book

Practical Django Projects, Second Edition

by James Bennett

June 2009

Intermediate to advanced

274 pages

7h 56m

English

Apress

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What's a Web Framework and Why Should I Want One?Saying Hello to DjangoSaying Hello to PythonInstalling DjangoTaking Your First Steps with DjangoExploring Your Django ProjectLooking Ahead
Configuring Your First Django ProjectPutting Together the CMSIntroducing the Django Template SystemLooking Ahead

Adding Rich-Text EditingAdding a Search System to the CMSImproving the Search ViewImproving the Search Function with KeywordsLooking Ahead
Compiling a Feature ChecklistWriting a Django ApplicationProjects vs. ApplicationsStandalone and Coupled ApplicationsCreating the Weblog ApplicationDesigning the ModelsBuilding the Entry ModelBasic FieldsSlugs, Useful Defaults, and Uniqueness ConstraintsAuthors, Comments, and Featured EntriesDifferent Types of EntriesCategorizing and Tagging EntriesWriting Entries Without Writing HTMLFinishing TouchesThe Weblog Models So FarWriting the First ViewsUsing Django's Generic ViewsDecoupling the URLsLooking Ahead
Writing the Link ModelViews for the Link ModelSetting Up Views for CategoriesUsing Generic Views (Again)Views for TagsCleaning Up the URLConf ModuleHandling Live EntriesLooking Ahead
Dealing with Repetitive Elements: The Power of InheritanceHow Template Inheritance WorksLimits of Template InheritanceDefining the Base Template for the BlogSetting Up Section TemplatesDisplaying Archives of EntriesEntry IndexYearly ArchiveMonthly and Daily ArchivesEntry DetailDefining Templates for Other Types of ContentExtending the Template System with Custom TagsHow a Django Template WorksA Simple Custom TagWriting a More Flexible Tag with ArgumentsWriting the LatestContentNodeRegistering and Using the New TagLooking Ahead
Comments and django.contrib.commentsImplementing Model Inheritance and Abstract ModelsInstalling the Comments ApplicationPerforming Basic SetupRetrieving Lists of Comments for DisplayModerating CommentsUsing Signals and the Django DispatcherBuilding the Automatic Comment ModeratorAdding Akismet SupportSending E-mail NotificationsUsing Django's Comment-Moderation FeaturesAdding FeedsCreating the LatestEntriesFeed ClassGenerating Entries by Category: A More Complex Feed ExampleLooking Ahead
Compiling a Feature ChecklistSetting Up the ApplicationBuilding the Initial ModelsThe Language ModelThe Snippet ModelTesting the ApplicationBuilding Initial Views for Snippets and LanguagesCSS for pygments Syntax HighlightingViews for LanguagesAn Advanced View: Top AuthorsImproving the View of Top AuthorsAdding a top_languages ViewLooking Ahead
A Brief Tour of Django's Form SystemA Simple ExampleValidating the UsernameValidating the PasswordCreating the New UserHow Form Validation WorksProcessing the FormWriting a Form for Adding Code SnippetsWriting a View to Process the FormWriting the Template to Handle the add_snippet ViewAutomatically Generating the Form from a Model DefinitionSimplifying Templates That Display FormsEditing SnippetsLooking Ahead
Bookmarking SnippetsAdding Basic Bookmark ViewsCreating a New Template Tag: {% if_bookmarked %}Parsing Ahead in a Django TemplateResolving Variables Inside a Template NodeUsing RequestContext to Automatically Populate Template VariablesAdding the User Rating SystemRating SnippetsAdding an {% if_rated %} Template TagRetrieving a User's RatingLooking Ahead
Using Version-Control Systems to Track Your CodeA Simple ExampleVersion-Control Tools and Hosting OptionsChoosing and Using a VCSUsing Isolated Python Environments to Manage SoftwareUsing Build ToolsUsing a Deployment ToolSimplifying Your Django Development ProcessLiving Without ProjectsUsing Relative Paths in SettingsDealing with Settings That Change for Different EnvironmentsUnit-Testing Your ApplicationsLooking Ahead
One Thing at a TimeStaying FocusedAdvantages of Tightly Focused ApplicationsDeveloping Multiple ApplicationsDrawing the Lines Between ApplicationsSplitting Up the Code-Sharing ApplicationBuilding for FlexibilityFlexible Form HandlingFlexible Template HandlingFlexible Post-Form ProcessingFlexible URL HandlingTaking Advantage of Django's APIsStaying GenericDistributing Django ApplicationsPython Packaging ToolsWriting a setup.py Script with distutilsStandard Files to Include in a PackageDocumenting an ApplicationLooking Ahead

Content preview from Practical Django Projects, Second Edition

C H A P T E R 1

Welcome to Django

Web development is hard, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Building a fully functional, dynamic web application with all the features that users want is a daunting task with a seemingly endless list of things you have to get just right. And before you can even start thinking about most of them, you must do a huge amount of up-front work: set up a database, create all the tables to store your data, plan out all the relationships and queries, come up with a solution for dynamically generating the HTML, figure out how to map specific URLs to different bits of code, and more. Just getting to the point where ...