Albatross is a session-based web templating application framework written in [[http://www.python.org|Python]] for Python web applications.  It is intentionally simple but is readily deployed to support complex applications using the model-view-controller design pattern.

This tutorial is intended as a source of examples that developers can cut and paste from to develop their applications.  The [[http://www.object-craft.com.au/projects/albatross/albatross|Albatross Reference Manual]] is thorough but leaves a lot unsaid (necessarily) about strategies for structuring your application to best take advantage of Albatross's features and to deliver a reliable and maintainable app.  The Albatross Reference Manual will be the reference that fully explains the application framework.

This is not a thorough coverage of everything that Albatross offers the developer, it focuses on the most useful of the application types and features.

Albatross was developed following after experience Dave Cole of [[http://www.object-craft.com.au|Object Craft]] had gained while developing an earlier application framework for a customer which was called Python Fusion.  When another customer wanted a similar web application, he redeveloped it as an open source product called Albatross and it has matured since then.

= Assumptions =

This tutorial assumes a fair amount of knowledge and doesn't try to explain HTML, how web applications work or how to program in Python; there are excellent introductions to those topics elsewhere.