Django Installation for Windows

Overview

These installation instructions are Windows-specific!

An installation script for MAC is located here.

The commands below must be done one at a time. Make sure each one is successful before continuing to the next step. Please do not get hung up on version numbers. Use the latest version for any package you install!

Django Installation for Windows

On Windows, we can install django at the command line, and use regular GUI installer for Git. We strongly recommend using powershell instead of cmd, as powershell commands are more like Mac (unix) command line.

Installing Django and Pipenv

Open powershell, which should provide a window that looks like this:

Run each of these commands that follow. Make new directory called django, and then change your current directory to make sure that we are in it (using the cd command).

mkdir django
cd django

Example output from running the cd command after successfully making the django directory:

Install the virtual environment

We will be using a virtual environment called pipenv to manage all of our installed packages and any dependencies. We are using a command line tool called pip, which is the Python packing installation manager.

This command will install pipenv:

pip install pipenv

Once you run the pip install pipenv command successfully, it will look approximately like this:

Install Django:

We are installing Django (and all packages) into our virtual environment (pipenv). Run this command to install Django:

pipenv install django

If you get this far without “pipenv not recognized” error, you should be able to proceed.

Example output from launching the virtual environment:

Starting a New Django Project

The following Terminal commands are used to start a new Django project. This assumes you have already changed into the django directory and started the virtual environment (see above).

You should only need to start the project once (for the entire semester/course)

You must call your project cs412, because that is the name that the configuration file expects. You MUST have a trailing period at the end of the diang-admin startproject line.

# if needed, change into the django directory
cd django

# create/start the django project in the current directory
pipenv shell

# run this command to start your django project called 412.
django-admin startproject cs412 .

Running the Django Development Server

The following Terminal commands are used to start the virtual environment (pipenv shell) run the Django server.

You will need to do these every time you open a new Terminal window. You will always need to start the development server before you can test anything in a web browser.

(You do not need to type the comments!)

# if needed, change into the django directory
cd django

# start the virtual environment shell
pipenv shell

# run the django development server
python manage.py runserver

Did the installation work? You should seem some lines like this:

Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/ Quit the
server with CONTROL-C.

Test it by opening a browser to http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

If it worked, you will see a “Welcome to Django” page:

To stop the development server, use the keyboard sequence CONTROL-C.

Making and Applying Migrations

The following Terminal commands are used to make and apply database changes to the Django development environment. This assumes you have already changed into the django directory and started the virtual environment (see above). You will need to do this when changes have been made to the database models (this will be explained in part 2 of our course).

(You do not need to type the comments!)

# create the migrations: the updates to the database models
python manage.py makemigrations

# apply the migrations
python manage.py migrate

Do you have suggestions for improving these instructions?

Please share them with Aaron.

[cs_people]: http://cs-people.bu.edu [putty]: https://www.putty.org/ [django_running]: ../resources/django_running.png [installation_mac]: