i'm a bit of a newcomer to Django/Python but trying to figure something out--hope you can help.
I'm trying to create a personal website with a page dedicated to some of the Python and Django projects that I've completed through several different online courses.
I'm just having a tough time figuring out the best way to link through and assemble the project directories on my server.
My first project is just the files for my blog itself. I've created a new directory in the same home root as the blog project housing another of my django projects. Just looking for a bit of assistance on how i link out to the second project from my blog.
I thought i could use the urls.py file for my blog to redirect link to the second project (ie projects/project2) utilizing a views definition from the views.py file for one of the apps in the blog. But then--i'm getting tripped up on how to render that link to the second project.
Any forward guidance is greatly appreciated.
In general, anything that makes sense to be served under different domain (not necessarily subdomain) would better be a separate project for sure. Exceptional case would be a project with almost same functionality but different branding within same organization. In such case, Django's built-in sites framework can be considered.
For different projects, you need different project roots along with different wsgi/port bindings and processes. They can still be listed within a single nginx configuration as a deployment example. Another popular way is using Docker but deployment methods vary.
For different apps in a single project, there is only one binding and one root already. Create apps and list them in your settings.py and urls.py. If you need subdomains with single deployment, tkaemming/django-subdomains might be helpful.
For different policies (rarely) in a single app under different domains, learn about sites framework. You need to hand code the difference in views.
and so on...
Related
After some years developing web apps using ruby on rails, I decided to give Django a try, however it seems that I'm missing something, which is how to structure large project, or any project in general.
For example, in rails we have a models folder which contains model classes, each in a separate ruby file, a controllers folder which contains controller classes, again each in a separate ruby file.
However, in Django it split the project into independent apps, which can be installed independently in other Django project, each app has a models.py file which contains all the models classes, a views.py file which contain all the views functions.
But then how to group functions in views like rails? That is one controller per each model.
In general how to structure my project when it contains one large app that can't be separated into multiple independent apps? I want for example to have a view index function for each model, but how to do this if all functions are in one file?
If my project is about selling cars for example. I should have index function that maps to /cars, another index function to map to /users, etc...
I searched the web but couldn't find a suitable answer.
It is unclear to me how to structure Django app, so any help will be appreciated.
As mentioned in #shanksfk's answer, Django is very flexible in folder arrangements. You don't have to follow the default app structure. When I create a purely backend Django project (with DRF), I usually have 3 base apps:
api - where modules, serializers, and urls are stored
core - the default app (the one that has the name of your Django project)
db - where models are stored
Then as I expand, I can add a folder dedicated for the helpers, utils, and possibly abstraction layers for external services. I recommend reading more about Domain-driven Design to get an idea on how to structure your project. You can also check other Django projects for inspiration:
django CMS
Baserow
Django API Domains
In short, Django is a Model-View-Template framework and Rails is a Model-View-Controller framework.
In Django we store controllers(sort of) in views.py for each specified app, while in MVC framework such as Rails store it in controllers. In Django, you also have to create your own HTML template separately which some people may find it tedious but its easier to work with other frameworks such as Vue or React due to that separation.
This is general comparison I found on the net.
However, to answer your questions on folder structure. Basically Django is very flexible on folder arrangements, it really depends how you want to design the project structure. Normally what I'd do is keep every app in the main folder (project folder). This way you wont mess with the venv setup
I have been using django for a while, but there is something im not quite clear on.
How big should a django app be. If for example a django app should only be user authentication or if it should be an entire website in one app.
If I have a project with several apps and each app is a whole website with a lot of code, is that the way it suppose to be or should all apps related to a single site within a project ?
Im thinking of creating one django project for each site, but im now wondering if I should be creating one project where each app is one site. Can anyone please comment on this, what it the preferred way to do it ?
In the django documentation one app is only used for a poll, so it seems to be that, according to the documentation, that each app should be some part of functionality on the site.
An app is a submodule of a project which contains functionality (views, models, urls etc) for a specific part of the larger site and is as decoupled from the other apps as possible. The project as a whole is the website and your apps make up the separate parts of functionality for your site.
If your sites are going to basically contain the same functionality, it might be worth looking into the Sites framework which django provides.
So taking the polls example further.
Lets say the website is a survey site. There would be the polls app, which would contain the relevant models and views for creating and recording poll results. Then you might need to view the data, so you could create an analysis app, which would store the views for displaying dashboards and contain functions for data processing. Then we could take things a bit further, and have users be able to log in and see their own results (and give us the chance to link users to poll results), so you would make an accounts app, which would hold views for logging in/out, maybe a profile page etc.
So each of these different parts of functionality would be separated out into distinct apps, which would make up the project (site) as a whole.
If the apps have been decoupled properly, you could reuse the different apps in other projects (e.g. the accounts app could be dropped into a new project do provide logging in/out functionality)
In my experience so far, an app should be a reusable entity. There many guiding principles for choosing what to go and what not in an app. Separating authentication is one example. A projcet is one big collection of may apps and a reusable app can be in many projects.
Nowadays, there is a trend to move to micro service architecture, which is next level of separation of functionality with each service doing best one thing.
Each project is a unit in itself, not an individual app. So you host the project, not the app. I recommend using different project for each site and using micro-service architecture. A lot depends on your existing codebase too.
I'm learning Django but it's difficult to me to see how should I divide a project into apps?
I've worked on some Java EE systems, almost for procedures for government and all that stuff but I just can't see how to create a Django project for this purposes?
For example, if you should have to do a web app for making easier three process: Procedure to get the passport, procedure to get the driver license and procedure to get the social number.
The 3 procedures have steps in common: Personal information, Contact Information, Health Information. Would you do a project for each procedure, an app for each procedure, an app for each step?
I'm sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong Stack Exchange site.
Thank you.
When you say "procedures" i guess you're talking about pages (or views in Django). So I would implement a single "app" to do that.
Remember a project is composed of apps. When you create a project a main app (with the same name of the project) is created. This is a good place to code the procedures you said.
Think of apps as indepent sections of your project (site); maybe some forum, a blog, a custom administration panel, a game and stuff like that. Every one of them could be an independent app.
A project is mostly intended as a single website, so there's no need to create another project on the example you mentioned.
I'm very new to django and python as well. I want to try out a project written in django.
Let say the project have 3 modules
User
CRUD
Forgot password
login
Booking
CRUD
Search
Default (basically is for web users to view)
Home page
about us
All these have different business logic for the same entity.
Should I create 3 apps for this? If 3 different apps, then the table name is all different as it will automatic add a prefix for table name.
Any suggestion?
There's really no correct answer to this. In general, the way in which you break down any programming task into 'modules' is very much a matter of personal taste.
My own view on the subject is to start with a single module, and only break it into smaller modules when it becomes 'necessary', e.g. when a single module becomes excessively large.
With respect to the apps, if all the apps share the same database tables, you'll probably find it easier to do everything in a single app. I think using multiple Django apps is only really necessary when you want to share the same app between multiple projects.
I agree in #aya answer and I also supported your structure for multiple modules. In my project, I created 18 apps. Each app perform different rules:
1. accounts
- login
- forgot password
- register
- profile
2. common
//in here all the common function use by different apps
3. front
- home
- testimonial
4. guides
//tutorials
And lots more apps...
I arrange this way so that it will be easy to trace, debug, and find the codes. If your problem is the name of table you can set the class Meta of db_table.
I am relatively new to Django and Python myself too. In practice, try to have your Django apps do one thing and do it well. If you find that an app is becoming more and more complex, it may be worth splitting this out into multiple apps.
I would not worry about the DB tablename as Django handles the DB interaction for you. If you name your apps and models well, your code should be fairly self documenting.
I have recently learnt a lot of "best practices" in how to setup and layout Django projects from the ebook 2 Scoops of Django. I am not affiliated with them in any way, but have just learnt a lot from it.
Also, definitely run through the Django tutorial if you haven't already.
Hope this has helped!
Focus on making your apps reusable. This way you will save significant number of time in your next project. Good article about it is available at the Django's website.
If you have closely integrated modules or depending on each other, then there's no real benefit of having them in separate apps, because you won't ever use them separately. Organizing in separate Python modules will be just fine.
Also do not think about "how will my tables be named" when you consider project organization. Tables can be easily renamed while bad design will make you trouble as the project will grow.
I want to switch from Rails to Django, to broaden my mind, and a question has bobbed up in my mind.
My Rails app is quite a mess, since my hobby-based development approach is a patch-and-glue one. I have seen very early that Django divied between a project and an app. According to their site, a project is made of many apps, and one app can be used for many projects.
This intrigued me, since that would made the lines between my site's areas clearer. I tried to find some more examples and information on that, but I couldn't answer my question, which is:
How big/small is such an app? Are they able/supposed to interact closely?
It is, for example smart to have one app to deal with user's profiles, and another app to deal with blog-posts and comments, from those users? (In my site, a user can have several blogs, with different profiles). Or are they meant to be used otherwise?
A django App is a fancy name for a python package. Really, that's it. The only thing that would distinguish a django app from other python packages is that it makes sense for it to appear in the INSTALLED_APPS list in settings.py, because it contains things like templates, models, or other features that can be auto-discovered by other django features.
A good django app will do just one thing, do it well, and not be tightly coupled to any other app that might use it. A wide variety of apps are provided with django in the contrib namespace that follow this convention.
In your example, a good way to devise apps is to have one for user profiles (or use one of the many existing profile apps), one app for blog posts (or one of the many that already do this), one app for comments, separate from blog posts (again, you can use an existing app for this), and finally, a very tiny app that ties the three together, since they don't and shouldn't depend on each other directly.
The purpose of using app's is to make them reusable. Django likes DRY principle DRY stands for DO NOT repeat yourself
An app should be as small as it can, and loosely coupled. So, for an app should not need another app to work properly.
Django recommends writing an app for each table (well, not always, but as soon as you want to grow your app, you will definitely need to divide tables to pair apps. Or else you will have hard time for maintaining your code.)
You can, for example, create an app for users, an app for sales, an app for comments, an app for articles. It will be easier to maintain your code and if you have done it right, you can use the app in other project with a little (if any) modification in the app.
Project's are, compilation of app's. Users app, articles app, comments app can come together an make a project, or in other words, a website.
If you want to learn django, I suggest you to check out:
http://www.djangobook.com/
http://docs.djangoproject.com/
One word of advice, do not, in any case, copy/paste. Not only your code has great chance to fail, but you will not know what the code is doing. If you are going to use someone elses code in your project, at least type them, this will make you understand what the code is doing, or at least, it will give an idea.
Writing your own code is always better for maintance, but this does not mean that you should reinvent the world, you can use libraries, look at their documentation to use it properly.
Documentations, tutorials are you best friend.
Good luck.
A project is basically a place where your project lives...in your project you setup your url's, project settings, etc.
An app defines its own data models and views to be used within a project. You can move these between projects if you like.
I highly recommend running through the tutorials from the Django site as they will show you what a project and app are, how to manage both, how to use the admin panel, how to make the app usable in multiple projects, etc.
A portal = A django project
A ads system, gallery photos, catalog of products = Apps