django-starter

A starting template for a heroku-compatible Django project.

Key Capabilities

• Procfile ready for Heroku deployment
• Environments using .env files. See .env.sample template to get started.
• Uses Database URLs and Heroku PostgreSQL in production, and sqlite in development.
• Production settings using django-storages & Amazon S3 for assets.
• Testing using debug-toolbar and django-nose.
• Email settings using MailGun ENV variables (commented out initially).
• Cache settings for development & production
• Celery configuration using CloudAMQP on heroku, and eager tasks locally (no broker)
• South included for database migrations
• PEP8 Support

Included Components

• Python/Django
  • Django
  • gunicorn
  • south
  • PEP8
• Testing
  • django-debug-toolbar
  • sure
  • django-nose
• Heroku Compatability
  • dj-database-url
  • psycopg2
  • django-storages
  • boto
  • celery
  • pylibmc
  • New Relic
• HTML/CSS
  • Bootstrap 2.2.2
  • jQuery 1.9.0
  • Font Awesome 3.0.2
  • eternicode / bootstrap-datepicker
  • eldarion / bootstrap-ajax

To Begin

1. Setup a virtual environment & install the python dependencies
   1. virtualenv [ENVIRONMENT_NAME]
   2. pip install -r requirements.txt
2. Update the SECRET_KEY variable in the core/settings.py file - django secret key generator.
3. Remove core/_delete_me.py and update the core/url.py file.

To Deploy to Heroku

• First-time Deployments:
  1. Create the application: heroku create [APP_NAME]
  2. Enable ENV variables during compile: heroku labs:enable user-env-compile
  3. Install the Heroku Add Ons you will be using.
  4. Setup AWS S3 Account and set variables in .env.prod and on heroku.
  5. Setup CORS access to AWS S3 Bucket to allow proper font rendering in Firefox & IE.
• Updates
  1. If needed, push up the local .env file: heroku config:push
  2. Push the latest version to heroku: git push heroku master
  3. Sync the DB: heroku run python manage.py syncdb
  4. Collect Static Files to Amazaon S3: heroku run python manage.py collectstatic

Directory Structure

• django-starter
  • __static/ - local directory used as the STATIC_ROOT. not used in production.
  • __media/ - local directory used as the MEDIA_ROOT. not used in production.
  • _staticfiles/ - static files.
    • css - compiled LESS files are placed here.
    • font - fonts for Font Awesome.
    • js - jquery and bootstrap plug-ins.
    • less - assets for Bootstrap.
  • _templates/ - primary template directory
  • _vendor/ - contains vendor-specific README, license information, etc.
  • core/ - project directory
    • settings.py - common settings. loads other settings files.
    • settings_apps.py - specific settings for applications (i.e., celery, etc.).
    • settings_dev.py - settings for local development.
    • settings_prod.py - settings for a production deployment (on heroku).
    • urls.py
  • .env.sample - a sample .ENV file, with the fields needed in production.
  • Procfile - heroku compatability
  • requirements.txt
  • manage.py

Environments

There are 2 primary environments:

• DEV - dev - Local, testing/development environment on a developer's computer. (Default).
• PROD - prod - In-the-cloud deployment, on Heroku.

Which environment the app is in is determined by an environment variable: ENV. It defaults to the DEV environment.

Given which environment, the project will do the following:

• Load the .env (for production) or .env.dev (for development) file into the python environment dictionary.
• Load the settings_[ENV].py file with the appropriate settings.

Heroku Addon Capabilities

• Currently supported:
  • Heroku Postgres
  • Mailgun
  • CloudAMQP
  • MemCachier
  • New Relic

Upcoming Features

• Multiple Environments (Staging, Clones)
• Heroku Automation
• Pre-Deployment Asset Processing
• Deployment Automation
• CDN Support

External Dependencies (optional)

• Homebrew - see .brew file for packages
• Less Compiler - Mac OS X - Less.app

License Information

Copyright 2013 Javier Campanini

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.