Zack’s Skeleton Django Project

This is a small skeleton project based on the principles described in my blog post, “Django Project Conventions, Revisited”.

Features

• Designed to work with virtualenv and pip from the start.

• Django Debug Toolbar installed as standard.

• Logging set up with sensible defaults as standard.

• Clean implementation of ‘settings modes’; have a single ‘common’ settings module, with several deployment-specific settings, all under version control. This extends to flat-file configurations too (via the etcs/ directory).

• Clear separation of immutable/mutable aspects of deployment, with a distinction between the site and project directories. No more large VCS ignore files!

• Compatible with virtually any VCS, and most deployment strategy. Comes with VCS ignore files for Mercurial and Git.

Installation

1. Make, enter and activate a virtualenv:

   $ virtualenv mysite
   New python executable in mysite/bin/python
   Installing setuptools............done.
   $ cd mysite/
   $ . bin/activate
   

2. Clone this repo into a sub-directory of the new virtualenv:

   $ git clone 'git://github.com/zacharyvoase/django-zskel-project.git' myproject
   $ cd myproject/
   
   # Remove .empty files, used to make Hg track otherwise-empty dirs.
   $ find . -name '.empty' -exec rm {} \;
   
   $ rm .hgignore # OR
   $ rm .gitignore
   

3. Remove the pointer to the GitHub project:

   $ git config --unset remote.origin.url
   

   Later you’ll probably want to re-add this configuration with a pointer to your upstream repo. You can do that with the following command (mutatis mutandem):

   $ git config remote.origin.url '[email protected]:USERNAME/PROJECT.git'
   

4. Go through the following files, editing as necessary:

   • settings/common.py
   • settings/development.py
   • urls.py
   • REQUIREMENTS
   • templates/base.html

5. Symlink the project directory into the virtualenv’s site-packages:

   $ ln -s `pwd` ../lib/python2.6/site-packages/`basename pwd`
   

   Replace python2.6 with the installed version of Python on your machine.

6. Set the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable now, and on every virtualenv activation:

   $ export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=myproject.settings.development
   $ echo "!!" >> ../bin/activate
   

7. Install the basic project requirements:

   $ easy_install pip
   $ pip install -r REQUIREMENTS
   

   As you edit your REQUIREMENTS file, you can run that last command again; pip will realise which packages you’ve added and will ignore those already installed.

Managing Your Site

There is no manage.py file here; use django-boss or django-admin.py (which will be on your path after you install Django):

$ django-admin.py syncdb
$ django-admin.py runserver
$ django-admin.py test myapp

More Information

This layout is based on my original blog post; read that for comprehensive information on the architecture and rationale behind this project. You can use the GitHub issue tracker to report bugs or make suggestions.