---
title: "GenieFramework Microblog Part 1"
# description: ""
date: "08/27/2024"  #Update when live
draft: true
categories:
  - Julia
  - dataViz
  - GenieFramework
# Need to explore comments
highlight-style: github
---
## Introduction
Quite some time ago I started attempting to learn python and web development.  I claim in no way to be even close to an expert on either one of those things, in fact I am truly a beginner at both.  While I never continued with python I have always enjoyed web development, creating quite a few small R Shiny apps along the way.  As I have decided to learn Julia I am instantly drawn to Web Development, and I decided to try out the Genie Framework.  While there exist some tutorials on the web, I find the all contain small pieces of information but lack putting everything together.  Form my learning python days, I know that there exists a WONDERFUL tutorial for the python Flask framework ([Found Here](https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-i-hello-world)). I decided to challenge myself and recreate his website using Genie, and the Model, View, Controller model.  I will attempt to document what I do to try and help others along the way.  As stated above I AM NOT AN EXPERT, so at any time there is a good chance I am not doing something the best way possible!  I encourage everyone to follow along and make suggestions for improvements.  I am going to try my best to go in the order Miguel did, but for some chapters I will skip sections or combine things as needed to make them work for the framework.

## Getting Started
Miguel's blog does a great job of going into installing python and flask as well as setting up virtual environments in python. I am going to skip most of this as there is great documentation out there on how to install Julia and set up a project (Genie will actually take care of this for us).  Instead I will link here what I would say are the three prerequisites for getting started.

- [Download and install Julia](https://julialang.org/downloads/)
- The IDE of your choice (I use VSCode, and the [Julia Extension](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=julialang.language-julia))
- Add Genie to your Julia environment (see below)

To add Genie to your Julia environment, open the Julia REPL and type the following:

```julia
pkg> add Genie # press ] from julia> prompt to enter Pkg mode
```

## Creating The App

Genie will take care of creating a new directory for us, but we will want to open the Julia REPL from whatever directory we want the app folder to live in.  Once that has been decided open a Julia REPL and type the following:

```julia
julia> using Genie

julia> Genie.Generator.newapp("Microblog")
```
Upon executing the command, Genie will:

- make a new dir called ```Microblog``` and ```cd()``` into it,
- install all the app's dependencies
- create a new Julia project (adding the Project.toml and Manifest.toml files),
- activate the project,
- automatically load the new app's environment into the REPL,
- start the web server on the default Genie port (port 8000) and host (127.0.0.1 -- aka ```localhost```).

At this point you can confirm that everything worked as expected by visiting [http://127.0.0.1:8000](http://127.0.0.1:8000) in your favorite web browser. You should see Genie's welcome page.
If at any point you want to exit the REPL and reload the app perform the following:

```julia
julia> using Genie

julia> Genie.loadapp()

julia> up()
```
This will reload the app and activate the web server.  You can again visit [http://127.0.0.1:8000](http://127.0.0.1:8000) to test that everything is working.

## Creating a Hello World Genie App

While Genie by default has a welcome page, lets change it to a simple Hello World page to make the app our own.  Open routes.jl and change the "/" route to the following: 

```{.julia filename="routes.jl"}
route("/") do
  "Hello World!"
end
```
If we go to [http://127.0.0.1:8000](http://127.0.0.1:8000) we should now see the following:

![Hello World Screenshot](helloworldscreenshot.png)