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mads
mysql: create database with explicit UTF-8 character set and collation

A spin-off from Issue #378.

In MySQL, the character sets for server, database, tables, and connection are
set independently. Ideally, they should all use UTF-8, but systems tend to use
latin1 as default encoding, for example:

character_set_server = latin1
collation_server = latin1_swedish_ci

Databases would thus by default be created as:

character_set_database = latin1
collation_database = latin1_swedish_ci

To make things work consistently anyway, we have so far specified the utf8mb4
charset explicitly when creating tables, but there is no corresponding simple
option for specifying the collation for tables. We need a better solution.

If necessary and possible, the system charset and collation should be set to
UTF-8. Some systems already have these defaults default - see
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/differences-in-mariadb-in-debian-and-ubuntu/ .
The defaults can be changed as described on
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/setting-character-sets-and-collations/#example-changing-the-default-character-set-to-utf-8
to give something like:

character_set_server = utf8mb4
collation_server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci

Databases will then by default be created as:

character_set_database = utf8mb4
collation_database = utf8mb4_unicode_ci

and there is thus no longer any need for specifying the charset when creating
tables.

To be reasonably resilient across all systems without relying on system
defaults, we will now start specifying the charset and collation when creating
the database, but drop the specification of charset when creating tables.

For existing databases, it is recommended to change encoding (and collation) by
altering the database and each of the tables inside it as described on
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6115612/how-to-convert-an-entire-mysql-database-characterset-and-collation-to-utf-8 .

Note the use of utf8mb4_unicode_ci instead of utf8mb4_general_ci - see
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/766809/whats-the-difference-between-utf8-general-ci-and-utf8-unicode-ci .

For investigation of these issues, consider the output from:
show variables like '%char%';
show variables like '%collation%';
show create database `KALLITHEA_DB_NAME`;
SELECT * FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA WHERE schema_name = "KALLITHEA_DB_NAME";
SELECT * FROM information_schema.TABLES T, information_schema.COLLATION_CHARACTER_SET_APPLICABILITY CCSA WHERE CCSA.collation_name = T.table_collation AND T.table_schema = "KALLITHEA_DB_NAME";
.. _customization:

=============
Customization
=============

There are several ways to customize Kallithea to your needs depending on what
you want to achieve.


HTML/JavaScript/CSS customization
---------------------------------

To customize the look-and-feel of the web interface (for example to add a
company banner or some JavaScript widget or to tweak the CSS style definitions)
you can enter HTML code (possibly with JavaScript and/or CSS) directly via the
*Admin > Settings > Global > HTML/JavaScript customization
block*.


Style sheet customization with Less
-----------------------------------

Kallithea uses `Bootstrap 3`_ and Less_ for its style definitions. If you want
to make some customizations, we recommend to do so by creating a ``theme.less``
file. When you create a file named ``theme.less`` in directory
``kallithea/front-end/`` inside the Kallithea installation, you can use this
file to override the default style. For example, you can use this to override
``@kallithea-theme-main-color``, ``@kallithea-logo-url`` or other `Bootstrap
variables`_.

After creating the ``theme.less`` file, you need to regenerate the CSS files, by
running::

    kallithea-cli front-end-build --no-install-deps

.. _bootstrap 3: https://getbootstrap.com/docs/3.3/
.. _bootstrap variables: https://getbootstrap.com/docs/3.3/customize/#less-variables
.. _less: http://lesscss.org/


Behavioral customization: rcextensions
--------------------------------------

Some behavioral customization can be done in Python using ``rcextensions``, a
custom Python package that can extend Kallithea functionality.

With ``rcextensions`` it's possible to add additional mappings for Whoosh
indexing and statistics, to add additional code into the push/pull/create/delete
repository hooks (for example to send signals to build bots such as Jenkins) and
even to monkey-patch certain parts of the Kallithea source code (for example
overwrite an entire function, change a global variable, ...).

To generate a skeleton extensions package, run::

    kallithea-cli extensions-create -c my.ini

This will create an ``rcextensions`` package next to the specified ``ini`` file.
See the ``__init__.py`` file inside the generated ``rcextensions`` package
for more details.


Behavioral customization: code changes
--------------------------------------

As Kallithea is open-source software, you can make any changes you like directly
in the source code.

We encourage you to send generic improvements back to the
community so that Kallithea can become better. See :ref:`contributing` for more
details.