Use Dash to Build to Web Apps on Contentful Data

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData API Driver for Python, the pandas module, and the Dash framework, you can build Contentful-connected web applications for Contentful data. This article shows how to connect to Contentful with the CData Connector and use pandas and Dash to build a simple web app for visualizing Contentful data.

With built-in, optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Contentful data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from Contentful, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Contentful and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Contentful Data

Connecting to Contentful data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Contentful Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Contentful.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Contentful (see below).

Contentful API Profile Settings

Obtain your Content Delivery API access token from your Contentful space settings under Settings > API Keys. Your SpaceId is visible in your Contentful workspace configuration.

After installing the CData Contentful Connector, follow the procedure below to install the other required modules and start accessing Contentful through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the required modules and frameworks:

pip install pandas
pip install dash
pip install dash-daq

Visualize Contentful Data in Python

Once the required modules and frameworks are installed, we are ready to build our web app. Code snippets follow, but the full source code is available at the end of the article.

First, be sure to import the modules (including the CData Connector) with the following:

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the connect function for the CData Contentful Connector to create a connection for working with Contentful data.

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\Contentful.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_access_token;SpaceId=your_space_id';")

Execute SQL to Contentful

Use the read_sql function from pandas to execute any SQL statement and store the result set in a DataFrame.

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, SpaceId FROM Assets WHERE ContentType = 'image/jpeg'", cnxn)

Configure the Web App

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, we can begin configuring the web app, assigning a name, stylesheet, and title.

app_name = 'dash-apiedataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'

Configure the Layout

The next step is to create a bar graph based on our Contentful data and configure the app layout.

trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.SpaceId, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Contentful Assets Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

Set the App to Run

With the connection, app, and layout configured, we are ready to run the app. The last lines of Python code follow.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)

Now, use Python to run the web app and a browser to view the Contentful data.

python api-dash.py

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData API Driver for Python to start building Python apps with connectivity to Contentful data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\Contentful.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_access_token;SpaceId=your_space_id';")

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, SpaceId FROM Assets WHERE ContentType = 'image/jpeg'", cnxn)
app_name = 'dash-apidataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'
trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.SpaceId, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Contentful Assets Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)