Getting Started Guide

This document is a guide to creating a new django project that uses:

windows
python3.8.2
pip
django 2.2.15 (LTS)
virtualenv
Redis
django channels 2
Postgres

Install Python3.8.2

Bottom of page: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-382/

Installing pip

https://pypi.org/project/pip/
Open cmd prompt
pip install pip
Setup virtualenv

Navigate to where you want to keep your django projects. I use D://DjangoProjects/

Create D://DjangoProjects/ChatServerPlayground folder or whatever you want to name the project.
Create a virtual environment to run the project in.
Typically I call it "venv" but you can call it something else if you like. Doesn't matter. djangoproject_venv for example.
python -m venv venv or python -m venv djangoproject_venv if you like
Open a cmd prompt in your project directly
Navigate into venv folder
cd venv

Activate the virtual environment

Windows: Scripts\activate
Linux: source bin/activate
Mac (I think): source bin/activate
Install Django and create Django project

Install django

python -m pip install Django==2.2.15
See LTS: https://www.djangoproject.com/download/

Create the django project

django-admin startproject ChatServerPlayground
Rename root directory (ChatServerPlayground) to src
I prefer to name my root directory src
So now you should have the following folder structure:
D://DjangoProjects/ChatServerPlayground/venv/src/
Inside src you will have a folder name ChatServerPlayground and a manage.py file
Keep track of the libraries you use
pip freeze > requirements.txt

Run the server to make sure it's working

python manage.py runserver
Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/