Django Template

This is a basic Django (1.11) project and singular application, which includes login and registration features, along with validations. This is a useful django 1.11 template to build larger projects, with the basic login and validation features ready to go.

Note: This project must be updated after being cloned. Instructions for updating core Django files is listed below. Any failures updating Django variables to your own project and application variables, will cause the application to break.

A Word on Updating this Project:

Just to let you know there are about 30+ steps listed below on how to customize this template and create a new project from it. You can definitely pursue customizing this on your own, and may update variables by finding errors using the debugger and following them to completion. If however, you get lost, you can use the steps below to see step by step exactly, how to take this repo and turn it into a new project. It's one of those things that on the surface is more intimidating than it actually is. Essentially, in a nut shell, we've got to update all old project and application variable names to our new project.

Disclaimer: It might even be faster to create a new Django project from scratch, and copy and paste in the basic routes or views.

Instructions:

1. Clone this repository into a folder where you'd like it to live.
2. Rename the django_template folder to your {{project_name}} of choice. Note: {{variables}} will be used from now on to denote variables you must update. The double curly brackets are not to be included
3. Open your now renamed project folder, and rename the containing django_template folder (whose path is now, {{project_name}}\django_template), to the same {{project_name}} used previously. Your path to this folder should now be, {{project_name}}\{{project_name}}.
4. Open manage.py in the root of your project folder. The path should be: {{project_name}}\manage.py.
5. On line 6 in manage.py, rename the second parameter in setdefault() from: django_template.settings to {{project_name}}.settings. Save changes and close this file.
6. In the root of your {{project_name}} folder, navigate into the \apps folder ({{project_name}}\apps). Rename the containing folder from template to the name of your app (usually a shorthand of your {{project_name}}). In this case, we'll call it {{app_name}}. So, {{project_name}}\apps\template should now be named {{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}.
7. Navigate into the newly renamed {{app_name}} folder.
8. Open apps.py ({{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\apps.py). On line 7, rename template to your {{app_name}}. Save and close the file.
9. Open views.py in the same folder ({{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\views.py).
10. In the first method, index(), at the very bottom of the method, change the line return render(request, "template/index.html") to return render(request, "{{app_name}}/index.html").
11. In second to last method, get_dashboard_data(), at the very bottom of the try statement, update the line return render(request, "template/dashboard.html", dashboard_data) to return render(request, "{{app_name}}/dashboard.html", dashboard_data). Save the file and close it. Note: Currently, the only dashboard data retreived is that of the current user. This could be vastly added onto, and if not needed can be removed (be sure to remove the from . import dashboard if not needed).
12. Open \template folder inside of the {{app_name}} folder ({{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\templates).
13. Rename the containing folder, template to {{app_name}}. This name must be your app name.
14. Navigate now into the newly renamed {{app_name}} folder ({{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\templates\{{app_name}}).
15. Once inside, open both index.html and dashboard.html. Edit the <link rel="stylesheet"> lines from <link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static 'template/css/style.css' %}"> to <link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static '{{app_name}}/css/style.css' %}">, replacing any references to template and instead to your {{app_name}}.
16. Also change the the <title> tags in each header, updating the name of the page to whatever your needs may be. Save and close both files.
17. Navigate up a directory back to the {{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\.
18. Navigate into /static, {{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\static.
19. Change template to {{app_name}}. This should be the same name you used when you renamed your last folder. The previous folder {{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\static\template should now be: {{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\static\{{app_name}}.
20. The folder structures have all been updated now. We've got to now update all of the Django settings, and make a few changes to a handful more files. Take a breath and let's finish this up.
21. Navigate back to the {{project_name}} folder (root of your project). Once in this folder, navigate into the {{app_name}} directory (not apps). You should now be in {{project_name}}\{{app_name}}.
22. Open urls.py ({{project_name}}\{{app_name}}\urls.py), change the line: url(r'^', include("apps.template.urls")), to url(r'^', include("apps.{{app_name}}.urls")), updating your application name in the include() parameters. Close and save this file.
23. Open wsgi.py in the same folder ({{project_name}}\{{app_name}}\wsgi.py). Change the line os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "django_template.settings") to os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "{{project_name}}.settings"). We are changing the django_template.settings to our {{project_name}}.settings -- this is not your {{app_name}}, but {{project_name}}
24. Open settings.py file in the same folder ({{project_name}}\{{app_name}}\settings.py). Once in this file, make the following changes:
    • SECRET_KEY : Change the hash by changing 1 or 2 characters to different characters. Do not change the character count, just change a few characters so that the hash is now unique in comparison to the original file.
    • INSTALLED_APPS : Change 'apps.template' to 'apps.{{app_name}}'. This updates our settings.py file to point to our renamed app folder inside of apps.
    • ROOT_URLCONF : Update django_template.urls to {{project_name}}.urls. This is not {{app_name}}.
    • WSGI_APPLICATION : Update django_template.wsgi.application to {{project_name}}.wsgi.application, updating the name to {{project_name}}, not {{app_name}}
    • TIME_ZONE : Note, this is currently set to America/Los_Angeles. You can set this back to UTC if needed or adjust for your own timezone needs.
    • Save all changes and close this file.
25. Delete all *.pyc files in {{project_name}}\{{project_name}} (should be ~4 files).
26. Delete all *.pyc files in {{project_name}}\apps (should be ~1 files).
27. Delete all *.pyc files in {{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}} (should be ~6 files).
28. Delete all files EXCEPT __init__.py in {{project_name}}\apps\{{app_name}}\migrations
29. Save all changes to any files that may have not been saved. We are done editing files now and we've essentially created a unique project, and a new database with the new project and app name dictating table nomenclature.
30. Open terminal. Navigate to the {{project_name}} folder in terminal.
31. Create a new virtualenv for this project. pip install all packages in {{project_name}}\requirements.txt. If you do not create a new virtualenv and if you do not install the pip packages, then the server will not start.
32. Once inside the root of our project, and once all packages are installed, makemigrations via python manage.py makemigrations in terminal. This will generate .pyc files again and prepare our models for generation.
33. Then migrate via python manage.py migrate to actually generate the models.
34. Start the server: python manage.py runserver. Once the server attempts to run, any misnamed or missed variables from our updating process will break the application. If the server runs, then all app variables should now be updated properly.