /etc/hosts file and point that address to your IP (or localhost)