Web Development with Django: A definitive guide to building modern Python web applications using Django 4

Work through realistic case studies to create your own websites easily, securely, and quickly

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Key Features

• Understand Django functionality and the Model-View-Template (MVT) paradigm
• Create and iteratively build a book review website, adding features as you build your knowledge
• Explore advanced concepts such as REST API implementation and third-party module integration

Book Description

Do you want to develop reliable and secure applications that stand out from the crowd without spending hours on boilerplate code? You’ve made the right choice trusting the Django framework, and this book will tell you why. Often referred to as a “batteries included” web development framework, Django comes with all the core features needed to build a standalone application. Web Development with Django will take you through all the essential concepts and help you explore its power to build real-world applications using Python.

Throughout the book, you’ll get the grips with the major features of Django by building a website called Bookr – a repository for book reviews. This end-to-end case study is split into a series of bitesize projects presented as exercises and activities, allowing you to challenge yourself in an enjoyable and attainable way. As you advance, you'll acquire various practical skills, including how to serve static files to add CSS, JavaScript, and images to your application, how to implement forms to accept user input, and how to manage sessions to ensure a reliable user experience. You’ll cover everyday tasks that are part of the development cycle of a real-world web application.

By the end of this Django book, you'll have the skills and confidence to creatively develop and deploy your own projects.

What you will learn

• Create a new application and add models to describe your data
• Use views and templates to control behavior and appearance
• Implement access control through authentication and permissions
• Develop practical web forms to add features such as file uploads
• Build a RESTful API and JavaScript code that communicates with it
• Connect to a database such as PostgreSQL

Who this book is for

This book is for programmers looking to enhance their web development skills using the Django framework. To fully understand the concepts explained in this book, basic knowledge of Python programming as well as familiarity with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS is assumed.

Table of Contents

1. An Introduction to Django
2. Models and Migrations
3. URL Mapping, Views, and Templates
4. An Introduction to Django Admin
5. Serving Static Files
6. Forms
7. Advanced Form Validation and Model Forms
8. Media Serving and File Uploads
9. Sessions and Authentication
10. Advanced Django Admin and Customization
11. Advanced Templating and Class-Based Views
12. Building a REST API
13. Generating CSV, PDF, and Other Binary Files
14. Testing Your Django Applications
15. Django Third-Party Libraries
16. Using a Frontend JavaScript Library with Django