Django(Python Django) is a high-level web development framework. It provides and flexible project structure and makes it easier to start new projects, In addition to that it follows the Model-View-Controller(MVC) architectural pattern, commonly referred to as Model-View-Template(MVT) in Django.

In this piece, we will document the procedural steps to setting up and installing a Django project.

While there are a number of ways to get started, feel free to explore available options on the internet and go for whatever makes you comfortable.

Prerequisites

Before we get started, here is a checklist:

1. Python installed

2. Virtual Environment (Recommended to have one):I will be using virtualenv

Creating a Virtual Environment(withvirtualenv)

To get started, we will create a virtual environment to install and run Django. Usingvirtualenv makes it way easier to do so(I think ... 🤔 💭).

Open a terminal (CMD), and go to a working directory or a location where your project files will be. To create an environment, run the following:

virtualenv <project_name>

Replace the with the name of the project, i.e. My project will be: django-starter

virtualenv django-starter

Once that is done, you need to activate the environment. Before you do that, ensure that your terminal is in the project directory, "django-starter".

To activate the environment, run the following:

source bin/activate

Once the environment is activated, you will notice the environment will be enclosed by brackets on your terminal path:

(django-starter) chris@Chriss-MacBook-Pro django-starter %

To install django, run the following on the terminal/CMD:

pip install django

To confirm a successful installation, you can usepip freeze to check for installed packages inside the environment:

pip freeze

Creating a Django project

Django has the simplest project structure, you simply create a single django project, where you can have a number of applications inside it. We will start by creating a Django project, and then proceed to creating applications inside it.

To create a project, run the following:

django-admin startproject <project_name>

Replace the<project_name> with the project name.

Here's how I prefer to do it since I'm in the root folder of my environment, I'd love all my project configurations to be there, I will therefore run the following to create a django project:

django-admin startproject config .

This will create the core files to run and configure your project:manage.py and aconfig directory where it will have main settings and URLs for the project.

Note that you wont be editing themanage.py file. Inside the config directory, you will find asettings.py file that defines the database, middleware, and more configurations for a Django project.

(Optional Step)

Before we run the server, open the settings.py and go to the TIME_ZONE variable. Set the timezone to your local time zone (Really helps with real-time logging and debugging)

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

I will update my timezone to

TIME_ZONE = 'Africa/Nairobi'

To test for a successful setup, start the server by running the following:

python manage.py runserver

Django locally runs on port 8000:

http://localhost:8000/

This confirms a successful setup.

Conclusion

This masterpiece has broken down the process of creating a Django project:

1. Setting Up an Environment

2. Activating an Environment

3. Installing Django

4. Creating a Django Project

Note: To deactivate the environment, run the following:

deactivate

What Next?

The next article will cover the following:

1. How to create applications in a django project

2. How to set Templates and Static files (CSS and JS)

3. Writing simple views and URLs