Step 1: Setting Up Your Environment

Before starting your project, you need to prepare your environment. Django relies on Python, so ensuring you have the right tools installed is critical. Follow these steps:

• 💻 Install Python 3.10+ from python.org.
• 📦 Ensure pip is installed (it comes with Python).
• 🔧 Use venv or virtualenv to create isolated environments for your projects.

Once you have Python installed, run the following commands to set up your project folder and virtual environment:

# Create a new directory and navigate into it
mkdir my_django_blog
cd my_django_blog

# Set up and activate a virtual environment
python -m venv env
source env/bin/activate  # For Windows: env\Scripts\activate

# Install Django
pip install django

Congratulations! Your environment is ready. Let’s move on to creating your first project. 🎉

Step 2: Creating Your Django Project

A Django project is a collection of settings and configurations for an instance of the Django framework. It’s the foundation of your application.

Create a new Django project by running:

# Create a new Django project in the current directory
django-admin startproject myblog .

This command generates the following structure:

myblog/
    manage.py
    myblog/
        __init__.py
        settings.py
        urls.py
        asgi.py
        wsgi.py

• manage.py: A command-line utility for managing your project.
• settings.py: Contains your project’s configuration settings.
• urls.py: Handles URL routing for your application.

Run your server to test the setup:

python manage.py runserver

Open http://127.0.0.1:8000 in your browser to see the default Django welcome page. 🎉

Step 3: Creating a Django App

A Django app is a modular component of your project. Each app handles a specific function, making it easier to scale and manage your project.

Create your first app by running:

# Create a blog app
python manage.py startapp blog

Add the app to your project by registering it in settings.py:

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'blog',
]

Step 4: Creating Views and URLs

A view in Django is a Python function that takes a request and returns a response. URLs link requests to views.

Add a simple view in blog/views.py:

# blog/views.py
from django.http import HttpResponse

def home(request):
    return HttpResponse("
Welcome to My Blog!
")

Create a urls.py file in the blog app and define a URL pattern:

# blog/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from . import views

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

Link the app's URLs to the project by including it in myblog/urls.py:

# myblog/urls.py
from django.urls import path, include

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