How to Initiate the Development Environment when building a Django App

Introduction

Django is a versatile web development framework. Many top companies, including Instagram, FireFox and Spotify use the framework to develop their websites. Django is useful when developing complex, large-scale web apps. However, many developers use it to create simple web apps. This tutorial guides new Django developers on how to set up a Django development environment to create their web apps. The tutorial will guide on how to set up a Django app in both Windows and Linux environments.

Prerequisites: Ensure you have a Python version 3.4+ installed on your system.

Setting up a Django application involves two major steps:

1. Setting up a Python virtual environment

2. Starting a Django project

Jump to Windows set-up
Jump to Linux set-up

Windows set-up

This set-up assumes you are running Windows 10

Follow these steps for Windows set up:

1. Create a project folder in your windows file system
   For example, create the folder named django_app in your desktop directory

2. Start a Windows terminal

   1. Press Win + R to open a dialog box
   2. Type cmd then press enter

3. Navigate to the project folder
   cd Desktop\django_app

4. Create a virtual environment
   Run python -m venv my_env
   Note: my_env is a custom name you give to your virtual environment

5. Activate the virtual environment
   Run .\my_env\Scripts\activate

6. Install Django using pip
   pip install django

7. Start a Django project
   Run django-admin startproject django_app .
   Note: django_app is a custom name you give to your project. Do not forget the dot at the end of the command or you may run into some configurations problems when deploying your app.

8. Change into the Django project directory
   cd django_app

9. Create your Django application
   Run python manage.py startapp my_first_app
   Note: my_first_app is a custom name of the specific Django application you are creating

10. Add your application in the project's settings.py file

    1. Locate a file named settings.py within your project folder
       Hint: You can locate it manually within your project folder. It should be in a subdirectory with a similar name to your project.
    2. Open the settings.py file using a code editor
    3. Locate a section called INSTALLED_APPS
    4. Add the name of your Django application at the end
    5. Save and close the settings.py file

11. Create your app's database schema

    1. Return to your terminal
    2. Run python manage.py migrate
       Note: It is necessary to run this operation to create a database that the app can work with

12. Start a development server
    In your terminal, with the virtual environment still active, run python manage.py runserver
    Note: The operation will start a local development server on port 8000

13. View your project in a browser
    Open a browser and enter the URL http://127.0.0.1:8000/

Linux set-up

This set up assumes you are running an ubuntu version 20.04+

1. Open an ubuntu shell on your system

2. Create a project directory and switch into the directory
   mkdir django-project && cd django-project

3. Create a virtual environment
   python3 -m venv my_env

4. Activate the virtual environment
   source my_env/bin/activate

5. Install Django using pip
   pip install django
   To install a specific Django version
   pip install django==3.2.21

6. Start a Django project
   django-admin startproject django_project

7. Switch into the Django project directory
   cd django_project

8. Start a Django application
   python3 manage.py startapp django_app

9. Add the new application to your settings.py file
   

   1. Locate a file, settings.py within your shell
   2. Open the file
      vi settings.py
   3. Locate a section named INSTALLED_APPS
   4. Add 'django_app' at the end of installed apps list
   5. Save and close the settings.py file

10. Create a database
    python3 manage.py migrate

11. Start a development server on port 8000
    python3 manage.py runserver

12. View your project in a browser
    Run http://127.0.0.1:8000/

Conclusion

By following either steps depending on your operating system, you will have created a basic Django web application. Note that this is only a basic application, without any features. You need to build on the basic application by customizing it further to suit your project's needs or client's specifications