Template repository for oTree experiment project

This is a template repository that sets up a project using oTree (https://otree.org).

Aside from saving a few steps in setting up the repository itself (via GitHub's templating feature), this pre-populates your project with some useful infrastructural files:

Basic features

• Sets up a requirements.txt file including oTree (5.10.4) as well as numpy, scipy, and pandas, which are often useful to have in programming an experiment. To replicate, do these steps:
  • pip install otree numpy scipy pandas
  • pip freeze > requirements.txt
• Adds a runtime.txt, so the project is ready for deployment to Heroku.
• Runs otree startproject and includes the basic files generated.
• Some improvements to the .gitignore file.

Some goodies

• Defines an app, splash, which implements a simple splash screen suitable for opening an experiment in the lab. This screen has a Next button only when in demo mode.
• The app quiz illustrates one way to implement a multiple-choice comprehension quiz, coding the questions and answers as data to avoid repetitive code. Additional features:
  • Records the number of incorrect attempts
  • Returns custom hint text
  • Illustrates how, using JavaScript/jQuery, to disable a submission button until the user has made acceptable input (in this case, selecting one of the options)

Advanced programming tools

• Includes a pyproject.toml file which configures ruff (https://docs.astral.sh/ruff/), a fast linter (code checker) for Python.
• Also includes a .flake8 file which configures the popular flake8 code checking tool.
• Includes a configuration file for pre-commit (https://pre-commit.com). If you choose to use pre-commit, this configuration file runs ruff and flake8 as above, as well as a few other checks which tidy your files and warn on unexpected items (such as committing large files).

These configuration files enforce a few opinionated settings which improve code consistency and quality:

• Quoted strings should always use double-quotes instead of single-quotes.
• from otree.api import * and similar constructs are a bad idea; ruff will complain about this.