pulled apart main to make a self-contained author.py... Weird use of importing from __main__ rather than main.py, and ordering the import to after the db object was created seems to be the secret sauce

author.py

@@ -1,8 +1,68 @@
 from wtforms import SubmitField, StringField, HiddenField, validators, Form
+from flask import request, render_template
+from __main__ import db, app, ma
 
+################################################################################
+# Class describing Author in the database, and via sqlalchemy, connected to the DB as well
+################################################################################
+class Author(db.Model):
+    id = db.Column(db.Integer, unique=True, nullable=False, primary_key=True)
+    firstnames = db.Column(db.String(50), unique=False, nullable=False)
+    surname = db.Column(db.String(30), unique=False, nullable=False)
+
+    def __repr__(self):
+        return "<id: {}, firstnames: {}, surname: {}>".format(self.id,self.firstnames, self.surname)
+
+################################################################################
+# Helper class that inherits a .dump() method to turn class Author into json / useful in jinja2
+################################################################################
+class AuthorSchema(ma.SQLAlchemyAutoSchema):
+    class Meta: model = Author
+
+################################################################################
+# Helper class that defines a form for author, used to make html <form>, with field validation (via wtforms)
+################################################################################
 class AuthorForm(Form):
     id = HiddenField()
     firstnames = StringField('FirstName(s):', [validators.DataRequired()])
     surname = StringField('Surname:', [validators.DataRequired()])
     submit = SubmitField('Save' )
     delete = SubmitField('Delete' )
+
+################################################################################
+# Routes for author data
+#
+# /authors -> GET only -> prints out list of all authors
+################################################################################
+@app.route("/authors", methods=["GET"])
+def authors():
+    authors = Author.query.all()
+    return render_template("authors.html", authors=authors)
+
+################################################################################
+# /author/<id> -> GET/POST(save or delete) -> shows/edits/delets a single author
+################################################################################
+@app.route("/author/<id>", methods=["GET", "POST"])
+def author(id):
+    ### DDP: should this be request.form or request.values?
+    alert="Success"
+    author_form = AuthorForm(request.form)
+    if request.method == 'POST' and author_form.validate():
+        id = request.form['id']
+        author = Author.query.get(id)
+        try:
+            request.form['submit']
+        except:
+            message="Sorry, Deleting unsupported at present"
+            alert="Danger"
+        else:
+            print( "seems to be saving" )
+            author.firstnames = request.form['firstnames']
+            author.surname = request.form['surname']
+            db.session.commit()
+            message="Successfully Updated Author (id={})".format(id)
+    else:
+        author = Author.query.get(id)
+        author_form = AuthorForm(request.values, obj=author)
+        message=""
+    return render_template("author.html", author=author, alert=alert, message=message, author_form=author_form)