django-app-lti

This is a django application that provides basic LTI integration. It is intended to be used alongside the django-auth-lti library, which provides middleware and backend classes for authentication.

Installation

Install via pip:

pip install git+https://github.com/Harvard-ATG/django-app-lti@master#egg=django-app-lti
pip install git+https://github.com/Harvard-University-iCommons/django-auth-lti@master#egg=django-auth-lti

In your django project, modify settings.py:

# Add to your installed django apps
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django_auth_lti',
    'django_app_lti',
]

# Add to middleware (for django-auth-lti)
MIDDLEWARE = [
    # ... other middleware ...
    'django_auth_lti.middleware.LTIAuthMiddleware',
]

# Add to authentication backends (for django-auth-lti)
AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',
    'django_auth_lti.backends.LTIAuthBackend',
)

# Add LTI configuration settings (for django-app-lti)
LTI_SETUP = {
    "TOOL_TITLE": "My tool name",
    "TOOL_DESCRIPTION": "My tool description",
    "LAUNCH_URL": "lti:launch",
    "LAUNCH_REDIRECT_URL": "myapp:index",
    "INITIALIZE_MODELS": False, # Options: False|resource_only|resource_and_course|resource_and_course_users
    "EXTENSION_PARAMETERS": {
        "canvas.instructure.com": {
            "privacy_level": "public",
            "course_navigation": {
                "enabled": "true",
                "default": "disabled",
                "text": "My tool (localhost)",
            }
        }
    }
}

# Add LTI oauth credentials (for django-auth-lti)
LTI_OAUTH_CREDENTIALS = {
    "mykey":"mysecret",
    "myotherkey": "myothersecret",
}

Modify your urls.py:

import django_app_lti.urls

# Include the lti app's urls
path('lti/', include(django_app_lti.urls, namespace="lti"))

Make sure you execute ./manage.py syncdb && ./manage.py migrate to setup the LTI app models.

You can generate the LTI tool configuration (XML) here, assuming you are running the built-in django server with ./manage.py runserver:

http://localhost:8000/lti/config

Customizing the LTI launch

To customize the behavior of the LTI launch and how the POST request is processed in terms of initializing models and other launch data, subclass django_app_lti.views.LTILaunchView and modify your settings.py configuration so that the LAUNCH_URL points to that view (don't forget to add the URL route for the launch view you created).

Example:

from django_app_lti.views import LTILaunchView

class MyLTILaunchView(LTILaunchView):
    def hook_before_post(self, request):
        '''Called before models are created and initialized in hook_process_post().'''
        pass

    def hook_process_post(self, request):
        '''Creates and initializes models.'''
        super(MyLTILaunchView, self).hook_process_post(request)

    def hook_after_post(self, request):
        '''Called after models are initialized.'''
        pass

    def hook_get_redirect(self):
        '''Returns a redirect after the POST request has been processed.'''
        return super(MyLTILaunchView, self).hook_get_redirect()

The models are created and initialized in the hook_process_post() method, so if you don't want to create any models when the LTI tool is launched, simply override that method, omitting the call to the superclass method.