I have used python so far only for simple applications. I want to create a html file using python code which I can use on web server. How can I create this template using Django?
you'll need an intro, take a look at this post http://elleestcrimi.me/2012/03/15/introduction-django-guestbook-application/
it walks you through creating a simple django app.
if there's something you can't understand there, you can comment on the blog post,
the owner is very helpful
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I want to work on a project in which i want to be able to access the reports and to create update and delete courses, assignments and quizzes in moodle via django api. But i don't know where to start from.
You could use Moodle's web services.
https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Web_services
Maybe start here. This explains how to create some PHP code
https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Creating_a_web_service_client
I am new in Django framework and trying to understand how it works and what is its structure. I am just curious about how a django form is passed to a html template ? Any help would be appriciated.
I think you are curious in how django converts a python object into HTML, its internal mechanism, so the tutorial might not cover what it is.
I did have the same question before, but if you do look at code in forms.py https://github.com/django/django/blob/master/django/forms/forms.py you will see that internally there are methods which will look at the attributes of the objects that you have declared and generate snipplets of html code which will then be rendered.
Of course I cant tell you exactly how it works, I leave the heavy lifting to django.. Isn't that why we use a modern web framework like django in the first place.
Hope you will find this useful
I have a new job and a huge django project (15 apps, more than 30 loc). It's pretty hard to understand it's architecture from scratch. Are there any techniques to simplify my work in the beginning? sometimes it's even hard to understand where to find a form or a view that I need... thnx in advance.
When I come to this kind of problem I open up a notebook and answer the following:
1. Infrastructure
Server configuration, OS etc
Check out the database type (mysql, postgres, nosql)
External APIS (e.g Facebook Connect)
2. Backend
Write a simple description
Write its input/output from user (try to be thorough; which fields are required and which aren't)
Write its FK and its relation to any other apps (and why)
List down each plugin the app is using. And for what purpose. For example in rails I'd write: 'gem will_paginate - To display guestbook app results on several pages'
3. Frontend
Check out the JS framework
Check the main stylesheet files (for the template)
The main html/haml (etc) files for creating a new template based page.
When you are done doing that. I think you are much more prepared and able go deeper developing/debugging the app. Good luck.
Use this http://packages.python.org/django-extensions/graph_models.html
to generate the Relationship diagrams from the models so that you can visually see how the models are related to each other. This will give you nice idea about the app
1) Try to install the site from scratch. You will find what external apps are needed for the site to run.
2) Reverse engineer. Browse through the site and try to find out what you have to do to change something to that page. Start with the url, look up in urls.py, read the view, check the model. Are there any hints to other processes?
3) Try to write down everything you don't understand, and document the answers for future reference.
I would clone the project so you can mess up endlessly.
Then I would start to reduce the code. "What happens if if just remove this function here?
Also get django debug toolbar:
https://github.com/django-debug-toolbar/django-debug-toolbar
A good terminal debugger is also golden, there are many out there, here is an example:
https://github.com/tomchristie/django-pdb
This allow you to halt the code and even inject and mutate parameters in runtime. Just like GDB in C.
If you use FireFox you can install FireBug on it and when you for example submit ajax form you can see at which url send you request after what you can easily find controller which work with this form data. At chrome this utility embedded by default and call by F12 key.
I am learning Django and got it to work with wsgi. I'm following the tutorial here:
http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.1/intro/tutorial01/
My question is: how can I customize the look and feel of Django? Is there a repository of templates that "look good", kind of like there are for Wordpress, that I can start from? I find the tutorial counterintuitive in that it goes immediately toward customizing the admin page of Django, rather than the main pages visible to users of the site. Is there an example of a "typical" Django site, with a decent template, that I can look at and built on/modify? The polls application is again not very representative since it's so specialized.
any references on this would be greatly appreciated. thanks.
Search for generic CSS/HTML templates, and add in the Django template language where you need it. Because unless you are trying to skin a particular app (such as the admin system), there is nothing Django-specific about any of your HTML.
The fact that you're thinking in terms of Wordpress templates, and that you think the tutorial's poll application is highly specialised, are hints that you haven't really grasped what Django is. It isn't a content management system or a blog engine, although it can be used to build those things.
There's no such thing as a typical Django site, and it simply doesn't make sense to have pre-packaged templates, because the front end could be absolutely anything at all - like a poll.
You write the template like you would write any standalone HTML+CSS page, perhaps with placeholders for the content, then turn those placeholders into actual Django template tags. If you know how to do write HTML, then you know how to make a Django template.
Actually Django does not have a "look and feel". You are probably referring to the built in Django Admin application. That app comes with its own templates.
There are third party applications that can change the Admin interface, Django Grapelli is a great example.
For any other application you want to build yourself, or download. Most likely you'll have to do the templates yourself. In order to come up with something pretty you need to learn about CSS/HTML/JS and design principles as the Django Templates will quite likely be out of your way.
I always recommend HTML Dog for learning the basics of HTML, CSS and JS.
For some quick background, I'm an XHTML/CSS guy with some basic PHP knowledge. I'm trying to dip my feet into the Python pool, and so far understand how to start simple_server and access a simple Hello World return in the same .py file. This is the extent of what I understand though, heh.
How do I integrate the simple_server and your basic XHTML/CSS files? I want to start the server and automagically call, for instance, index.py (does it need to be .py?). Obviously within the index file I would have my markup and stylesheet and I would operate it like a normal site at that point.
My eventual goal is to get a basic message board going (post, edit, delete, user sessions). I realize I'll need access to a database, and I know my way around MySQL enough to not have to worry about those portions.
Thanks for the help.
EDIT: Allow me to clarify my goal, as I have been told Python does a LOT more than PHP. My goal is to begin building simple web applications into my pre-existing static XHTML pages. Obviously with PHP, you simply make sure its installed on your server and you start writing the code. I'd like to know how different Python is in that sense, and what I have to do to, say, write a basic message board in Python.
The other answers give good recommendations for what you probably want to do towards your "eventual goal", but, if you first want to persist with wsgiref.simple_server for an instructive while, you can do that too. WSGI is the crucial "glue" between web servers (not just the simple one in wsgiref of course -- real ones, too, such as Apache or Nginx [both with respective modules called mod_wsgi] as well as, for example, Google App Engine -- that one offers WSGI, too, as its fundamental API) and web applications (and frameworks that make it easier to write such applications).
Everybody's recommending various frameworks to you, but understanding WSGI can't hurt (since it will underlie whatever framework you eventually choose). And for the purpose of such understanding wsgiref.simple_server will serve you for a while longer, if you wish.
Essentially, what you want to do is write a WSGI app -- a function or class that takes two parameters (an "enviroment" dictionary, and a "start response" callable that it must call back with status and headers before returning the response's body). Your "WSGI app" can open your index.py or whatever else it wants to prep the status, headers and body it returns.
There's much more to WSGI (the middleware concept is particularly powerful), though of course you don't have to understand it very deeply -- only as deeply as you care to! See wsgi.org for tutorials &c. Gardner's two-part article, I think, is especially interesting.
Once (and if that's your choice) you understand WSGI, you can better decide whether you want it all hidden in a higher level framework such as Django (so you can focus on application-level issues instead) or use a very light and modular toolbox of WSGI utilities such as Werkzeug -- or anything in-between!-)
I would recommend Django.
"Obviously with PHP, you simply make sure its installed on your server and you start writing the code."
Not true with Python. Python is just a language, not an Apache plug-in like PHP.
Generally, you can use something like mod_wsgi to create a Python plug-in for Apache. What you find is that web page processing involves a lot of steps, none of which are part of the Python language.
You must use either extension libraries or a framework to process web requests in Python. [At this point, some PHP folks ask why Python is so popular. And the reason is because you have choices of which library or framework to use.]
PHP parses the request and allows you to embed code in the resulting page.
Python frameworks -- generally -- do not work this way. Most Python frameworks break the operation down into several steps.
Parsing the URL and locating an appropriate piece of code.
Running the code to get a result data objects.
Interpolating the resulting data objects into HTML templates.
"My goal is to begin building simple web applications into my pre-existing static XHTML pages."
Let's look at how you'd do this in Django.
Create a Django project.
Create a Django app.
Transform your XTHML pages into Django templates. Pull out the dynamic content and put in {{ somevariable }} markers. Depending on what the dynamic content is, this can be simple or rather complex.
Define URL to View function mappings in your urls.py file.
Define view functions in your views.py file. These view functions create the dynamic content that goes in the template, and which template to render.
At that point, you should be able to start the server, start a browser, pick a URL and see your template rendered.
"write a basic message board in Python."
Let's look at how you'd do this in Django.
Create a Django project.
Create a Django app.
Define your data model in models.py
Write unit tests in tests.py. Test your model's methods to be sure they all work properly.
Play with the built-in admin pages.
Create Django templates.
Define URL to View function mappings in your urls.py file.
Define view functions in your views.py file. These view functions create the dynamic content that goes in the template, and which template to render.
Take a look at CherryPy. It's a nice http framework.
It depends on what you want to achieve,
a) do you want to just write a web application without worrying too much abt what goes in the background, how request are being handled, or templates being rendered than go for a goo webframework, there are many choices simple http server is NOT one of them. e.g. use django, turbogears, webpy, cheerpy, pylons etc etc
see http://wiki.python.org/moin/WebFrameworks for full list
b) if you want to develope a simple web framework from start so that you understand internals and improve you knowledge of python, then I will suggest use simple http server
see
how can you create a URL scheme so that URLs are dispatched to correct python function,
see how can you render a html
template e.g. containing place
holder variables $title etc which
you can convert to string using
string.Template
b) would be difficult but interesting exercise to do, a) will get you started and you may be writing web apps in couple of days