To create posters from data stored in the LAMMP database.

Copyright: OmegaJunior Consultancy Since: 2021-10-11. Version: 2023-09-29

The LAMMP database stores and publishes information about missing and murdered people who are part of marginalized communities. Looking for missing people can be eased by publishing posters with basic identifying information and who to contact.

The Lammpster software aims to automate the poster creation process so that the operator only needs to provide a case identifier to have a poster generated in formats suited for various social media and physical printing.

LAMMP is a project by Redgrave Research and the Trans Doe Task Force.

OmegaJunior Consultancy recognizes that others can benefit from the Lammpster software. But it is not released as a general purpose software. Instead, it is custom made for the LAMMP database.

If you think your organization can be helped by a similar product, you are free to fork the available source code and change it to fit your needs. If you lack the time or the expertise to do so, you are free to reach out and contact OmegaJunior Consultancy and talk business.

Dependencies you need to install before attempting to run the application:

• python3,
• pip3,
• pipenv

To build this application you need to have python3 installed, with pip3 as its package manager, to install pipenv as the tool that creates a virtual environment in which to run the app. Clone the source files from the git source at GitHub or Source Hut. Have pipenv install the dependencies. Then run the pipenv shell. Once inside the pipenv shell, use this command to run the application:

$ python3 -m lammpster 12345

or, simpler:

$ ./lammpster.py 12345

in which you replace the number 12345 with the identifier of the record in your LAMMP database.

It is likely to fail because the configuration available in the source files is but an example. You need to adjust it to fit your needs. That file is called:
/maps/lammp.map

which points to a data source configuration here:
/datasources/mock.sheets.ini

which knows how to connect to Google Sheets.

First and foremost, understand that this software expects that the database is a Google Spread Sheet. The owner of that sheet must give its identifier to the Lammpster oper- ator, to be set as the sheet identity in the [sheet] section of the configuration.

Next, the owner of the spread sheet must share the sheet with a Google Workspace Service Account, set up and provided by the operator of the Lammpster software, and specified in the [account] section of the configuration. The operator must provide the email address of the service account to the sheet owner. The service account requires read access, only.

That requires that the operator of the Lammpster software has a Google Workspace developer account, and has created a Workspace Project in which the Service Account lives, and has enabled API access of that Project. The operator then has Google create a credential key file for the Service Account, using the tools that Google provides, saves that file in a location where the Lammpster software can read it, and tells the Lammpster software where to find that file, in the [account] section of the configuration.

The owner of the spread sheet must tell the Lammpster operator in which of the sheet's pages to look for data. Lammpster can read only 1 page of 1 spread sheet, using 1 service account. To read multiple pages of multiple sheets, possible using other service accounts, set up multiple copies of the software and adjust the config file for each.

The software is highly customized, and reads known columns from the spread sheet. Which columns, is specified in the configuration file, in the section 'profile', under the heading 'fields'. If you change that, make sure to also change the 'profile_map' section, wich maps the placeholder names in the poster templates to the field names from the database.

It is possible to specify fewer and more poster templates. Templates must be created in SVG format. Programs that can create these include Draw.io and Inkscape. Each template creates posters in the formats pdf, png, and svg. Specify templates in the configuration file, in the section 'posters'.

Additional options:

• --list-column-names will list the column names of the specified page in the spread sheet. This is used to configure the mapping of the spread sheet columns to the posters. It looks at the [sheet] section in the configur- ation file to determine which row contains the sheet column names. Invoke this without providing other switches or options, like so: $ python3 -m lammpster --list-column-names

• --list-data-stores will list the page names in the spread sheet. Use this to explore a spread sheet of which the owner forgot to specify which page to query. By default, the page of interest is named sheet1, but owners have the option of renaming sheets. Invoke this without providing other switches or options, like so: $ python3 -m lammpster --list-data-stores

• --list-column-values x will list all values in column x in the specified page in the spread sheet. Use this to find a record identifier, for instance. Provide the index of the column to list. Usually that is column 1. Invoke this with- out providing other switches or options, like so: $ python3 -m lammpster --list-column-values 1

• --unit-test will perform unit tests. A python script named 'unit_tester.py' is available, that gets called. You can call it by itself as well, like so: $ python3 -m unit_tester

For added support and feedback, contact OmegaJunior Consultancy at: omegajunior@protonmail.com.