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Web framework for *not* creating websites? [duplicate]

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Recommended python library/framework for local web app?
I am looking for a lightweight framework/webserver that will make it easy to develop web interfaces for some demon processes or some application that should have ideally be an desktop application.
Some examples
To organize photo/music collections, move between folders, edit meta data of those etc,
A simple to-do list/ Money manager/ Documents manager etc,
A log/textFile viewer
A page showing the status of my git repositories
I prefer server side to be python. I don't want to run a full webserver like apache. As this is going to be used similar to a desktop app, I dont need any security features that will prevent me from accessing file system or running any shell commands or accessing internet etc.,
Any suggestions?

Check bottle.py
Most frameworks will have built-in development servers, so you can still use django or some other. But if you are looking for something lightweight to do some quick project, bottle.py can be great

Werkzeug is a good choice. It's a web toolkit more than a web framework. It's very mature, and is the basis of Flask, a popular microframework.
I've developed a website using vanilla Werkzeug and it was really intuitive. It has an explicit feel to it. None of the RoR-style autoload-controller and folder logic, just a bunch of classes and modules that are really well-documented and useful.

As well as cherry.py is a lightweight framework with full server.
http://www.cherrypy.org/
CherryPy allows developers to build web applications in much
the same way they would build any other object-oriented Python
program. This results in smaller source code developed in less time.

Any Python web microframework running on any wsgi compliant Python lightweight web server will do. There are already questions on both here.

My first web app (Python): use CGI, or a framework like Django?

I don’t want to burden you all with the details, but basically I’m a 2nd year compsci student with no Web dev experience.
Basically I want to create a small “web app” that takes in input from a html form, have a python script perform some calculations, and re-display those results in your browser.
As of right now, I have the form and script built. However, when I try to test the form, instead of running the script, my browser tries to download it. To my understanding, this is a cgi script problem, and that I must create a web server in order to test this script.
And heres were I’m stuck. I know little to nothing about web servers and how to set them up. On top of that I’ve heard that GCI scripting is a thing of the past, and requires major overhead in order to run properly.
This leads to my questions. How do I go about completing my app and testing my cgi script? Do I install apache and mess around with it or should I be looking into something like google app engine? Are there other ways to complete this task without cgi scripts? Where do frameworks like Django fit into this?

Django, while being nice, all-encompassing and well-supported, is sometimes too much for a small web application. Django wants you to play by its rules from the beginning, you'll have to avoid things like the database and admin panels if you don't need them. It's also easier, with Django, to follow its project layout, even when it's too complex for a simple app.
The so-called micro frameworks might suit you better for your small app. They are built upon the opposite principle: use the bare minimum of features now, add more as you need them.
Flask is based on Werkzeug WSGI library and Jinja2 templating (the latter is switchable), is extensively documented (with notes concerning virtualenv and stuff) and well-suited for small and larger apps alike. It comes bundled with an auto-reloading dev server (no need for Apache on your dev machine) and Werkzeug-powered interactive debugger. There are extensions for things like HTML forms and database ORM.
Bottle is as small as a microframework can get, consisting of 1 (one) file, dev server included. Drop it into your project folder and start hacking. The built-in SimpleTemplate templating engine is switchable, but the dev server is flakier in comparison to Flask's. The documentation is less complete, and, in my opinion, the whole thing is less polished and convenient as Flask.
In both cases, you use dev server locally, and then deploy using WSGI, the server interface for Python web apps which both frameworks support. There are many ways to deploy a WSGI app, Apache mod_wsgi being one of the popular ones.
I'd totally go with Flask unless one dependency (Bottle) is better than three (Flask, Jinja2 and Werkzeug).
(There are many other frameworks as well, so wait for their users to come and tell about them. I'd suggest to avoid web.py: it works, but is full of magic, and is inelegant compared to Flask or Bottle.)

One way of getting to working webapp quickly is by first understanding, and then modifying, something like the App Engine "guestbook" example. This has the benefit that much of the otherwise necessary tedium of running a web server and setting up a database server (assuming you need persistence) is done for you. App Engine also provides a fairly flexible development environment. It's certainly not the only way to go, and I'll admit to bias in recommending it, but it's fairly low friction.
GCI scripting is hardly a thing of the past, though it's not what the cool kids are doing. CGI has the benefit, and the curse, of exposing more of the raw plumbing. It forces you to understand a lot about primitive (in the low-level sense) web architecture, but it's also a bit of a large bite to chew on if you have an immediate problem to solve that can solved by simpler means.

It appears most python web development seems to be done by frameworks these days. There are a couple reasons for this:
a plethora of mature tools. Django has built in user auth, built in database management, built in sessions, built in just about everything ORM which lets you seamlessly supports a couple databases.
Built in webservers. The larger python frameworks like django and pylons have built in webservers. Django has a very simple webserver python manage.py startserver (that simple) That makes it extremely easy to create and debug applications. It is single threaded so dropping a debugger into it is painless
Huge communities. If you have a django question it will be answered very quickly the so community is huge.
The django tutorial will introduce you to all the major aspects of development. It is only 4 pages and you will be able to get your app going a lot simpler than having to read, learn and fiddle with an apache setup.
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/
Although django for right now might be overkill if your app is just going to be 1 form and a script to process it. Because of its seamless testing framework it is quite easy to grow any project. I have never used flask or bottle or the other microframeworks, but I would keep in mind where your project will be in the future.
As for where django fits into this, it is a full stack framework encompassing presentation (templates), data management (server orm), authentication, middleware, forms ... everything necessary to create a completely inclusive web application. Django and almost all other python frameworks implement the wsgi standard. It is an interface that allows for interoperation between webservers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Server_Gateway_Interface it is pretty dry and you will never have to interface it directly. That is what these frameworks do under the hood.

Why setup and maintain your own webserver if you can use app engine. It has an excellent SDK for testing your code. Here is an example https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstarted/handlingforms
And Django you will find here : https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstarted/templates
I prefer to use Jinja for templating.

Django comes with its own server, but in your case i would recommend apache and mod_python since it seems to be a rather simple site you're building.
Setting up Apache is a breeze and a simple search on the web should give you all you need.
You can find more information on mod_python here read up a little bit on it and then google after a tutorial that fits your needs.

Suggest a standalone python web framework?

I have a python program that I would like to present as a simple web application. The program currently uses sqlite for storage. I also need to distribute the whole thing to colleagues so having something standalone and easy to start would be ideal ( no install if possible). This web app is meant to be used locally , not by multiple users over a network.
Is there a suitable python framework that might fit my needs? I looked at Django so far but it seems a bit heavy handed for what I need.
Thanks for any suggestions.

I have never tried it myself, but you could try Bottle:
Bottle is a fast, simple and lightweight WSGI micro web-framework for
Python. It is distributed as a single file module and has no
dependencies other than the Python Standard Library.

try http://docs.python.org/library/simplehttpserver.html

As web frameworks are not part of the standard lib, you will have to install something in every case. I would propse to look at http://flask.pocoo.org/. It has a build in WSGI server.

Lots of choices for Python web frameworks! Another is web2py which is designed to work out of the box and allows, but doesn't require, through-the-web development. It is mature and has a strong community and is well-documented.

Tornado as a framework may be a lot more than what you're looking for. However it will meet the requirement of being a completely python based web server. http://tornadoweb.org
I generally just download the source, drop it in /tornado/ of my project and do includes there from the app.

I don't think that any web framework is specifically oriented for the use case you're talking about; They all assume they are running on a server and there's a browser on a remote machine that is accessing them.
A better approach is to think about the HTTP server you'll be using. It's probably preferable to use a server that's as easy to pack and ship as the rest of the python code you'll be using. Now most frameworks provide a 'development' server that's easy to invoke from the command line, but most of them are intended to be "easy for the developer" which often means they are restricted to a single thread. This is bad for deployment because single threaded servers will always feel a bit sluggish.
CherryPy stands out in contrast, by providing a full featured, embedded server that's easy to configure for many use cases, and is available by default with the rest of the framework. There are probably others, but I haven't used 'em.

Switching from web to desktop development

Being a web developer (php, symfony, doctrine) for 2 years now, I was recently asked by a friend to come up with a desktop solution. So I developed a project, installed a LAMP on his machine and he is mostly happy using it now. But I'm not. It just doesn't seem right to wait for a server response from a localhost. Obviously php isn't suited for desktop development. So, my question is: what language \ framework would you advice a php programmer if he was going to develop a desktop application (something that you can install, that has it's own gui, but utilizes the similar concepts of web apps: css, javascript, orm).
I would like to bring up Python as a possible answer to my question. Does anyone have an experience of developing a desktop app with Python, utilizing an ORM and(or) HTML-based GUI?

You should definitely use Python. It's great and really easy to get up and running and extremely powerful.
utilizing an ORM and(or) HTML-based GUI
Please don't do this. HTML has its purposes, and it's not in desktop apps. Please don't force your experience into new technologies.
You should look at the various python GUI frameworks. Tkinter, PyQt ( my preference), or GTK

It just doesn't seem right to wait for a server response from a localhost
Exactly! Did you profile your app, both on server side and in browser? There's no reason for a local web app to be slow, except if it is designed or implemented suboptimally. Same applies to a desktop app, which is generally harder to create.
So, fire up your Firebug, do explain plan to every database query your app issues, add whatever profiling your PHP settings allow, and see where the problem lies. Most probably, it's not in the choice of language.

Maybe Adobe AIR is something to take a look at? Check out their sample applications. If you don't like using a "proprietary" technology, check out HTML5 technologies like Web Storage and Web SQL (not in the HTML5) spec.) These technologies are completely client side (but can be extended to work over a network), so no need to wait for a server.
I've no clue how capable/easy to work with the Web SQL route is, but there are some decent AIR applications out there.

I've recently come across a project called Titanium. It's a platform for developing native desktop (and mobile) applications using web technology (html/css, javascript and server-side languages like python, ruby and PHP! That's exactly what I was looking for. However, I haven't found no decent documentation or examples, community is small, so it seems to be underdeveloped right now. It mostly aims at mobile development rather that desktop.
Apart from Titanium, I currently don't see a better way for a web developer to go.

Is the target platform windows? If so, consider C# with WPF. The UI is constructed using XAML which is very similar to HTML/CSS. C# uses the .NET framework, so while it is a much different programming language than PHP, the transition should not be too difficult.

Simple python mvc framework

Is there any lightweight mvc webframework which is not necessary to install to the server?
I need something simple, that i could just copy to the shared hosting. And it must handle urls other that localhost/test.py, something like this localhost/Blog/test

You should probably check out Flask or Bottle, two nice Python microframeworks. With an appropriate "main" Python script (to initialize your app and dispatch requests to it) and mod_rewrite rules in place, you can probably get pretty close to your goal of "just copy[ing] to the shared hosting" with nice URLs.
Flask has good documentation on deploying via CGI, which is what you might have to use on your shared host. (If your host supports FastCGI or mod_wsgi, those deployment options would be preferable.)

Checkout web2py. Seems to be about the simplest python based webserver I can think of.
Django might do, it's hefty, but it comes with it's own development server.

web2py includes everything (ssl-enabled web server, sqlite sql based transaction safe database, web based Integrated Development Enviroment, web based database interface) in one package. The web2py binaries for windows and mac also include Python itself. web2py does not require configuration or installation and can run off a usb drive. It was originally developed as a teaching tool for MVC.

checkout https://github.com/salimane/bottle-mvc or https://github.com/salimane/flask-mvc . They are boilerplates that could get you started with controllers, models in separate folders. They are based on bottle and flask micro frameworks, no useless features, they give you the flexibility to plugin whatever modules you want.