Features¶
This page lists the “completed” features for Messkit. All of the following are considered working and stable.
Also note, here we only highlight features deemed Messkit-specific. Since Messkit is built on top of lots of other tech, there are many more features which have been complete for years. Most of those underlying features assumed a programmer would “glue” components together in code, whereas Messkit is trying to let the admin user do that via web app instead. So this feature list reflects only the Messkit-specific goals.
Configurable Views¶
This is related to the previous point (e.g. a menu entry usually references some sort of view), but is definitely a separate concern.
First to clarify.. A “view” in this context really means a “Python module containing view logic” and that “view logic” is what responds to user requests and displays data etc. Most often a particular view is tied to a particular table in the DB.
Messkit comes with many views built-in, but not all will be relevant to you. For instance you might need to see Employees but not Products.
Messkit allows for any such built-in view to be:
disabled
enabled, using default view module
enabled, using custom view module
Go to the App Settings page (/settings/app/) and from the “Go To Configure” dropdown choose Included Views.
Custom Reports¶
Messkit comes with “some” reports built-in. However there are very few and they serve mostly as examples.
First to clarify, a “report” in this context really means a “Python module containing report logic” and that “report logic” is what generates the output file.
Messkit allows you to create new reports (Python modules) to suit your needs. Reporting needs can vary wildly, so Messkit does not try to provide the full interface to create a “complete” detailed report. But it can generate some skeleton code and get you started in the right direction.
More “flavors” of sample code generation should be added, but there are some basic ones in place already. Namely they allow for either using raw SQL to query tables, or alternately can use the SQLAlchemy models which then auto-generate the SQL needed.
At this time Messkit does not have any smarts about “other systems” and therefore sample code it generates will only show how to query the Messkit database. As time goes on more sample code will be added, which shows how to query other (e.g. POS) databases, as well as e.g. web API for some systems.
Messkit “blends” the custom reports with its built-in reports, in the user interface. Meaning, if a user goes to generate a new report (i.e. run a module to produce output) then they will see all available reports in the same list.