Django

Django Requires Python

To check if your system has Python installed, run this command in the command prompt:

python --version

If Python is installed, you will get a result with the version number, like this

Python 3.9.2

If you find that you do not have Python installed on your computer, then you can download it for free from the following website: https://www.python.org/

---

PIP

To install Django, you must use a package manager like PIP, which is included in Python from version 3.4.

To check if your system has PIP installed, run this command in the command prompt:

pip --version

If PIP is installed, you will get a result with the version number.

For me, on a windows machine, the result looks like this:

pip 20.2.3 from c:\python39\lib\site-packages\pip (python 3.9)

If you do not have PIP installed, you can download and install it from this page: https://pypi.org/project/pip/

---

Virtual Environment

It is suggested to have a dedicated virtual environment for each Django project, and one way to manage a virtual environment is venv, which is included in Python.

The name of the virtual environment is your choice, in this tutorial we will call it myworld.

Type the following in the command prompt, remember to navigate to where you want to create your project:

Windows:

py -m venv myworld

Unix/MacOS:

python -m venv myworld

This will set up a virtual environment, and create a folder named "myworld" with subfolders and files, like this:

myworld
  Include
  Lib
  Scripts
  pyvenv.cfg

Then you have to activate the environment, by typing this command:

Windows:

myworld\Scripts\activate.bat

Unix/MacOS:

source myworld/bin/activate

Once the environment is activated, you will see this result in the command prompt:

Windows:

(myworld) C:\Users\Your Name>

Unix/MacOS:

(myworld) ... $

Django is installed using pip, with this command:

Windows:

(myworld) C:\Users\Your Name>py -m pip install Django

Unix/MacOS:

(myworld) ... $ python -m pip install Django

Which will give a result that looks like this (at least on my Windows machine):

Collecting Django
  Downloading Django-4.0.3-py3-none-any.whl (8.0 MB)
      |████████████████████████████████| 8.0 MB 2.2 MB/s
Collecting sqlparse>=0.2.2
  Using cached sqlparse-0.4.2-py3-none-any.whl (42 kB)
Collecting asgiref<4,>=3.4.1
  Downloading asgiref-3.5.0-py3-none-any.whl (22 kB)
Collecting tzdata; sys_platform == "win32"
  Downloading tzdata-2021.5-py2.py3-none-any.whl (339 kB)
      |████████████████████████████████| 339 kB 6.4 MB/s
Installing collected packages: sqlparse, asgiref, tzdata, Django
Successfully installed Django-4.0.3 asgiref-3.5.0 sqlparse-0.4.2 tzdata-2021.5
WARNING: You are using pip version 20.2.3; however, version 22.3 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'C:\Users\Your Name\myworld\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install --upgrade pip' command.

That's it! Now you have installed Django in your new project, running in a virtual environment!

---

Windows, Mac, or Unix?

You can run this project on either one. There are some small differences, like when writing commands in the command prompt, Windows uses py as the first word in the command line, while Unix and MacOS use python:

Windows:

py --version

Unix/MacOS:

python --version

Check Django Version

You can check if Django is installed by asking for its version number like this:

(myworld) C:\Users\Your Name>django-admin --version

If Django is installed, you will get a result with the version number:

4.1.2

 

My First Project

Once you have come up with a suitable name for your Django project, like mine: my_tennis_club, navigate to where in the file system you want to store the code (in the virtual environment), I will navigate to the myworld folder, and run this command in the command prompt:

django-admin startproject my_tennis_club

Django creates a my_tennis_club folder on my computer, with this content:

my_tennis_club
    manage.py
    my_tennis_club/
        __init__.py
        asgi.py
        settings.py
        urls.py
        wsgi.py

These are all files and folders with a specific meaning, you will learn about some of them later in this tutorial, but for now, it is more important to know that this is the location of your project, and that you can start building applications in it.

---

Run the Django Project

Now that you have a Django project, you can run it, and see what it looks like in a browser.

Navigate to the /my_tennis_club folder and execute this command in the command prompt:

py manage.py runserver

Which will produce this result:

Watching for file changes with StatReloader
Performing system checks...

System check identified no issues (0 silenced).

You have 18 unapplied migration(s). Your project may not work properly until you apply the migrations for app(s): admin, auth, contenttypes, sessions.
Run 'python manage.py migrate' to apply them.
October 27, 2022 - 13:03:14
Django version 4.1.2, using settings 'my_tennis_club.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CTRL-BREAK.

Open a new browser window and type 127.0.0.1:8000 in the address bar.

Create App

I will name my app members.

Start by navigating to the selected location where you want to store the app, in my case the my_tennis_club folder, and run the command below.

If the server is still running, and you are not able to write commands, press [CTRL] [BREAK], or [CTRL] [C] to stop the server and you should be back in the virtual environment.

py manage.py startapp members

Django creates a folder named members in my project, with this content:

my_tennis_club
    manage.py
    my_tennis_club/
    members/
        migrations/
            __init__.py
        __init__.py
        admin.py
        apps.py
        models.py
        tests.py
        views.py

These are all files and folders with a specific meaning. You will learn about most of them later in this tutorial.

First, take a look at the file called views.py.

This is where we gather the information we need to send back a proper response.

Views

Django views are Python functions that take http requests and return http response, like HTML documents.

A web page that uses Django is full of views with different tasks and missions.

Views are usually put in a file called views.py located on your app's folder.

There is a views.py in your members folder that looks like this:

my_tennis_club/members/views.py:

from django.shortcuts import render

 

# Create your views here.

Find it and open it, and replace the content with this:

my_tennis_club/members/views.py:

from django.shortcuts import render

from django.http import HttpResponse

 

def members(request):

    return HttpResponse("Hello world!")

Note: The name of the view does not have to be the same as the application.

I call it members because I think it fits well in this context.

This is a simple example on how to send a response back to the browser.

But how can we execute the view? Well, we must call the view via a URL.

URLs

Create a file named urls.py in the same folder as the views.py file, and type this code in it:

my_tennis_club/members/urls.py:

from django.urls import path

from . import views

 

urlpatterns = [

    path('members/', views.members, name='members'),

]

The urls.py file you just created is specific for the members application. We have to do some routing in the root directory my_tennis_club as well. This may seem complicated, but for now, just follow the instructions below.

There is a file called urls.py on the my_tennis_club folder, open that file and add the include module in the import statement, and also add a path() function in the urlpatterns[] list, with arguments that will route users that comes in via 127.0.0.1:8000/.

Then your file will look like this:

my_tennis_club/my_tennis_club/urls.py:

from django.contrib import admin

from django.urls import include, path

 

urlpatterns = [

    path('', include('members.urls')),

    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),

]

 

 

If the server is not running, navigate to the /my_tennis_club folder and execute this command in the command prompt:

py manage.py runserver

In the browser window, type 127.0.0.1:8000/members/ in the address bar.

Templates

In the Django Intro page, we learned that the result should be in HTML, and it should be created in a template, so let's do that.

Create a templates folder inside the members folder, and create a HTML file named myfirst.html.

The file structure should be like this:

my_tennis_club
    manage.py
    my_tennis_club/
    members/
        templates/
            myfirst.html

Open the HTML file and insert the following:

my_tennis_club/members/templates/myfirst.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<body>

 

<h1>Hello World!</h1>

<p>Welcome to my first Django project!</p>

 

</body>

</html>

---

Modify the View

Open the views.py file and replace the members view with this:

my_tennis_club/members/views.py:

from django.http import HttpResponse

from django.template import loader

 

def members(request):

  template = loader.get_template('myfirst.html')

  return HttpResponse(template.render())

---

Change Settings

To be able to work with more complicated stuff than "Hello World!", We have to tell Django that a new app is created.

This is done in the settings.py file in the my_tennis_club folder.

Look up the INSTALLED_APPS[] list and add the members app like this:

my_tennis_club/my_tennis_club/settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [

    'django.contrib.admin',

    'django.contrib.auth',

    'django.contrib.contenttypes',

    'django.contrib.sessions',

    'django.contrib.messages',

    'django.contrib.staticfiles',

    'members'

]

 

Then run this command:

py manage.py migrate

Which will produce this output:

Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: admin, auth, contenttypes, sessions
Running migrations:
  Applying contenttypes.0001_initial... OK
  Applying auth.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0002_logentry_remove_auto_add... OK
  Applying admin.0003_logentry_add_action_flag_choices... OK
  Applying contenttypes.0002_remove_content_type_name... OK
  Applying auth.0002_alter_permission_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0003_alter_user_email_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0004_alter_user_username_opts... OK
  Applying auth.0005_alter_user_last_login_null... OK
  Applying auth.0006_require_contenttypes_0002... OK
  Applying auth.0007_alter_validators_add_error_messages... OK
  Applying auth.0008_alter_user_username_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0009_alter_user_last_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0010_alter_group_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0011_update_proxy_permissions... OK
  Applying auth.0012_alter_user_first_name_max_length... OK
  Applying sessions.0001_initial... OK

(myworld) C:\Users\Your Name\myworld\my_tennis_club>

Start the server by navigating to the /my_tennis_club folder and execute this command:

py manage.py runserver

In the browser window, type 127.0.0.1:8000/members/ in the address bar.

The result should look like this:

 

Templates

In the Django Intro page, we learned that the result should be in HTML, and it should be created in a template, so let's do that.

Create a templates folder inside the members folder, and create a HTML file named myfirst.html.

The file structure should be like this:

my_tennis_club
    manage.py
    my_tennis_club/
    members/
        templates/
            myfirst.html

Open the HTML file and insert the following:

my_tennis_club/members/templates/myfirst.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<body>

 

<h1>Hello World!</h1>

<p>Welcome to my first Django project!</p>

 

</body>

</html>

---

Modify the View

Open the views.py file and replace the members view with this:

my_tennis_club/members/views.py:

from django.http import HttpResponse

from django.template import loader

 

def members(request):

  template = loader.get_template('myfirst.html')

  return HttpResponse(template.render())

---

Change Settings

To be able to work with more complicated stuff than "Hello World!", We have to tell Django that a new app is created.

This is done in the settings.py file in the my_tennis_club folder.

Look up the INSTALLED_APPS[] list and add the members app like this:

my_tennis_club/my_tennis_club/settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [

    'django.contrib.admin',

    'django.contrib.auth',

    'django.contrib.contenttypes',

    'django.contrib.sessions',

    'django.contrib.messages',

    'django.contrib.staticfiles',

    'members'

]

 

Then run this command:

py manage.py migrate

Which will produce this output:

Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: admin, auth, contenttypes, sessions
Running migrations:
  Applying contenttypes.0001_initial... OK
  Applying auth.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0002_logentry_remove_auto_add... OK
  Applying admin.0003_logentry_add_action_flag_choices... OK
  Applying contenttypes.0002_remove_content_type_name... OK
  Applying auth.0002_alter_permission_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0003_alter_user_email_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0004_alter_user_username_opts... OK
  Applying auth.0005_alter_user_last_login_null... OK
  Applying auth.0006_require_contenttypes_0002... OK
  Applying auth.0007_alter_validators_add_error_messages... OK
  Applying auth.0008_alter_user_username_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0009_alter_user_last_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0010_alter_group_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0011_update_proxy_permissions... OK
  Applying auth.0012_alter_user_first_name_max_length... OK
  Applying sessions.0001_initial... OK

(myworld) C:\Users\Your Name\myworld\my_tennis_club>

Start the server by navigating to the /my_tennis_club folder and execute this command:

py manage.py runserver

In the browser window, type 127.0.0.1:8000/members/ in the address bar.

The result should look like this: