Django 1.0 Website Development

Ayman Hourieh

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781847196798
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Information Technology
• Index: Computer Science

The simple and clear approach is ideal for beginners to Django. Packed with examples and screenshots, this book will help you learn the features of Django 1.0 and help you build a dynamic website using those features. This book is for web developers who want to learn to build a complete site with Web 2.0 features, using the power of a proven and popular development system, Django, but do not necessarily want to learn how the complete framework functions in order to do this. Basic knowledge of Python development is required for this book, but no knowledge of Django is expected.

Django 1.0 Web Site Development

Ayman Hourieh

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Django 1.0 Web Site Development

Copyright © 2009 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: March 2009

Production Reference: 1040309

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-847196-78-1

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Raghuram Ashok (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Ayman Hourieh

Reviewer

Patrick Chan

Senior Acquisition Editor

Douglas Paterson

Development Editor

Ved Prakash Jha

Technical Editor

Darshana D. Shinde

Copy Editor

Sneha M. Kulkarni

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Production Editorial Manager

Abhijeet Deobhakta

Editorial Team Leader

Abhijeet Deobhakta

Project Team Leader

Lata Basantani

Project Coordinator

Rajashree Hamine

Proofreader

Cathy Cumberlidge

Production Coordinator

Aparna Bhagat

Cover Work

Aparna Bhagat

About the author

Ayman Hourieh holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. He joined the engineering team at Google in January 2008. Prior to that, he worked with web application development for more than two years. In addition, he has been contributing to several open source projects such as Mozilla Firefox. Ayman also worked as a teaching assistant in Computer Science courses for one year. Even after working with a variety of technologies, Python remains Ayman's favorite programming language. He found Django to be a powerful and flexible Python framework that helps developers to produce high-quality web applications in a short time.

I would like to thank my wife, Nadia, for all her help in writing this book. Not only did she provide support and motivation, but she also helped me greatly in proofreading and testing. I would also like to thank my mother and father for their continuous support and encouragement.

About the reviewer

Patrick Chan is an analyst programmer with Australia Post. He volunteers with Computer Bank, a not-for-profit organization that recycles donated computers and distributes them to disadvantaged individuals and community groups.

He is currently involved in DjangoDB, a Django project that would upgrade Computer Bank's inventory system by allowing Computer Bank staff to manage its customer records, computer inventory, and transactions. DjangoDB would feature an improved interface with new features, such as enabling users to check for availabilities of computers and generate reports over the Web.

Preface

Django is a high-level Python web application framework designed to support the development of dynamic web sites, web applications, and web services. It is designed to promote rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. Therefore, it lets you build high-performing and elegant web applications quickly.

In this book you will learn about employing this MVC web framework, which is written in Python—a powerful and popular programming language. The book emphasizes utilizing Django and Python to create a Web 2.0 bookmark-sharing application, with many common features found in the Web 2.0 sites these days. The book follows a tutorial style to introduce concepts and explain solutions to problems. It is not meant to be a reference manual for Python or Django. Django will be explained as we build features throughout the chapters, until we realize our goal of having a working Web 2.0 application for storing and sharing bookmarks.

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it. And I am sure that by its end, you will appreciate the benefits of using Python and Django for your next project. Both Python and Django are powerful and simple, and provide a robust environment for rapid development of your dynamic web applications.

What this book covers

Chapter 1 gives you an introduction to MVC web development frameworks, and explains why Python and Django are the best tools to achieve the aim of this book.

Chapter 2 provides a step-by-step guide to installing Python, Django, and an appropriate database system so that you can create an empty project and set up the development server.

Chapter 3 creates the main page so that we have an initial view and a URL. You will learn how to create templates for both the main page and the user page. You will also write a basic set of data models to store your application's data..

Chapter 4 is where the application really starts to take shape, as user management is implemented. Learn how to log users in and out, create a registration form, and allow users to manage their own accounts by changing email or password details.

Chapter 5 explores how to manage your growing bank of content. Create tags, tag clouds, and a bookmark submission form, all of which interact with your database. Security features also come into play as you learn how to restrict access to certain pages and protect them against malicious input.

Chapter 6 enables you to enhance your application with AJAX and jQuery, since users can now edit entries in place and do live searching. Data entry is also made easier with the introduction of auto-completion.

Chapter 7 shows you how to enable users to vote and comment on their bookmark entries. You will also build a popular bookmarks page.

Chapter 8 focuses on the administration interface. You will learn how to create and customize the interface, which allows you to manage content and set permissions for users and groups.

Chapter 9 will give your application a much more professional feel through the implementation of RSS feeds and pagination.

Chapter 10 tackles social networks providing the "social" element of your application. Users will be able to build a friend network, browse the bookmarks of their friends, and invite their friends to join the web site.

Chapter 11 covers extending and deploying your application. You will also learn about advanced features, including offering the site in multiple languages, managing the site during high traffic, and configuring the site for a production environment.

Chapter 12 takes a brief look at the additional Django features that have not been covered elsewhere in the book. You will gain the knowledge required to further develop your application and build on the basic skills that you have learned throughout the book.

Who this book is for

This book is for web developers who want to learn how to build a complete site with Web 2.0 features, using the power of a proven and popular development system—Django—but do not necessarily want to learn how a complete framework functions in order to do this. Basic knowledge of Python development is required for this book, but no knowledge of Django is expected.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."

A block of code will be set as follows:

{% extends "base.html" %} {% block title %}User Registration{% endblock %} {% block head %}User Registration{% endblock %} {% block content...

Table of contents

• Django 1.0 Web Site Development