This is a small application which you can use as a model or base for your own project.

The code is here, which you should browse and download:

https://github.com/rvl/guestbook

And you can (probably) see it in action here:

http://rvl.pythonanywhere.com/

Note how it appears on a computer as well as on a phone.

A good editor to use for Python and HTML is Sublime Text 3. You can download a trial version for free.

To understand how it works examine app.py and skim the Bottle tutorial. You can look through each of the HTML files in the views/ directory to see how variables are used in templates.

To start the development server, either:

1. Run app.py from IDLE
2. Open app.py in Sublime Text then press ⌘+B

Then visit http://localhost:8080/ .

Try editing stuff in the HTML files, then refresh the page and see what happens.

Start making simple changes to app.py, then stop and restart the development server. For example, add the "hello world" example view from the Bottle tutorial. If the development server successfully starts, refresh the web page to see what changed.

As a rule, you need to restart the development server for Python code changes to take effect. If it is a HTML change, then you only need to refresh the web browser.

Bottle is well documented and there is plenty of information on the website to get you started.

Bootstrap 3 makes the app look nice, kind of like Twitter. Generally, you just browse through the examples on the web site, pick what looks nice, then copy & paste the HTML code into your template.

For example, to make a large green button, visit CSS / Buttons. Change the button text as appropriate, maybe add a Glyphicon

To make a list group of links, get the code from Components / List group, and fix up the text and href="#" attributes.

The HTML code looks like a mess but you get used to it.

The example app uses a really simple data storage system. It is no more complex than necessary for a small application.

It works by "pickling" and "unpickling" Python objects using the pickle module. The pickled objects are stored in files in a _db/ directory.

The storage code can be edited in db.py.

There are also javascript and CSS files within the static/ directory.

Python Anywhere is really easy and gives away trial accounts for small projects.

1. Sign up for Python Anywhere
2. From the Dashboard, create a new web app. Use the "Manual setup" option.
3. Then create a Bash console and type:

   git clone https://github.com/rvl/guestbook.git
   

4. In the web app configuration section, edit the WSGI configuration file so that it looks like wsgi/pythonanywhere.py.
5. Click the Reload button then try viewing your web site.

It's not always convenient to use a phone for testing.

To simulate a phone inside a desktop web browser, either resize your window, or use Device Mode in Chrome.

Device Mode can be activated by pressing Cmd+Shift+J then Cmd+Shift+M.

You're free to use this code as you wish: MIT Licence.