Is it reliable to build desktop applications using web frameworks like Django?
The idea is to
build the interface with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
use Python and Django for backend operations (calculations, storage and databases, etc)
and then run a server locally so that
the interaction with the application is done through the browser
other local devices can access the application by connecting to the device on which the server is running.
If that is possible and yields a reliable experience, then
is the development server that comes with Django enough? If no, what servers are most suitable for our purpose? Is Nginx good for example?
what database should be used? PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc? The app will need to store a large number of entries.
I've never done this, but I can't see why not. You can use the Django REST Framework to create an API that your desktop application can talk to, in exactly the same way as you might with a JavaScript single page app.
But no, you should not use the dev server for production, even in a limited scenario like this. Apache/mod_wsgi or nginx/gunicorn are simple to set up and deploy.
For the database, it makes no difference. The Django core devs prefer postgres, but you should use whatever you are comfortable with.
You are asking for a webApp, so yes you can. Is not use the Django server, instead is very common use nginx for Django, and the best database is postgres for Django.
If you want to pass your project like a desktop app is better use Django server and SQLite for avoid create a new database server.
Database
I find this answer explaining why is postgres better for Django
Related
I'm currently working on a project which would require some realtime functionalities such as Multi-user chatrooms etc.
Ideally, I’m looking to have meteor run the chat application(on a different port) and mongodb act as message broker to the django back-end which would take care of user registration , management and everything 'non-realtime' related.
This would involve setting up a reverse-proxy which would redirect to a different port based on the url (please let me know if i'm wrong in this)
Would this be possible(or even advisable)? Another option would be to implement the same with tornado. but I have no experience with building tornado-based apps and rather do this with a framework I’m comfortable with.
Thanks,
You can have Django serve the Meteor front-end while providing access to its data using django-ddp, giving you some distinct advantages:
Continue to serve your existing Django project/apps.
No extra services or ports to manage.
Scale out by simply adding more front-end Python/Django servers (server to server IPC is done via the existing database connection).
Use django.contrib.auth user accounts in your Meteor app.
Familiar Python/Django code (no "callback" style such as with Tornado).
Use time-tested, trusted relational databases.
Use Django migrations to effectively manage schema changes.
There's a Gitter chat room where I can give you assistance if you need it.
DISCLAIMER: I'm the author of django-ddp.
A meteor application is more than capable of handling the user registration flow and many other things. Why not just build the application entirely in meteor? Your application sounds like a perfect candidate for meteor, with realtime interaction with your database at the core.
The other option would be to use swampdragon which adds realtime data binding within django. It allows for simple bi directional communication between the server and the client. Again, essential for a chat application. It nice and easy to get setup and running as well.
Are there any specific reasons to not implementing your application in one framework alone?
We have two django applications running on the same server that interact with an API that uses oauth. They function as expected, communicating with each other, when run under the django development server. However, when deployed using apache/wsgi they don't work together.
(To be more specific, one application is an instance of the Indivo server; the other one is a custom application that interacts with Indivo.)
What is the best way to trouble shoot this?
Make sure that the Django instances are working by themselves first. For example, one app could be started under Apache, and the other using ./manage.py runserver. Reverse which one is running using Apache and verify that all works as expected.
Use the Apache error logs to look for errors such as failed requests.
Since one of your apps appears to implement a web API, use something like the Google Chrome Postman App to exercise the site from a web browser.
Learn how to use the Django logging framework to log information about your apps as they execute.
I am very comfortable with Django, and I was wondering about whether there is some way to convert a Django web app into a Desktop app (may be not 100%), so that I can distribute it to users, instead of learning a GUI framework.
Thanks
Maybe not exactly what you are looking for, but if you really, really don't want to learn a GUI framework, in your place I'd consider packaging your Django web application with a small web server in the distributable package, with the Django app configured to run on localhost on the web server. Then I'd include a script that launches a browser pointing at the starting page of your Django app as the "executable".
If not configured properly this could be considered weak from a security point of view.
I plan to make an online game. It will be a full real-time during play. For my website backend I have used Django. Database and other things are almost done. What is the best way to make user client side and server side backend for play in realtime? As I use Django it would be nice to have it in Python.
We plan that there will be minimum ~1000 online players all the time.
Twisted/Tornado/Node.js or maybe something else?
Thanks in advance.
Tornado is very light and pretty nice in my opinion. You could integrate it with Django in various ways -- e.g. Integrate Tornado in Django, Integrating Django with Tornado's web server -- or just run it alongside Django behind whatever web server you use.
Node is so fun that you might tire of Django. :-)
I think you should keep separately Django - which is used for general site functions, and Tornado - which is used for realtime data. I think you should use some Redis to store/read data and communicate between django and tornado, so prevent using database access directly from tornado.
Developing your own backend server sounds as interesting project.
But from my experience it becomes a very significant of your R&D effort.
It starts with developing core backend components, dealing with servers, installs, patches, security issues and more.
On top of it, you will need to create admin systems to manage your player, levels, xp, integration to stores and more... and then, you have the reports (installs, retention, etc'...)
I would strongly recommend using existing backend platforms.
I would like to build a new application using node.js but it requires quite a bit of backend management that I would rather not have to build. I have some existing code in django and really like the built in Admin interface for handling the backend management.
Is it possible for me to use something like nginx to direct all traffic to my node.js application except when the url path starts with /admin in which case it would direct the traffic to django?
Alternatively is there something like the admin interface for any of the node.js frameworks for certain databases?
Thanks.
Yes, you can do that.
It might be easier to just put your django admin app on a subdomain, django.example.com.
I'm using Django admin interface with a legacy PHP application. I found out I could build a nicer admin in just a few hours, than the special built one. The frontend is still obviously using PHP and the old code, but I just swapped out the entire admin backend which is now run on django against the database.
It's very nice indeed.
If you are already using Node.js, you might want to look into node-http-proxy which can redirect requests to different places based on the route. It's very easy to setup and runs very fast from my experience.