Create your first Django Guestbook

Django Create Project

django-admin startproject mysite
cd mysite
python manage.py startapp guestbook

Projects vs. apps

What’s the difference between a project and an app? An app is a web application that does something – e.g., a blog system, a database of public records or a small poll app. A project is a collection of configuration and apps for a particular website. A project can contain multiple apps. An app can be in multiple projects.

Django Create simple Page

Create View in app/views.py:

from django.http import HttpResponse


def index(request):
    return HttpResponse("Hello, world. You're at the polls index.")

Add URL in app/urls.py

from django.urls import path

from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.index, name='index'),
]

Django connect App in project

Include App URLs in project URLs in project/urls.py

from django.urls import include, path

urlpatterns = [
    path('polls/', include('polls.urls')),
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
]

Add App from app/apps.py in project/settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'challenge.apps.ChallengeConfig',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

Now:

python manage.py makemigrations challenge
python manage.py migrate

Migrations are how Django stores changes to your models (and thus your database schema) - they’re files on disk.

Create Superuser:

python manage.py createsuperuser --username=admin --email=admin

Django Templates

Create folders for page templates: `guestbook/templates/guestbook/

index.html

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Guest Book</title>
  </head>

  <body>

    <h1>Guestbook</h1>
    <p><a href="">Add entry</a></p>

    

  </body>
</html>

addentry.html

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Guest Book</title>
  </head>

  <body>

    <h1>Guestbook</h1>

    

  </body>
</html>

Create new views:

def index(request):
    return render(request, 'guestbook/index.html')

def addentry(request):
    return render(request, 'guestbook/addentry.html')

Add according URL in urls.py:

path('addentry', views.addentry,name="addentry"),

Django Create Models

A model is the single, definitive source of information about your data. It contains the essential fields and behaviors of the data you’re storing.

class guestentry(models.Model):
    entry_text = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    entry_date = models.DateTimeField('date published')

Then make the model modifiable in the admin interface:

from .models import guestentry

# Register your models here.
admin.site.register(guestentry)

makemigrations guestbook
migrate

Create a Form

Create forms.py in app folder

from django import forms

class CommentForm(forms.Form):
    comment = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea())

Add Entry: Bring everything together

views.py

def addentry(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = EntryForm(request.POST)

        if form.is_valid():
            new_entry = guestentry(entry_text=request.POST["entry_text"])
            new_entry.save()
            return redirect('index')
    else:
        form = EntryForm()

    context = {'form' : form}

    return render(request, 'guestbook/addentry.html',context=context)