I am quite a django n00b, but I am reading the eyes out of my head to get it all going. I have a PHP background and struggle with the way and location of reusable apps.
I thought that installed apps should go in an App folder (example django-registration or django-profiles), but after I PIP the app in my virtualenv, I see that the app is installed in a Django folder names "site packages".
Is this the default behavior? Should I copy the 'registration' or 'profile' folder from site packages to my Project? or should I leave them there
Thanks for the help.
If you're intending to simply install packages and not amend their code, there's no problem with them living in Python's site-packages dir.
Because you're using virtualenv, the packages installed while that virtualenv is active will be stored in:
/path/to/virtualenvs/myvirtualenv/lib/python2.x/site-packages/
And it's completely fine for them to stay there. As Daniel R says, what matters is that they are your PYTHONPATH, and virtualenv takes care of making sure they are.
Custom apps you write go in your project. Installed apps you just want to import from into your custom apps can stay in the site-packages folder.
This has nothing to do with Django. This is where Python installs packages. Django doesn't care where they are, as long as they're on the Pythonpath (which they are if they're in site-packages).
Related
I am using modified sources from few third party apps in my project. I would like to put these third party apps in a separate directory, so that they are not on the same directory level as my own apps. Is this possible in django?
I tried simply putting the apps in a directory thirdparty and changed my INSTALLED_APPS like so:
INSTALLED_APPS = (
'my_app',
...
'thirdparty.django_messages',
This of course failse with:
ImportError: No module named thirdparty
After which I naturally added __init__.py to the directory. But it fails again:
ImportError: No module named django_messages.apps
Just to avoid any confusion, the app django_messages does contain apps.py
Is there a way to group django apps in a directory or do they all have to be in the same project root directory?
Edit
A better alternative is in the accepted answer by Antoine Pinsard
For those persistent on grouping apps see accepted answer here!
Don't do this. If you really need to modify the source code of third-party apps, fork the repositories so that you will be able to watch and merge upstream updates.
Then install the modified apps with pip.
For instance, if you have forked django-autocomplete-light on your github (let's say https://github.com/dsalaj/django-autocomplete-light):
pip install git+ssh://git#github.com/dsalaj/django-autocomplete-light.git
You will be able to upgrade it like any other pip package:
pip install --upgrade git+ssh://git#github.com/dsalaj/django-autocomplete-light.git
And even add it to your requirements.txt.
As Mad Wombat mentioned in the comments, you can use pip's --editable (-e) option to install these packages in a specific folder within your project. From pip help:
-e, --editable Install a project in editable mode (i.e. setuptools "develop mode") from a local project path or a VCS url.
Nevertheless, to answer the question. The issue is that the app django_messages considers it is a top-level module (and it is supposed to be). Thus it can import its submodules using an absolute python path (starting with django_messages.). However, when you place it within a module thirdparty, django_messages becomes a submodule of thirdparty. You could add the thirdparty directory to your PYTHON_PATH so that django_messages is available as a top-level module. But it is really not advisable to do so. lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages is the best place for your third party packages and this is where pip installs them.
You may also be interested in python virtualenvs if you don't know what they are.
I'm using the django-registration app from https://bitbucket.org/ubernostrum/django-registration/, and I'm a bit confused as to where I should place it.
I've added "registration" under INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py (as instructed), but shouldn't the registration app mentioned be in my project directory, with all my other apps? This seems to make more sense to me than having it somewhere else (ie. PYTHONPATH).
So, I'm thinking of cloning the repo, just grabbing django-registration's registration app, abandoning all the other files included in django-registration (INSTALL, README, docs, etc.), and sticking that registration app in my project directory.
This way, I can edit the models to include more fields, reflect that in the forms, etc.
Is this wrong?
(Sorry, it's my first large Django project)
Normally you wouldn't touch the files of django-registration - if you want to add your own custom fields for a user profile, you'd do something like this:
Saving profile with registration in Django-Registration
When you install a django package, this package are on your PYTHONPATH, so your project see it.
So just install via pip or easy_install (pip is better), and put on settings' INSTALLED_APPS the 'registration' package
Follow this instructions
I am finally going to start using virtualenv for my Django projects on my development machine. Before I start I want to know if there are any special considerations for dealing with my existing projects. My presumed workflow is something like:
make a new virtualenv
activate the new virtualenv
Install Django in there
pip install all the packages I know I need for my existing project
copy my Django project files, app files, and git files into the project folder within the virtualenv.
Edit
6. make requirements file for deployment
This is obviously very simplified but are there any steps or considerations I am fundamentally missing? Is git going to be happy about moving? Also is it best practice to have a separate virtualenv for each Django project?
I know this is not a typical code problem, but I hope those that know more than I do can point me in the right direction.
Many thanks.
I don't see any big issue on migrating your projects and I think your 5-steps plan is correct, in particular, for steps 3/4/5 (I'd merge them), you can handle project dependencies with pip, possibly using requirement files.
Requirement files are plain text files telling to pip which packages have to be installed in your virtualenv, included your git-tracked projects which eventually can be deployed in your virtual environment as development eggs (they bring with them version control infos).
Once you have a req file, it's a matter of:
pip install -r file.req
to have all needed packages installed in your env.
As you can see from virtualenv docs, a typical req file would contain something like:
django==1.3.0
-e git://git.myproject.org/MyProject.git#egg=MyProject
I usually keep each project in its own virtualenv, so I can deploy it to the production server the same way I do for local development.
I'm still busy with my Django learning adventure. In another post I asked about how to structure a Django project and applications using buildout. In the details of doing this arose another issue, simply installing 3rd party Django applications using either easy_install or setup.py. My question is, where should you install a Django application? If looking at Django documentation, one would think to put a Django application inside the project folder. But if your Django application is an egg (a mystifying term in my opinion) and you use easy_install without option '-b' (build-directory) the application will be installed into your current python site-packages directory. Using option '-b' will put a copy of the application in your directory, but still will install it in your current site-packages directory. Then there are other options like --install-dir and prefix. Also how should installation happen when using setup.py which have similar options as buid-directory, install-dir, and prefix?
Is there a 'good practice' standard for installing 3rd party Django applications into a Django project?
Thank a lot,
Todd
They usually aren't installed directly into the project. They're either installed into the system's site-packages/ directory, or in the virtualenv's site-packages/ directory, or in some other well-defined place that the sysadmin has set for this purpose.
This is where virtualenv comes into its own. It basically enables a project-specific site_packages directory, where you can install all the third-party applications that relate to your project. I'd definitely recommend it.
Follow these steps :
change the path according to your local setup
C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages>python pip install django
Create Project
Go to folder where you want to create a project
E:\djangoProject>C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\django\bin\django-admin.py startproject myproject
python manage.py help is used to list all the commands
Manage.py This file is kind of your project local django-admin for interacting with your project via command line (start the development server, sync db...)
Run Server
E:\djangoProject\myproject>python manage.py runserver
Create App
E:\djangoProject\myproject>python manage.py startapp myapp
Go to myproject settings.py and register your app “myapp” created under INSTALLED_APPS
Migrate DB E:\djangoProject\myproject>python manage.py migrate
Migrate will create necessary tables or collections depending on your db type, necessary for the admin interface to run
Trying to upload my django app on my obunto slice. The problem I'm facing right now there are a couple of packages I'm using. Which I installed in site packages on my machine. Now when I put them online on the server their sadly not working. Any ideas how to make them work.
p.s I get a error on import
Python must have a way to find these packages. Did you use standard installation procedures for them (i.e. setup.py install) or copy them in an accessible directory? If you didn't use setup.py install, check your PYTHONPATH environment variable. It should contain the directory where your packages are stored. If it doesn't, you can create it.
This is a Python issue really, not a Django issue.
To get more help paste the import error you're getting, as well as the directory structure of where you installed this package.