Django boilerplate

Table of Contents

• Django boilerplate
  • Table of Contents
    • Update as to May 2022
  • What does "Django boilerplate" mean?
  • Environment setup and quick-start
  • Project Wiki
  • How to proceed
    • About tests
  • Landing Page
    • Interesting features
  • Social Media Clone
    • Database Diagram
      • Interesting features
  • Personal blog and portfolio showcase
    • Interesting features
  • Please readme
  • Folder structure
  • Contribute
  • Closing words

Is it possible to use Django to create websites and web applications that are consistent, functional, and easy to use and modify?

Can a pre-configured Django environment offer an alternative to Wordpress and other low-code environments?

That's the challenge I've attempted to scratch with this project, offering three ready-made templates for web projects.

1. A landing page with a lead collection form.
2. An example of a social network with user logins and interactions between them.
3. A traditional website with Blog, Products and About pages.

The project will be work in progress for a while, and I'd also like it to become an open source project, with contributions and comments from other users.
So feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or suggestions.

Let's see where I could land.

Update as to May 2022

Let's be honest, I am working voraciously over Django framework and I have to say I am learning or discovering new things by the day.
I won't say that this boilerplate could have been rewritten already, but I have a quite long list of new features to be integrated.
I am adding a lot of them in a new project that is exploring and deepening further the creation of a social media in Django (this time with pictures, personal profiles, and a lot of new features).
Feel free to take a look at it here >>> Django Social Feed.

What does "Django boilerplate" mean?

Before venturing into this project I did a lot of research. Both in regards to what needs I wanted to cover and what already existed.

I found several Django boilerplate projects, but the vast majority of these were aimed at an already Django-savvy audience. While I am trying to address a more entry-level audience, that may know something about web development and Python, but not necessarily interested in building a Django website from scratch.

Therefore I extensively documented my project, explaining in detail the step-by-step operations to modify each project.

I've also created a wiki that I hope to populate further by answering the main FAQs found when working with Django.

I also tried to offer variety in the project: from a simple landing to a complex social media, from lead collection features to authorization systems. Using different CSS frameworks and different ways for each project to use Django resources and framework. Although obviously utmost care was taken to have integrity within the individual project.

This is the basis of my boilerplate.

I hope this concept will fully answer the one who is looking for a Django boilerplate to start from scratch with a web project.

Environment setup and quick-start

About my prod env: code has been build and tested on Django 4.0.2 and Python 3.8.8 running on Win11 machine.

1. Clone the project: git clone https://github.com/carloocchiena/django_boilerplate.git.
2. Create a virtual environment (conda conda create -n my_env pip python=3.8) (python python3 -m venv my_env).
3. Activate your virtual environment: (condaconda activate my_env) (Linux/MacOS source my_env/bin/activate) (Windows source my_env/Scripts/activate).
4. Install requirements.txt: pip install -r requirements.txt.
5. Create a .env file with your SECRET KEY
6. Navigate to the folder you want (landing_page, or portfolio or social).
7. Make migrations with: python manage.py makemigrations and apply them with python manage.py migrate.
8. Let's start the engine with python manage.py runserver.
9. Have fun! :)

Project Wiki

In order to provide end-to-end assistance for using this boilerplate, I createad a GitHub Wiki that aims to cover all the major changes and personalization you may need to implement in this project.

I also explained some of the choices I made: Cookiecutter, containers, deployment.

You can find it here: Django Boilerplate Wiki

How to proceed

Here's a draft walkthrough of the steps required to modify the django boilerplate to your needs.

1. Modify the html look and feel in the templates folder.
2. Modify the images in the static folder (if you change the name, update the url in the templates accordingly).
3. To change the url of website section update the views in urls.py and in views.py.
4. Modify the settings.py file to your needs, don't forgetting to update the SECRET_KEY.
5. Update the models in models.py in the case you need other kind of data saved to the database.
6. Update the forms in forms.py in the case you need other kind of userdata.
7. Follow a consistency pattern in the urls.py and views.py, as well as other dependecies.
8. Usual dependencies in a django project are: urls.py, views.py, models.py, forms.py, settings.py, admin.py .
9. Keep it in mind: all projects are on DEBUG = True mode.
10. Django requires a strict go-live checklist to be followed, here's a list of the things you should do.

About tests

I made a partial coverage of code with unit tests files that you'll find in tests.py files in each project (at the very moment I need to extend them for the portfolio project). I expect to work further on them, hopefully reaching 100% coverage and adding integration tests, but this will also depend on the traction this project will have.

Important: in none of these projects have additional security features been implemented beyond the standard Django features.
The project is a continuous work in progress and this version was created for educational and demonstration purposes, not for production use.
In any case, use it with caution and awareness of possible risks.
For further information about warranty and compliance, please refer to the MIT License, under which this project is released.

Landing Page

CSS: Bootstrap 5.0.0

This is a template for a static landing page teasing a launch of a new product\service\brand.
To modify the look and feel of the landing page, modify the html in the templates folder.
While to update images, background and logo, just update them in the static\landing_page\img folder.
There are no issues as soon as you keep the same names. If you'd like to update them, you should also update the templates accordingly, using the static convention (src="{% static 'landing_page/img/image_name.jpg' %}").
The landing page has an admin section (url_name/admin) where you can check and interact with the saved data. To create a superuser, check the CLI_commands file. Currently there's just a superuser called admin with the password admin.

Interesting features

• Plain vanilla full-stack Django project, perfect to start with.
• Responsive Bootstrap 5 design.
• Custom admin section with user management and the ability to get all the users emails.
• Easy to customize and expand following the boilerplate logic.

Social Media Clone

CSS: Bulma v0.9.3 and Font Awesome 6.0.0

Database Diagram

Check the in-folder image for zoom and better quality.

A true Django classic: the Twitter clone. Modify this is a little bit harder than the landing page since the items are heavily interconnected one each other.
Anyway, you'll find:

1. The standard navbar, that conveniently redirect to the home page.
2. The first page, that is the login page for non-registered user.
3. Login and Register page.
4. Dashboard page, that is the landing for registered user, where you can see all the tweets for the users you follow (yourself included). From this page you can also add more tweets and visit the All Profiles page and My Profile page. Here there is also a Logout button. Each tweet has a link to its creator, and daytime details.
5. All profiles page where you have all the profiles with default avatars and links to their respective pages.
6. My profile page where you can see all the tweets you've created, and the users you are following and that are following you. A Logout button is also here, interesting, this is dinamically rendered depending on the user.
7. Admin page allows you to manage all the users, and the tweets.

Bulma is an interesting framework. The documentation is not as good as Bootstrap, but the classes are somehow simpler than Bootstrap. I don't mind using it. It has been a good experiment.
Starting from this social media template it's not hard to replicate to other kind of similar or even more complex social media interactions.

Interesting features

• A good base for a more complex usage of Django.
• User lifecycle management: signup, signin, signout.
• Social Media interactions: follow, unfollow, see users list, see contents based on the people the user is following.
• Interactive dashboard: multiple access point to user profile clicking on redirect links.

Personal blog and portfolio showcase

CSS: Bootstrap 5.0.0

A website aiming to provide a canvas for a portfolio (or products) showcase, a blog and an about page.
At this point won't be harder to you to mix other features from social media (such as login) or landing page (such as lead gen form).
The admin section here is the core for data entry and content creation.
You can easily uploads media files, edit texts, create new product cards.
Blog is pretty straight forward, no images at the moment, but a category tag and comment section.
About page shows just a little image, contact data and text. But being plain html here should not be hard to extend.

Interesting features

• Clean project, great opportunity to be cannibalized and used elsewhere.
• Easily create project objects via admin panel.
• Image management via media folder.
• Pre-made templates for project details page.
• Custom next button to navigate thru the project details page.
• Pretty good example of Django project with multiple app (blog, projects) with templates and models.
• Ready-made blog template with categories, index and detail views.

Please readme

I created also some additional walktrought that should help you configuring your Django project:
The django walkthrough.
A list of useful commands.
Also, please pay attention to Django Antipatterns.

Folder structure

Navigate the folder structure in tree.txt file.

Contribute

Every feedback and contribution is welcome. Please just:

1. Open an issue and discuss the changes you'd like to make or the bug\issue you'd like to report.
   
2. Once ready to submit a pull request, provide proof of the testing you've done.
   

A special thanks to Nephilia for the inspiration to work with Django and the feedback they were so kindly to gave me on this project.

Closing words

Django is like pasta carbonara:
You can make an inedible mess
or you can make a decent meal with relatively little effort.
It depends on how carefully you follow the instructions :)
Have fun!