Creating a Django project - Try It Yourself

Creating a Django Project

📖 Scenario: You want to start a new website project using Django, a popular web framework in Python. This project will guide you through creating the basic Django project setup step-by-step.

🎯 Goal: Build a new Django project named mywebsite with the default settings and a basic app called main.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a new Django project named mywebsite

Create a new Django app named main inside the project

Add the main app to the project’s INSTALLED_APPS list

Create a simple view in main/views.py that returns a plain text response

Configure the project’s urls.py to route the home page to the main app’s view

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Starting a Django project is the first step to building websites and web apps with Python. This setup is the foundation for adding pages, data, and user features.

💼 Career

Many web developer jobs require knowledge of Django project structure, app creation, and URL routing to build maintainable web applications.

1

Create the Django project

Run the command django-admin startproject mywebsite in your terminal to create a new Django project folder named mywebsite.

Django

# Run the command django-admin startproject mywebsite in your terminal
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Open your terminal or command prompt and type exactly django-admin startproject mywebsite then press Enter.

2

Create the Django app

Inside the mywebsite folder, run the command python manage.py startapp main to create a new app called main.

Django

# Run the command python manage.py startapp main inside the mywebsite folder
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Change directory into mywebsite and run python manage.py startapp main.

3

Add the app to INSTALLED_APPS

Open mywebsite/settings.py and add the string 'main' to the INSTALLED_APPS list.

Django

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # Add your app here
]
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Find the INSTALLED_APPS list in settings.py and add 'main' as a new item.

4

Create a view and route the home page

In main/views.py, create a function home that returns HttpResponse("Hello, Django!"). Then, in mywebsite/urls.py, import home and add a URL pattern for the root path '' to call home.

Django

from django.http import HttpResponse

# In main/views.py
# Define a view function called home

# In mywebsite/urls.py
# Import home and add a path for '' to home
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Define the home function in main/views.py and return a simple HttpResponse. Then update urls.py to route the root URL to this view.