FAQ¶

Can I use Jupyter Notebooks with my TOM?¶

Yes. First install jupyterlab into your TOM virtualenv:

pip install jupyterlab

Inside your TOM directory, use the following management command to launch the notebook server:

./manage.py shell_plus --notebook

Under the new notebook menu, choose “Django Shell-Plus”. This will create a new notebook in the correct TOM context.

There is also a tutorial on interacting with your TOM using Jupyter notebooks.

What are tags on the Target form?¶

You can add tags to targets via the target create/update forms or programmatically. These are meant to be arbitrary data associated with a target. You can then search for targets via tags on the target list page, by entering the “key” and/or “value” fields in the filter list. They will also be displayed on the target detail pages.

If you’d like to have more control over extra target data, see the documentation on Adding Custom Target Fields.

I try to observe a target with LCO but get an error.¶

You might not have added your LCO api key to your settings file under the FACILITIES settings. See Custom Settings for more details.

How do I create a super user (PI)?¶

You can create a new superuser using the built in management command:

./manage.py createsuperuser

The manage.py file can be found in the root of your project.

Alternatively, you can give a user superuser status if you are already logged in as a superuser by visiting the admin page for users: http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/auth/user/

My science requires more parameters than are provided by the TOM Toolkit.¶

It is possible to add additional parameters to your targets within the TOM. See the documentation on Adding Custom Target Fields.

Yuck! My TOM is ugly. How do I change how it looks?¶

You have a few options. If you’d like to rearrange the layout or information on the page, you can follow the tutorial on Customizing your TOM. If you’d like to modify colors, typography, etc you’ll want to use CSS. W3Schools is a good resource if you are unfamiliar with Cascading Style Sheets.

How do I add a new page to my TOM?¶

We would recommend you read the Django tutorial 🙂. But if you want the quick and dirty, edit the urls.py (located next to settings.py):

from django.urls import path, include
from django.views.generic import TemplateView

urlpatterns = [
    path('', include('tom_common.urls')),
    path('newpage/', TemplateView.as_view(template_name='newpage.html'), name='newpage')
]

And make sure newpage.html is located within the templates/ directory in your project.

This will make the contents of newpage.html available under the path /newpage/.

Who is AnonymousUser?¶

AnonymousUser is a special profile that django-guardian, our permissions library, creates automatically. AnonymousUser represents an unauthenticated user. The user has no first name, last name, or password, and allows unauthenticated users to view unprotected pages within your TOM. You can choose to delete the user if you don’t want any pages to be visible without logging in.

How can I display an error message when authentication to an external facility fails?¶

For any modules exposing external services, such as brokers, harvesters, or facilities, a failed authentication should raise an ImproperCredentialsException. Exceptions of this type are caught by the TOM Toolkit’s built-in ExternalServiceMiddleware. This middleware will display an error at the top of the page and redirect the user to the home page.