VALENTINE ACHIENG

Posted on Jun 30

## 🚀 Getting Started with Django: A Two-App Project with Individual Templates

🚀 Getting Started with Django: A Two-App Project with Individual Templates

As a beginner learning Django, I wanted to go beyond the usual single-app setup and try something more practical: a Django project with two apps, where each app has its own templates.

This post walks you through exactly how I set it up — with actual code and screenshots from my own project. If you’re getting started or want to organize your project more cleanly, this guide is for you. 🧠✨

🗂️ Folder Structure

Here’s what the structure looks like in my project:

web_project/
│
├── hello/
│   ├── templates/
│   │   └── hello/
│   │       ├── sample.html
│   │       └── sample.css
│   ├── views.py
│   ├── urls.py
│
├── users/
│   ├── templates/
│   │   └── users/
│   │       └── register.html
│   ├── views.py
│   ├── urls.py
│
├── web_project/
│   └── settings.py
│   └── urls.py
└── manage.py

✅ Step-by-Step Setup

⚙️ Step 0: Set Up a Virtual Environment

Before we even touch Django, let's set up a clean Python environment for the project.

Create a virtual environment (you can name it venv or anything):

python -m venv venv

Activate it:

On Windows:

  venv\Scripts\activate

On Linux/macOS:

  source venv/bin/activate

Install Django:

pip install django

Once Django is installed inside your virtual environment, you’re ready to create your Django project!

1. Create the Project and Apps

django-admin startproject web_project
cd web_project
python manage.py startapp hello
python manage.py startapp users

2. Register Apps in `settings.py`

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'hello',
    'users',
]

3. Write Your Views

`hello/views.py`

from django.shortcuts import render

def hello(request):
    return render(request, 'hello/sample.html')

📸 Here’s how my code looks in VS Code:

4. Create Templates

📄 `hello/templates/hello/sample.html`

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>About django</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
    <p>This is a sample Django web project.</p>
    <p>Welcome to the Hello World page!</p>
</body>
</html>

📸 Here’s my actual file in action:

📄 `users/templates/users/register.html`

<h2>This is the user registration page</h2>

5. Set Up URL Routing

`hello/urls.py`

from django.urls import path
from . import views

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

`users/urls.py`

from django.urls import path
from . import views

def register(request):
    return render(request, 'users/register.html')

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

`web_project/urls.py`

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

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

6. Run the Server

python manage.py runserver

Now open your browser and visit:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/hello/ → You’ll see the "Hello, World!" template
http://127.0.0.1:8000/users/ → You’ll see the user register page

🧠 Key Takeaways

Each app can and should have its own templates/ folder for better organization.
Always remember to include each app’s URL configuration inside the main project urls.py.
Restart the dev server when you make changes to settings or URL configurations.

💬 Final Thoughts

Setting this up helped me understand Django’s project structure and how templates work. It also taught me how to keep things clean when scaling to multiple apps.

Let me know in the comments if you're trying something similar or hit a wall—I’ll be happy to help out!

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By: Vall Achieng