Day 4: First Django Project

Today has been crazyyyy anyways I created a Django project with two applications each having their own templates and all.
What I was to do:

• Use Django’s project and app architecture
• Link two apps: trousers and tops
• Display templates for each app with an awesome look cause you know ;)

Step 1: Setting Up the Virtual Environment

Installed virtualenv (if not already installed):

sudo apt install python3-venv

Created a virtual environment inside the project folder:

python3 -m venv venv

This created a venv/ folder containing an isolated Python environment with its own pip, python, and site-packages.

Activated the virtual environment:

source venv/bin/activate

Your terminal prompt changes to indicate the virtual environment is active (e.g., (venv)). To deactivate, run:

deactivate

Installed Django inside the virtual environment:

python -m pip install django

Step 2: Starting the Django Project

Created a new Django project named boutique:

django-admin startproject boutique
cd boutique

The folder structure now looks like this:

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

Step 3: Creating Django Apps

Created two apps named trousers and tops:

python manage.py startapp trousers
python manage.py startapp tops

Step 4: Creating Models That Interact

In trousers/models.py, defined a Trouser model:

from django.db import models

class Trouser(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
brand = models.CharField(max_length=100)

def __str__(self):
    return f"{self.name} by {self.brand}"

In tops/models.py, imported Trouser and defined a Top model that links to Trouser via a foreign key (for example, if a top is styled to match a trouser):

from django.db import models
from trousers.models import Trouser

class Top(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
color = models.CharField(max_length=50)
matching_trouser = models.ForeignKey(Trouser, on_delete=models.CASCADE)

def __str__(self):
    return f"{self.name} in {self.color}"

Ran migrations to apply these changes:

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

[Step 5](url): Creating Simple Views

In trousers/views.py, created a view to list all trousers:

from django.shortcuts import render
from .models import Trouser

def trouser_list(request):
trousers = Trouser.objects.all()
return render(request, 'trousers/trousers.html', {'trousers': trousers})

In tops/views.py, created a view to list all tops:

from django.shortcuts import render
from .models import Top

def top_list(request):
tops = Top.objects.all()
return render(request, 'tops/tops.html', {'tops': tops})

Step 6: Linking Templates with Style

Each app has its own templates directory (trousers/templates/trousers/ and tops/templates/tops/).

Used Bootstrap and a light CSS gradient background to make the pages look clean and polished.

Example: trousers/templates/trousers/trousers.html

👖 Trousers Collection

    <li>{{ trouser.name }} by {{ trouser.brand }}</li>

</ul>
<a href="/tops/">View Tops</a>

Example: tops/templates/tops/tops.html

👚 Tops Collection

</ul>
<a href="/trousers/">View Trousers</a>

Step 7: Setting Up URLs to Connect Everything

Created a urls.py in each app folder.

trousers/urls.py:

from django.urls import path
from .views import trouser_list

urlpatterns = [
path('', trouser_list, name='trouser-list'),
]
tops/urls.py:

from django.urls import path
from .views import top_list

urlpatterns = [
path('', top_list, name='top-list'),
]
Included these app URLs in the main project’s boutique/urls.py:

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

urlpatterns = [
path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
path('trousers/', include('trousers.urls')),
path('tops/', include('tops.urls')),
]
Now you can visit:

/trousers/ to see the list of trousers

/tops/ to view the tops and their matching trousers

It’s only the beginning, breath