Over the past two weeks, I've been working on setting up Django from scratch and building a simple poll application. This article will walk you through everything I did, starting from installing Python and Django, setting up a virtual environment, creating a new project, and building a functional app called polls.
1. Setting Up Python and Django
To begin, I made sure that Python was installed on my system. If you haven't installed it yet, you can download it from python.org.
Step 1: Install Python and Set Up a Virtual Environment
I wanted to keep my project dependencies isolated, so I used a virtual environment.
# Install virtualenv if you don't have it pip install virtualenv # Create a virtual environment virtualenv myenv # Activate the environment # On Windows: myenv\Scripts\activate # On macOS/Linux: source myenv/bin/activate Step 2: Install Django
Once the environment was activated, I installed Django.
pip install django I then confirmed the installation by running:
django-admin --version 2. Starting a New Django Project: mysite
Now, it was time to create my Django project. I decided to call it mysite.
django-admin startproject mysite cd mysite This created the basic structure for a Django project with settings and configurations.
3. Creating a New Django App: polls
After setting up the project, I created a new app called polls, which would contain all the logic and views for my poll application.
python manage.py startapp polls I added the new app to INSTALLED_APPS in mysite/settings.py:
INSTALLED_APPS = [ # other installed apps 'polls', ] 4. Defining the Models
I started by defining two models: Question and Choice. A Question has a question text and a publication date, while a Choice has a reference to a Question and stores text along with a vote count.
Here’s the models.py file in the polls app:
# models.py import datetime from django.db import models from django.contrib import admin from django.utils import timezone class Question(models.Model): question_text = models.CharField(max_length=200) pub_date = models.DateTimeField('date published') def __str__(self): return self.question_text @admin.display( boolean=True, ordering='pub_date', description='Published recently?', ) def was_published_recently(self): now = timezone.now() return now - datetime.timedelta(days=1) <= self.pub_date <= now class Choice(models.Model): question = models.ForeignKey(Question, on_delete=models.CASCADE) choice_text = models.CharField(max_length=200) votes = models.IntegerField(default=0) def __str__(self): return self.choice_text 5. Creating the Database and Running Migrations
Next, I created the database and applied migrations:
python manage.py migrate I then created migration files for the polls app:
python manage.py makemigrations polls python manage.py migrate 6. Writing Views for the Poll App
I wrote several views to handle displaying a list of questions, showing question details, and showing voting results. These views are class-based, using Django’s built-in generic views.
Creating Views for Polls
I then created the views that control how data is displayed to the user. I used Django's generic views to keep things simple.
Here’s the views.py file:
# views.py from django.http import HttpResponse from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404, render from django.urls import reverse from django.views import generic from django.utils import timezone from .models import Question, Choice class IndexView(generic.ListView): template_name = 'polls/index.html' context_object_name = 'latest_question_list' def get_queryset(self): """Return the last five published questions.""" return Question.objects.order_by('-pub_date')[:5] class DetailView(generic.DetailView): model = Question template_name = 'polls/detail.html' def get_queryset(self): """Exclude questions that aren't published yet.""" return Question.objects.filter(pub_date__lte=timezone.now()) class ResultsView(generic.DetailView): model = Question template_name = 'polls/results.html' def vote(request, question_id): return HttpResponse(f"You're voting on question {question_id}.") - IndexView: Displays a list of the latest questions.
- DetailView: Shows the details of a specific question and its choices.
- ResultsView: Displays the results of a poll after voting. The vote() function handles the user's vote submission.
7. Configuring URLs
I added URL patterns to the urls.py file in the polls app to link each view to a specific URL.
# urls.py from django.urls import path from . import views app_name = 'polls' urlpatterns = [ path('', views.IndexView.as_view(), name='index'), path('<int:pk>/', views.DetailView.as_view(), name='detail'), path('<int:pk>/results/', views.ResultsView.as_view(), name='results'), path('<int:question_id>/vote/', views.vote, name='vote'), ] 8. Creating Templates for Views
Finally, I created HTML templates to display the questions and results. The templates are placed in the polls/templates/polls/ folder.
index.html
{% if latest_question_list %} <ul> {% for question in latest_question_list %} <li><a href="{% url 'polls:detail' question.id %}">{{ question.question_text }}</a></li> {% endfor %} </ul> {% else %} <p>No polls are available.</p> {% endif %} detail.html
<form action="{% url 'polls:vote' question.id %}" method="post"> {% csrf_token %} <fieldset> <legend><h1>{{ question.question_text }}</h1></legend> {% if error_message %}<p><strong>{{ error_message }}</strong></p>{% endif %} {% for choice in question.choice_set.all %} <input type="radio" name="choice" id="choice{{ forloop.counter }}" value="{{ choice.id }}"> <label for="choice{{ forloop.counter }}">{{ choice.choice_text }}</label><br> {% endfor %} </fieldset> <input type="submit" value="Vote"> </form> result.html
<h1>{{ question.question_text }}</h1> <ul> {% for choice in question.choice_set.all %} <li>{{ choice.choice_text }} -- {{ choice.votes }} vote{{ choice.votes|pluralize }}</li> {% endfor %} </ul> <a href="{% url 'polls:detail' question.id %}">Vote again?</ Running the Application
To test the application, I ran the development server:
python manage.py runserver Navigating to http://127.0.0.1:8000/polls/ displayed the list of polls, and I could view details, vote, and see results.
Over the past two weeks, I learned how to set up Django, create a project, and build a fully functioning poll app. It was fascinating to see how everything connects in Django, from models to views to templates. This has been a great experience, and I’m excited to learn more about Django's powerful features!
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