Django Setup

✅ Full Django Setup Guide

1. Install Prerequisites

Make sure Python and pip are installed.

Install Python (3.8+ recommended)

python --version
# or
python3 --version

If not installed, download from: https://www.python.org/downloads/

2. Set Up a Virtual Environment

mkdir my_django_project && cd my_django_project
python -m venv env

# Activate the environment
# Windows:
env\Scripts\activate
# macOS/Linux:
source env/bin/activate

3. Install Django

pip install django
django-admin --version

4. Create Django Project

django-admin startproject project_name

cd project_name

Run server:

python manage.py runserver

Visit: http://127.0.0.1:8000

5. Create an App

python manage.py startapp core

6. Register the App

Edit config/settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'core',
]

7. Create a Basic View

In core/views.py:

from django.http import HttpResponse

def home(request):
    return HttpResponse("Hello, Django!")

Create core/urls.py:

from django.urls import path
from .views import home

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

Edit config/urls.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

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

8. Run Migrations

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

9. Create Superuser

python manage.py createsuperuser

10. Static Files Setup (Optional)

In settings.py:

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [ BASE_DIR / "static" ]

To collect static files:

python manage.py collectstatic

11. Templates Setup (Optional)

Project structure:

core/
├── templates/
│   └── core/
│       └── home.html

In views.py:

from django.shortcuts import render

def home(request):
    return render(request, 'core/home.html')