Django Project Blueprints

Asad Jibran Ahmed

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783985425
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Web Programming
• Index: Computer Science

Develop stunning web application projects with the Django framework

About This Book

• Build six exciting projects and use them as a blueprint for your own work
• Extend Django's built-in models and forms to add common functionalities into your project, without reinventing the wheel
• Gain insights into the inner workings of Django to better leverage it

Who This Book Is For

If you are a Django web developer able to build basic web applications with the framework, then this book is for you. This book will help you gain a deeper understanding of the Django web framework by guiding you through the development of seven amazing web applications.

What You Will Learn

• Create a blogging platform and allow users to share posts on different blogs
• Prioritise user-submitted content with an intelligent ranking algorithm based on multiple factors
• Create REST APIs to allow non-browser based usage of your web apps
• Customize the Django admin to quickly create a full-featured and rich content management system
• Use Elasticsearch with Django to create blazing fast e-commerce websites
• Translate your Django applications into multiple languages
• Dive deep into Django forms and how they work internally

In Detail

Django is a high-level web framework that eases the creation of complex, database-driven websites. It emphasizes on the reusability and pluggability of components, rapid development, and the principle of don't repeat yourself. It lets you build high-performing, elegant web applications quickly.

There are several Django tutorials available online, which take as many shortcuts as possible, but leave you wondering how you can adapt them to your own needs. This guide takes the opposite approach by demonstrating how to work around common problems and client requests, without skipping the important details. If you have built a few Django projects and are on the lookout for a guide to get you past the basics and to solve modern development tasks, this is your book.

Seven unique projects will take you through the development process from scratch, leaving no stone unturned. In the first two projects, you will learn everything from adding ranking and voting capabilities to your App to building a multiuser blog platform with a unique twist. The third project tackles APIs with Django and walks us through building a Nagios-inspired infrastructure monitoring system. And that is just the start!

The other projects deal with customizing the Django admin to create a CMS for your clients, translating your web applications to multiple languages, and using the Elasticsearch search server with Django to create a high performing e-commerce web site. The seventh chapter includes a surprise usage of Django, and we dive deep into the internals of Django to create something exciting!

When you're done, you'll have consistent patterns and techniques that you can build on for many projects to come.

Style and approach

This easy-to-follow guide is full of examples that will take you through building six very different web applications with Django. The code is broken down into manageable bites and then thoroughly explained.

Django Project Blueprints

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Table of Contents

Django Project Blueprints

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Blueblog – a Blogging Platform

The contrib packages

Setting up our development environment

Database settings

Static files settings

A base template

User accounts

A user accounts app

Account registration

Generic views

Template and URLs

Login and logout

The login view

The logout view

Navigation links

The blog

Models

Creating a blog view

The home page

The blog settings view

Creating and editing blog posts

Editing blog posts

Viewing blog posts

Multiple users

Security

Sharing blog post

Summary

2. Discuss – a Hacker News Clone

Chapter code packs

Requirements

Starting out

Link submission

Comments

Voting

Ranking submission

Spam protection

Summary

3. Djagios – a Nagios Clone in Django

Code pack

Requirements

The model

Fake data generation

Django management commands

A better model representation

Status page

Alerts

The model

Management views

Showing triggered alerts on the status page

Accepting data from remote systems

Testing API endpoints

Summary

4. A Car Rental App

Code pack

Fixtures

Image and File fields

get_absolute_url

The Django admin app

Showing the car names

Booking management

A peek behind the curtain

Improving the user experience

Filtering objects

Searching for objects

Quick edit

Admin actions

UX improvements

Summary

5. Multilingual Movie Database

Requirements

Getting the project up and running

Translating our static content

How did all that work?

Letting the user decide which language to use

Persisting the user choice

Translating our models

Summary

6. Daintree – an E-commerce Site

Code pack

Exploring Elasticsearch

First steps with Elasticsearch

Searching from Python

Mapping

Defining a mapping

Inserting documents into Elasticsearch from Python

Getting all our data into Elasticsearch

Adding search

Configuration management

More search options

Aggregations and filters

Category aggregation

Full text search and analysis

Searching with aggregations

Summary

7. Form Mason – a Monkey of your own

Code pack

Looking at a Django form

Adding an extra field to a SampleForm instance

Generating dynamic forms

Generating a form out of JSON

A model for our JSON

Creating a better user interface

Saving the responses

Showing the responses

An improved responses list

Designing a form creation interface

Small fixes

Summary

A. Development Environment Setup Details and Debugging Techniques

Using pdb to debug Django views

Developing on Windows

Index

Django Project Blueprints

Copyright © 2016 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, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and 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 of 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: May 2016

Production reference: 1240516

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78398-542-5

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Asad Jibran Ahmed

Reviewer

Jaakko Tulkki

Commissioning Editor

Julian Ursell

Acquisition Editor

Larissa Pinto

Content Development Editor

Parshva Sheth

Technical Editor

Danish Shaikh

Copy Editor

Tasneem Fatehi

Project Coordinator

Nikhil Nair

Proofreader

Safis Editing

Indexer

Mariammal Chettiyar

Production Coordinator

Arvindkumar Gupta

Cover Work

Arvindkumar Gupta

About the Author

Asad Jibran Ahmed is an experienced programmer who has worked mostly with Django-based web applications for the past 5 years. Based in Dubai, UAE, he has worked with some of the biggest web properties in the region, including Dubizzle, the number one classifieds platform in UAE; Nabbesh, one of the top freelancing platforms in the MENA region; and Just Property, a hot and rising name in the property portal space of the region.

His experience with such big names has given him a keen insight into how to design performant, stable, and user friendly web applications, all the while using programming practices that make sure that the code base is maintainable for years.

I'd like to thank my parents for all the love and support they gave me when I was playing around with computers as a child. If it had not been for their encouragement in those early years, I might not be a programmer today, and this book might not exist.

Also, to all my siblings and friends, I'd like to say thank you for putting up with it all.

About the Reviewer

Jaakko Tulkki is currently based in Madrid, Spain, where he is working as a Python developer. He has also worked in start-ups. Jaakko is currently finalizing his MSc degree in software engineering. Python is one of his favorite tools because he finds it a very productive language.

Jaakko works for Sainsbury's in Manchester, UK.

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Preface

Django is perhaps one of the most popular web development frameworks out there today. It is the framework that most Python developers reach for when they have any sizeable web application to develop.

With its proven track record of performance, scalability, and security, and its famous batteries-included approach, Django is used by some of the biggest names in the industry, including Instagram, Pinterest, and National Geographic.

This book is intended for people who have had a passing introduction to Django and a very basic idea of how to create a simple website with it. It will show you how to take your skills to the next level, developing applications as complex as e-commerce sites with lightning-fast search.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Blueblog – A Blogging Platform, gets you started with Django and introduces the basic concepts of how to use the framework. It also introduces you to the development techniques used in the ...

Table of contents

• Django Project Blueprints