Django is an amazingly powerful system for creating modern, dynamic websites. But programming Django hasn’t always been easy–until now. Django Unleashed is your step-by-step, beginner-friendly guide to leveraging Django’s core capabilities and its powerful contributed library. You’ll learn in the most effective way possible: hands on, by building a fully functional Django website from scratch. You’ll even deploy the website to the cloud.   As you build your website, expert Django consultant and trainer Andrew Pinkham reveals how websites operate; how Django makes building websites easy; how to write Python code that leverages its immense capabilities; and how to build solutions that are robust, reliable, and secure. You’ll start simply and learn to solve increasingly challenging problems: mastering new features and understanding how Django’s architecture shapes their behavior, and gaining essential knowledge for working with any web framework, not just Django.   Drawing on his extensive experience teaching Django, Pinkham answers the key questions beginners ask most often. And as you gain experience, you’ll learn advanced techniques for enhancing site functionality and performance, strengthening security, promoting code reuse, and much more.   Detailed information on how to… Quickly start a new Django project and establish a strong foundation for a growing site Define how your data is organized and create a SQLite database to manage it Quickly produce HTML with Django templates Create dynamic webpages with Django’s URL patterns and views, including function views, class-based views, and generic views Enable efficient, reliable data input with Django Forms and custom form validations Understand the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, compare it to Model-Template-Views, and gain a holistic understanding of Django’s structure Write as little code as possible, simplify code reuse, and mitigate software decay by adhering to the Don’t Repeat Yourself paradigm. Dive into Django source code to troubleshoot problems Extend site functionality with Django’s contributed library Protect your site with user authentication and permissions Avoid security pitfalls such as SQL Injection, XSS, and CSRF Optimize site performance Deploy your site to a managed cloud service and to a PostgreSQL database  

Table of Contents:
Preface         xiii Acknowledgments         xvii About the Author         xix   Part I: Django’s Core Features         1 Chapter 1: Starting a New Django Project: Building a Startup Categorizer with Blog         3 1.1 Introduction  3 1.2 Website Basics  4 1.3 Understanding Modern Websites  5 1.4 Building Modern Websites: The Problems That Frameworks Solve and Their Caveats   6 1.5 Django: Python Web Framework   8 1.6 Defining the Project in Part I    11 1.7 Creating a New Django Project and Django Apps   13 1.8 Putting It All Together   21   Chapter 2: Hello World: Building a Basic Webpage in Django          23 2.1 Introduction   23 2.2 Creating and Integrating a New App   24 2.3 Building Hello World   25 2.4 Displaying Hello World   26 2.5 Controller Limitations: The Advantages of Models and Views   27 2.6 Removing Our Helloworld App from Our Project   27 2.7 Putting It All Together   29   Chapter 3: Programming Django Models and Creating a SQLite Database         31 3.1 Introduction   31 3.2 Why Use a Database?   32 3.3 Organizing Our Data   32 3.4 Specifying and Organizing Data in Django Using Models   36 3.5 Using Django to Automatically Create a SQLite Database with manage.py   49 3.6 Manipulating Data in the Database: Managers and QuerySets   56 3.7 String Case Ordering   68 3.8 Putting It All Together   71   Chapter 4: Rapidly Producing Flexible HTML with Django Templates         73 4.1 Introduction   73 4.2 Revisiting Hello World: The Advantages of Templates   74 4.3 Understanding Django Templates and Their Goals   77 4.4 Choosing a Format, an Engine, and a Location for Templates   77 4.5 Building a First Template: A Single Tag Object   78 4.6 Building the Rest of Our App Templates   90 4.7 Using Template Inheritance for Design Consistency   102 4.8 Using Templates in Python with the Template, Context, and loader Classes   112 4.9 Putting It All Together   118   Chapter 5: Creating Webpages with Controllers in Django: Views and URL Configurations         121 5.1    Introduction   121 5.2    The Purpose of Views and URL Configurations   122 5.3    Step-by-Step Examination of Django’s Use of Views and URL Configurations   126 5.4    Building Tag Detail Webpage   128 5.5    Generating 404 Errors for Invalid Queries   132 5.6    Shortening the Development Process with Django View Shortcuts   135 5.7    URL Configuration Internals: Adhering to App Encapsulation   143 5.8    Implementing the Views and URL Configurations to the Rest of the Site   148 5.9    Class-Based Views   155 5.10 Redirecting the Homepage   163 5.11 Putting It All Together   166   Chapter 6: Integrating Models, Templates, Views, and URL Configurations to Create Links between Webpages         169 6.1 Introduction   169 6.2 Generating URLs in Python and Django Templates   170 6.3 Using the url Template Tag to Build a Navigation Menu   175 6.4 Linking List Pages to Detail Pages   177 6.5 Creating Links on the Object Detail Pages   184 6.6 Revisiting Homepage Redirection   186 6.7 Putting It All Together   187   Chapter 7: Allowing User Input with Forms   189 7.1 Introduction   189 7.2 Django Forms as State Machines   190 7.3 Creating TagForm, a Form for Tag Objects   190 7.4 Building the Forms for Startup, Newslink, and Post Models   206 7.5 Putting It All Together   210   Chapter 8: Displaying Forms in Templates         211 8.1 Introduction   211 8.2 Creating a New Template to Create Tag Objects   211 8.3 Creating a New Template to Update Tag Objects   224 8.4 Creating a New Template to Delete Tag Objects   226 8.5 Creating Templates for StartupForm, NewsLinkForm, and PostForm   227 8.6 Reconsidering Template Inheritance   229 8.7 Putting It All Together   231   Chapter 9: Controlling Forms in Views        233 9.1 Introduction   233 9.2 Webpages for Creating Objects   233 9.3 Webpages for Updating Objects   256 9.4 Webpages for Deleting Objects   268 9.5 Putting It All Together   276   Chapter 10: Revisiting Migrations          279 10.1 Introduction   279 10.2 Last Week’s Episode (Reviewing Chapter 3)   279 10.3 Data Migrations   280 10.4 Schema Migrations   288 10.5 Putting It All Together  296   Chapter 11: Bending the Rules: The Contact Us Webpage         299 11.1 Introduction   299 11.2 Creating a contact App   300 11.3 Creating the Contact Webpage   301 11.4 Splitting Organizer urls.py   308 11.5 Putting It All Together   310   Chapter 12: The Big Picture          313 12.1 Introduction   313 12.2 Django’s Core   313 12.3 Webpages with Views and URL Configurations   316 12.4 Generating Webpages Thanks to Models and Templates   317 12.5 Interacting with Data via Forms   318 12.6 Intervening in Control Flow   319 12.7 Moving Forward   319   Part II: Djangos Contributed Libraries         321 Chapter 13: Django’s Contributed Library         323 13.1 Introduction   323 13.2 Django’s Source Code (and Versioning)   323 13.3 Django’s contrib Code   325 13.4 Content (Not) Covered   327 13.5 Translation   328 13.6 Putting It All Together   329   Chapter 14: Pagination: A Tool for Navigation          331 14.1 Introduction   331 14.2 A Word about URLs: Query versus Path   332 14.3 Discovering Django Pagination in the Shell   333 14.4 Paginating the Startup List Webpage   337 14.5 Pagination of Tag List Webpage Using the URL Path   345 14.6 Putting It All Together   351   Chapter 15: Creating Webpages with Django Flatpages         353 15.1 Introduction   353 15.2 Enabling Flatpages   353 15.3 Anatomy of the App   355 15.4 Building an About Webpage   355 15.5 Linking to FlatPage Objects   363 15.6 Security Implications of FlatPages   363 15.7 Migrations for Sites and Flatpages   365 15.8 Putting It All Together   371   Chapter 16: Serving Static Content with Django         373 16.1 Introduction   373 16.2 Adding Static Content for Apps   374 16.3 Adding Static Content for the Project   376 16.4 Integrating Real CSS Content   377 16.5 Putting It All Together   381   Chapter 17: Understanding Generic Class-Based Views         383 17.1 Introduction   383 17.2 Building Generic Object Detail Pages   384 17.3 Why Use Classes for Generic Views?   393 17.4 Building Generic Object Create Pages   394 17.5 Replacing CBVs with GCBVs   395 17.6 Forgoing GCBVs   400 17.7 Adding Behavior with GCBV   401 17.8 Putting It All Together   416   Chapter 18: Advanced Generic Class-Based View Usage         417 18.1 Introduction   417 18.2 Rapid Review of GCBV   418 18.3 Globally Setting Template Suffix for Update Views   419 18.4 Generating Pagination Links   419 18.5 Re-creating PostDetail with DateDetailView   426 18.6 Switching to GCBVs with PostGetMixin in Post Views   429 18.7 Making PostGetMixin Generic   432 18.8 Fixing NewsLink URL Patterns and Form Behavior   438 18.9 Putting It All Together   449   Chapter 19: Basic Authentication         451 19.1 Introduction   451 19.2 Configuring Logging   452 19.3 Sessions and Cookies   456 19.4 auth App Anatomy: The Basics   457 19.5 Adding Login and Logout Features   458 19.6 Putting It All Together   472   Chapter 20: Integrating Permissions         473 20.1 Introduction   473 20.2 Understanding contenttypes and Generic Relations   473 20.3 auth App Anatomy: Permission and Group Models   476 20.4 Protecting Views with Permissions   483 20.5 Conditionally Displaying Template Links   496 20.6 Displaying Future Posts in the Template  497 20.7 Putting It All Together   500   Chapter 21: Extending Authentication         501 21.1 Introduction   501 21.2 auth App Anatomy: Password Views   501 21.3 Changing Passwords   503 21.4 Resetting Passwords   506 21.5 Disabling Accounts   513 21.6 Creating Accounts   517 21.7 URL Cleanup   544 21.8 Anatomy of the App: Full Dissection   545 21.9 Putting It All Together   547   Chapter 22: Overriding Django’s Authentication with a Custom User   549 22.1 Introduction   549 22.2 Creating a User Profile   550 22.3 Custom User   558 22.4 Data Migrations  568 22.5 Adding an Author to Blog Posts   572 22.6 Putting It All Together   576   Chapter 23: The Admin Library   577 23.1 Introduction   577 23.2 A First Look   577 23.3 Modifying the Admin Controls for Blog Posts   581 23.4 Configuring the Admin for the User Model   593 23.5 Creating Admin Actions   616 23.6 Putting It All Together   618   Part III: Advanced Core Features         619 Chapter 24: Creating Custom Managers and Querysets         621 24.1 Introduction to Part III    621 24.2 Introduction to Chapter 24    621 24.3 Custom Managers and Querysets   622 24.4 Fixtures   624 24.5 Management Commands   627 24.6 Putting It All Together   648   Chapter 25: Handling Behavior with Signals         649 25.1 Introduction   649 25.2 Apps and AppConfig   650 25.3 Signals   652 25.4 Putting It All Together   660   Chapter 26: Optimizing Our Site for Speed         661 26.1 Introduction   661 26.2 Profiling   662 26.3 Limiting Database Queries   663 26.4 Changing Database Behavior Internally   679 26.5 Changing Performance Globally   681 26.6 Putting It All Together   685   Chapter 27: Building Custom Template Tags         687 27.1 Introduction   687 27.2 Custom Template Filters   688 27.3 Custom Template Tags   690 27.4 Putting It All Together   706   Chapter 28: Adding RSS and Atom Feeds and a Sitemap         707 28.1 Introduction   707 28.2 RSS and Atom Feeds   707 28.3 Sitemaps   715 28.4 Putting It All Together   724   Chapter 29: Deploy!         725 29.1 Introduction: Understanding Modern Deployments   725 29.2 Preparing for Deployment   726 29.3 Deploying to Heroku   738 29.4 Adding Backing Services   741 29.5 Putting It All Together   748   Chapter 30: Starting a New Project Correctly          749 30.1 Introduction   749 30.2 Preparing a Project   749 30.3 Building the Project   752 30.4 The Road Ahead   754   Part IV: Appendixes         755 Appendix A: HTTP         757   Appendix B: Python Primer         761   Appendix C: Relational Database Basics         765   Appendix D: Security Basics         769   Appendix E: Regular Expressions         771   Appendix F: Compilation Basics         773   Appendix G: Installing Python, Django, and Your Tools         775   Index              779