Practical Django Projects

✍ Scribed by James Bennett

• Publisher: Apress
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 274
• Series: Expert's Voice in Web Development
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In my experience, the purpose of this book is extremely unusual in programming books. Most of them are either an introduction to the topic, or a reference book like a 'cookbook' or what basically amounts to a printed version of the online documentation. Those books get the job done for people with a project (or an employment position) in mind. They learn what they need to do to use the technology, then they get to work. We should all know by now that reading a book doesn't actually teach you anything -- you have to go out and actually apply that knowledge to really "know" the technology.But what if you want to learn to use Django, but don't have a project in mind? How cool would it be if one of the core Django developers created a couple of fully-functional applications, step-by-step, and let you follow along? That's exactly what James Bennett has done here. You can literally be brand-new to Django and finish this book having written multiple Django applications, learning all the major functionality of Django along the way, and even implementing best-practices for creating reusable applications.If you've been working with Django for any length of time, a lot of this book will feel like review, because it does explain templates, views, URLs, models, and the MTV concept. However, there's a lot in here for you as well. Here are some of the cool things in this book that you don't find in any of the standard documentation sources: How to (easily) integrate a rich-text editor into the Django admin interface Use third-party modules such as pygment, the Delicious API, and Akismet spam-blocking In-depth examples of creating custom template tags Complete examples of integrating django.contrib applications (such as comments and feeds)* Notes on version control, distributing apps, building and deploying appsAll that and more, plus this is probably the definitive guide to writing your Django applications to be reusable. In conclusion, if you're brand-new to Django and want a yellow-brick road to walk down, here it is. If you're an experienced Django programmer, you don't need this book, but I practically guarantee you'd learn a couple of things you didn't know. If you are new to Django, however, I highly recommend that once you finish this book you read The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right, Second Edition cover-to-cover once you finish this book. It will fill in all the gaps and you'll really be able to do pretty much anything in Django.

✦ Table of Contents

Prelims
......Page 1
Contents at a Glance......Page 5
Contents......Page 7
About the Author......Page 13
About the Technical Reviewer......Page 15
Introduction......Page 17
What’s a Web Framework and Why Should I Want One?......Page 19
Saying Hello to Django......Page 20
Saying Hello to Python......Page 21
Installing Django......Page 22
taking your First Steps with Django......Page 23
exploring your Django Project......Page 25
Looking Ahead......Page 26
Configuring Your First Django Project......Page 27
Putting together the Cms......Page 30
introducing the Django template system......Page 36
Looking Ahead......Page 40
Adding Rich-Text Editing......Page 41
Adding a search system to the cms......Page 44
improving the search view......Page 49
improving the search Function with keywords......Page 51
looking Ahead......Page 58
Compiling a Feature Checklist......Page 61
Writing a Django Application......Page 62
Creating the Weblog Application......Page 63
Designing the models......Page 65
Building the entry model......Page 70
The Weblog models So Far......Page 80
Writing the First views......Page 83
using Django’s generic views......Page 87
Decoupling the urls......Page 90
looking Ahead......Page 93
Model......Page 95
Model......Page 101
Setting up Views for categories......Page 102
using generic Views (Again)......Page 104
Views for tags......Page 105
cleaning up the urlconf Module......Page 106
handling live entries......Page 111
looking Ahead......Page 113
Dealing with Repetitive Elements: The Power of Inheritance......Page 115
Defining the Base Template for the Blog......Page 118
Setting Up Section Templates......Page 121
Displaying Archives of Entries......Page 122
Defining Templates for Other Types of Content......Page 128
Extending the Template System with Custom Tags......Page 129
looking Ahead......Page 140
Implementing Model Inheritance and Abstract Models......Page 141
Moderating Comments......Page 147
Adding feeds......Page 158
looking Ahead......Page 165
Compiling a Feature Checklist......Page 167
Building the Initial Models......Page 168
Building Initial Views for Snippets and Languages......Page 174
Looking Ahead......Page 181
A Brief Tour of Django’s Form System......Page 183
Writing a Form for Adding code Snippets......Page 192
Automatically generating the Form from a model Definition......Page 197
Simplifying Templates That Display Forms......Page 200
editing Snippets......Page 201
looking Ahead......Page 204
Bookmarking Snippets......Page 205
Adding Basic Bookmark Views......Page 206
creating a new template tag:......Page 209
to Automatically populate template Variables......Page 214
Adding the user rating System......Page 216
Looking Ahead......Page 220
Using Version-Control Systems to Track Your Code......Page 223
Using Isolated Python Environments to Manage Software......Page 227
Using Build Tools......Page 230
Using a Deployment Tool......Page 232
Simplifying Your Django Development Process......Page 233
Looking Ahead......Page 240
Writing reusable Django applications......Page 241
One Thing at a Time......Page 242
Developing Multiple Applications......Page 244
Building for Flexibility......Page 246
Distributing Django Applications......Page 252
looking Ahead......Page 259
Index......Page 261