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

Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction to Django
	Technical requirements
	Scaffolding a Django project and app
		Exercise 1.01 – creating a project and app, and starting the development server
	Understanding the model-view-template paradigm
		Models
		Views
		Templates
		MVT in practice
		An introduction to HTTP
		Processing a request
	Exploring the Django project structure
		The myproject directory
		Django development server
		Django apps
		PyCharm setup
		Exercise 1.02 – project setup in PyCharm
	Introducing Django views
	Exploring URL mapping detail
		Exercise 1.03 – writing a view and mapping a URL to it
	Working with GET, POST, and QueryDict objects
		Exercise 1.04 – exploring GET values and QueryDict objects
	Exploring Django settings
		Referring to Django Settings in Your Code
	Finding HTML templates in app directories
		Exercise 1.05 – creating a templates directory and a base template
		Rendering a template with the render function
		Exercise 1.06 – rendering a template in a view
		Rendering variables in templates
		Exercise 1.07 – using variables in templates
	Debugging and dealing with errors
		Exceptions
		Exercise 1.08 – generating and viewing exceptions
		Debugging
		Exercise 1.09 – debugging your code
	Activity 1.01 – creating a site welcome screen
	Activity 1.02 – a book search scaffold
	Summary
Chapter 2: Models and Migrations
	Technical requirements
	Understanding and using databases
		Relational databases
		Non-relational databases
		Database operations using SQL
		Data types in relational databases
		Exercise 2.01 – creating a book database
	Understanding CRUD operations using SQL
		SQL create operations
		SQL read operations
		SQL update operations
		SQL delete Operations
	Exploring Django ORM
		Database configuration and creating Django applications
		Django apps
		Django migration
	Creating Django models and migrations
		Field options
		Primary keys
		Relationships
		Adding the Review model
		Model methods
		Migrating the reviews app
	Django’s database CRUD operations
		Exercise 2.02 – creating an entry in the bookr database
		Exercise 2.03 – using the create() method to create an entry
		Creating an object with a foreign key
		Exercise 2.04 – creating records for a many-to-one relationship
		Exercise 2.05 – creating records with many-to-many relationships
		Exercise 2.06 – a many-to-many relationship using the add() method
		Using the create() and set() methods for many-to-many relationships
		Read operations
		Exercise 2.07 – using the get() method to retrieve an object
		Returning an object using the get() method
		Exercise 2.08 – using the all() method to retrieve a set of objects
		Retrieving objects by filtering
		Exercise 2.09 – using the filter() method to retrieve objects
		Filtering by field lookups
		Using pattern matching for filtering operations
		Retrieving objects by using the exclude() method
		Retrieving objects using the order_by() method
		Querying across relationships
		Querying using foreign keys
		Querying using the model name
		Querying across foreign key relationships using the object instance
		Exercise 2.10 – querying across a many-to-many relationship using the field lookup
		Exercise 2.11 – a many-to-many query using objects
		Exercise 2.12 – a many-to-many query using the set() method
		Exercise 2.13 – using the update() method
		Exercise 2.14 – using the delete() method
	Bulk create and bulk update operations
		Exercise 2.15 – creating multiple records using bulk_create
		Exercise 2.16 – updating multiple records using bulk_update
	Performing complex lookups using Q objects
		Exercise 2.17 – performing a complex query using a Q object
		Exercise 2.18 – verifying whether a queryset contains a given object
	Activity 2.01 – creating models for a project management application
	Populating the Bookr project’s database
	Summary
Chapter 3: URL Mapping, Views, and Templates
	Technical requirements
	Understanding function-based views
	Understanding class-based views
	URL configuration
		Exercise 3.01 – implementing a simple function-based view
	Working with Django templates
		Exercise 3.02 – using templates to display a greeting message
		Django’s template language
		Exercise 3.03 – displaying a list of books and reviews
		Template inheritance
		Template styling with Bootstrap
		Exercise 3.04 – adding template inheritance and a Bootstrap navigation bar
		Activity 3.01 – implementing the book details view
	Summary
Chapter 4: An Introduction to Django Admin
	Technical requirements
	Creating a superuser account
		Exercise 4.01 – creating a superuser account
	CRUD operations using the Django admin app
		Create
		Retrieve
		Update
		Delete
	Managing Django users and groups
		Exercise 4.02 – adding and modifying users and groups through the admin app
	Registering models with the admin app
		Registering the reviews model
		Change lists
		The Change publisher page
		The Book change page
		Exercise 4.03 – foreign keys and deletion behavior in the admin app
	Customizing the admin interface
		Site-wide Django admin customizations
	Customizing the ModelAdmin classes
		The list display fields
		The display decorator
		The filter
		Exercise 4.04 – adding the date list_filter and date_hierarchy filters
		The search bar
		Excluding and grouping fields
		Activity 4.03 – customizing the Model admins
	Summary
Chapter 5: Serving Static Files
	Technical requirements
	Static file serving
	Introduction to Static Files Finder
		Static file finders – use during a request
		AppDirectoriesFinder
		Static file namespacing
		Exercise 5.01 – serving a file from an app directory
	Generating static URLs with the static template tag
		Exercise 5.02 – using the static template tag
	FileSystemFinder
		Exercise 5.03 – serving from a project static directory
	Static file finders – use during collectstatic
		Exercise 5.04 – collecting static files for production
	STATICFILES_DIRS prefixed mode
	The findstatic command
		Exercise 5.05 – finding files using findstatic
	Serving the latest files (for cache invalidation)
		Exercise 5.06 – exploring the ManifestFilesStorage storage engine
	Custom storage engines
		Activity 5.01 – adding a Reviews logo
		Activity 5.02 – CSS enhancements
		Activity 5.03 – adding a global logo
	Summary
Chapter 6: Forms
	Technical requirements
	What is a form?
		The form element
		Types of inputs
		Exercise 6.01 – building a form in HTML
		Form security with Cross-Site Request Forgery Protection
		Accessing data in the View
		Exercise 6.02 – working with POST data in a view
		Choosing between GET or POST
		Why use GET when we can put parameters in the URL mappings?
	The Django Forms library
		Defining a form
		Rendering a form in a template
		Exercise 6.03 – building and rendering a Django form
	Validating forms and retrieving Python values
		Exercise 6.04 – validating forms in a view
		Built-in field validation
		Exercise 6.05 – adding extra field validation
	Activity 1 – Book Search
	Summary
Chapter 7: Advanced Form Validation and Model Forms
	Technical requirements
	Custom field validation and cleaning
		Custom validators
		Cleaning methods
		Multi-field validation
		Exercise 7.01 – custom clean and validation methods
	Adding placeholders and initial values
		Exercise 7.02 – placeholders and initial values
	Creating or editing Django models
		The ModelForm class
		Exercise 7.03 – creating and editing a publisher
		Activity 7.01 – styling and integrating the publisher form
		Activity 7.02 – Review Creation UI
	Summary
Chapter 8: Media Serving and File Uploads
	Technical requirements
	Settings for media uploads and serving
		Serving media files in development
		Exercise 8.01 – configuring media storage and serving
		Context processors and using MEDIA_URL in templates
		Exercise 8.02 – template settings and using MEDIA_URL in templates
	File uploads using HTML forms
		Working with uploaded files in a view
		Exercise 8.03 – file upload and download
	File uploads with Django forms
		Exercise 8.04 – file uploads with a Django form
	Image uploads with Django forms
		Resizing an image with Pillow
		Exercise 8.05 – image uploads using Django forms
	Serving uploaded (and other) files using Django
		Storing files on model instances
		Storing images on model instances
		Working with FieldFile
		Referring to media in templates
	ModelForms and file uploads
		Exercise 8.07 – file and image uploads using ModelForm
		Handling file saving
	Activity 8.01 – image and PDF upload of books
	Activity 8.02 – displaying the cover and sample link
	Summary
Chapter 9: Sessions and Authentication
	Technical requirements
	Middleware
		Middleware modules
		Implementing authentication views and templates
		Exercise 9.01 – repurposing the Admin app login template
	Password storage in Django
		The profile page and the request.user object
		Exercise 9.02 – adding a profile page
	Authentication decorators and redirection
		Exercise 9.03 – adding authentication decorators to the views
	Enhancing templates with authentication data
		Exercise 9.04 – toggling login and logout links in the base template
		Activity 9.01 – authentication-based content using conditional blocks in templates
	Sessions
		The session engine
		Do you need to flag cookie content?
		Pickle or JSON storage?
		Exercise 9.05 – examining the session key
		Storing data in sessions
		Exercise 9.06 – storing recently viewed books in sessions
		Activity 9.02 – using session storage for the Book Search page
	Summary
Chapter 10: Advanced Django Admin and Customizations
	Technical requirements
	Customizing the admin site
		Discovering admin files in Django
		Django’s AdminSite class
		Exercise 10.01 – creating a custom admin site for Bookr
		Overriding the default admin.site
		Exercise 10.02 – overriding the default admin site
		Customizing admin site text using AdminSite attributes
		Customizing admin site templates
		Exercise 10.03 – customizing the logout template for the Bookr admin site
	Adding views to the admin site
		Creating the view function
		Accessing common template variables
		Mapping URLs for the custom view
		Restricting custom views to the admin site
		Exercise 10.04 – adding custom views to the admin site
		Passing additional keys to templates using template variables
		Activity 10.01 – building a custom admin dashboard with a built-in search
	Summary
Chapter 11: Advanced Templating and Class-Based Views
	Technical requirements
	Template filters
	Custom template filters
		Creating custom template filters
		Implementing the custom filter function
		Using custom filters inside templates
		Exercise 11.01 – Creating a custom template filter
	String filters
	Template tags
		The types of template tags
		Simple tags
		Creating a simple template tag
		Exercise 11.02 – Creating a custom simple tag
		Inclusion tags
		Exercise 11.03 – Building a custom inclusion tag
	Django views
	Class-based views
		Exercise 11.04 – Creating a book catalog using a CBV
		CRUD operations with CBVs
		The Read view
		Activity 11.01 – Rendering details on the user profile page using inclusion tags
	Summary
Chapter 12: Building a REST API
	Technical requirements
	Understanding REST APIs
	Django REST framework
		Installation and configuration
		Functional API views
	Understanding serializers
		Class-based API views and generic views
	Activity 12.01 – creating an API endpoint for a top contributors page
	Simplifying the code using ViewSets
		URL configuration using routers and Viewsets
		Exercise 12.04 – using ViewSets and routers
	Implementing authentication
		Token-based authentication
		Exercise 12.05 – omplementing token-based authentication for Bookr APIs
	Summary
Chapter 13: Generating CSV, PDF, and Other Binary Files
	Technical requirements
	Working with CSV files inside Python
	Working with Python’s csv module
		Reading data from a CSV file
		Exercise 13.0 – reading a CSV file with Python
		Writing to CSV files using Python
		Exercise 13.02 – generating a CSV file using Python’s csv module
		A better way to read and write CSV files
	Working with Excel files in Python
		Binary file formats for data exports
		Working with XLSX files using the XlsxWriter package
		XLSX files
		Exercise 13.03 – creating XLSX files in Python
	Working with PDF files in Python
		Converting web pages into PDFs
		Exercise 13.04 – generating a PDF version of a web page in Python
	Playing with graphs in Python
		Integrating plotly with Django
	Integrating visualizations with Django
		Exercise 13.06 – visualizing a user’s reading history on the user’s profile page
		Activity 13.01 – exporting the books read by a user as an XLSLX file
	Summary
Chapter 14: Testing Your Django Applications
	Technical requirements
	Importance of testing
	Automation testing
	Testing in Django
		Implementing test cases
		Unit testing in Django
		Utilizing assertions
		Exercise 14.01 – writing a simple unit test
		Performing pre-test setup and cleanup after every test case run
	Testing Django models
		Exercise 14.02 – testing Django models
	Testing Django views
		Exercise 14.03 – writing unit tests for Django views
		Testing views with authentication
		Exercise 14.04 – writing test cases to validate authenticated users
	Django RequestFactory
		Exercise 14.05 – using RequestFactory to test views
		Testing class-based views
	Test case classes in Django
		The SimpleTestCase class
		The TransactionTestCase class
		The LiveServerTestCase class
		Modularizing test code
	Activity 14.01 – testing models and views in Bookr
	Summary
Chapter 15: Django Third-Party Libraries
	Technical requirements
	Environment variables
	django-configurations
		manage.py changes
		Configuration from environment variables
		Exercise 15.01 – Django configurations setup
	dj-database-url
		Exercise 15.02 – dj-database-url and setup
	The Django Debug Toolbar
		Exercise 15.03 – setting up the Django Debug Toolbar
	django-crispy-forms
		The crispy filter
		The crispy template Tag
		Exercise 15.04 – using Django Crispy Forms with SearchForm
	django-allauth
		django-allauth installation and setup
		Initiating authentication with django-allauth
		Other django-allauth features
		Activity 15.01 – using FormHelper to update forms
	Summary
Chapter 16: Using a Frontend JavaScript Library with Django
	Technical requirements
	JavaScript frameworks
	An introduction to JavaScript
		Loading JavaScript
		Variables and constants
		Working with React
		Components
		Exercise 16.01 – setting up a React example
	JSX – a JavaScript syntax extension
		Exercise 16.02 – JSX and Babel
		JSX properties
		Exercise 16.03 – React component properties
		JavaScript promises
		The fetch function
		Exercise 16.04 – fetching and rendering books
	The verbatim template tag
		Activity 16.01 – reviews preview
	Summary
Index
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