Setup a New Django Project

Start a new Django project from scratch.

Create and Activate Virtual Environment

$ python -m venv .venv
$ source .venv/Scripts/activate

Install Django and Dependencies

Create a requirements.txt file. At this moment we put inside only django as the only requirement for the project:

django

Install Django as defined in requirements.txt:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt
...

Create Django Project

To create a new Django project:

$ django-admin startproject elearn

At this time you can already preview the project by running a development server:

$ python elear/manage.py migrate    # Apply all pending database migrations
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

$ python elearn/manage.py runserver # Start a development server

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

System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
September 09, 2023 - 16:57:28
Django version 4.2.5, using settings 'elearn.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CTRL-BREAK.

You can open the browser and navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8000/ to see the default Django project page.

Start a New Django Application

To start a new Django application, use the Django command line inteface django-admin:

$ cd elearn
$ django-admin startapp courses

The new application needs to be registered in the project’s settings.py:

elearn/settings.py
1# ...
2INSTALLED_APPS = [
3   # ...
4   # 3rd party apps
5   # Local apps
6   "courses",
7]
8# ...

We append the courses project in the INSTALLED_APPS list. The 3rd party apps and Local apps commented lines we keep to visually organize registered applications in three categories:

  • Django core applications

  • 3rd party applications, e.g. Swagger API interface generator

  • Local applications which are part of our local Django project

Modify .gitignore File

Most likely you are using git as version control system. I recommend adding following lines to your .gitignore file:

.gitignore
1.vscode
2.dev
3.venv*
4# ...

  • Line #1 instructs git to ignore the Visual Studio Code metadata

  • Line #2 is something I like to use. I put random ad-hoc staff in a directory .dev which is not under version control

  • Line #3 instructs git to ignore our virtual environments

Create Superuser

$ python elearn/manage.py createsuperuser
Username (leave blank to use 'ivang'): ivang
Email address: ivang@home.local
Password:
Password (again):
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