Django Personal Blog

Django Personal Blog is a basic blog application built using the Django web framework. It includes features such as displaying blog posts, creating and managing tags, creating and managing comments, pagination, searching, and more. It also uses the TinyMCE rich text editor for creating and editing blog posts. Recently I have added Django Rest Framwork To this Project. You can see the site Here & API Here

Features

• CRUD functionality for blog posts
• Ability to view blogs related to a specific tag
• Rich text editor for creating and editing blog posts
• Search functionality for blog posts
• Pagination for blog post
• RESTful APIs for accessing and managing blog posts, tags, and comments through Django Rest Framework.

Requirements

• Python 3.x
• Django 3.x
• DRF 3.x
• & More

Installation

• Clone the repository

  https://github.com/jethliya-balaji/Django-Personal-Blog.git

• Create a virtual environment & Activate the virtual environment (optional)

  python -m venv env

  source env/bin/activate or source env/Scripts/activate or Based on your terminal/operating system.

• Install the requirements

  pip install -r requirements.txt

• Note :

  1. .env.example file is provided in the project root directory as an example of environment variables you need to set before running server.

     SECRET_KEY=Django secret key
     DEBUG=Debug mode, set to TRUE or FALSE
     ALLOWED_HOSTS=127.0.0.1 localhost
     
     #### Only required if you are using postgresql ####
     PGDATABASE=
     PGUSER=
     PGPASSWORD=
     PGHOST=
     PGPORT=
     

     To generate a new key, we can use the get_random_secret_key() function present in django.core.management.utils. This function returns a 50 character string that consists of random characters. This string can be used as a SECRET_KEY.

     # importing the function from utils
     from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key
     
     # generating and printing the SECRET_KEY
     print(get_random_secret_key())
     

     Run above code in terminal (same folder as manage.py file with virtual environment active)

  2. Make sure to set up the correct database settings in the settings.py file. Use sqlite3 for local local machine & postgresql while deploying.

     
     # Database
     # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#databases
     
     DATABASES = {
         'default': {
             'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
             'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3',
         }
     }
     
     # DATABASES = {
     #     'default': {
     #         'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
     #         'NAME': os.environ.get('PGDATABASE'),
     #         'USER': os.environ.get('PGUSER'),
     #         'PASSWORD': os.environ.get('PGPASSWORD'),
     #         'HOST': os.environ.get('PGHOST'),
     #         'PORT': os.environ.get('PGPORT'),
     #     }
     # }
     

• Run migrations & collectstatic

  python manage.py makemigrations

  python manage.py migrate

• Run the development server

  python manage.py runserver

• Visit http://localhost:8000 in your web browser to view the application

File Structure

📦Django-Personal-Blog
 ┣ 📂blog
 ┃ ┣ 📂api
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜serializers.py
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜urls.py
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜views.py
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜__init__.py
 ┃ ┣ 📂migrations
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜0001_initial.py
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜__init__.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜admin.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜apps.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜forms.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜models.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜tests.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜urls.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜utils.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜views.py
 ┃ ┗ 📜__init__.py
 ┣ 📂core
 ┃ ┣ 📜asgi.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜settings.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜urls.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜wsgi.py
 ┃ ┗ 📜__init__.py
 ┣ 📂static
 ┃ ┣ 📂css
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜bootstrap.css
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜prism.css
 ┃ ┣ 📂js
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜bootstrap.bundle.min.js
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜prism.js
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜tinymce.js
 ┃ ┗ 📂resource
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜dummy.png
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜favicon.svg
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜profile.jpg
 ┣ 📂templates
 ┃ ┣ 📂blog
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜about.html
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜base.html
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜blogs.html
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜blogs_related_to_tag.html
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜blog_detail.html
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜home.html
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜tags.html
 ┃ ┗ 📜404.html
 ┣ 📜.env.example
 ┣ 📜.gitignore
 ┣ 📜manage.py
 ┣ 📜Procfile
 ┣ 📜README.md
 ┣ 📜requirements.txt
 ┗ 📜runtime.txt

The project is structured with the following main directories:

• blog: contains all the application's logic for blog posts & all RESTapi in api folder
• core: contains the project's settings and URL configurations
• static: contains static files such as CSS, JavaScript, and images
• templates: contains all the HTML templates used in the project

Built With

Django - The web framework used

TinyMCE - Rich text editor used in the project

Bootstrap & Bootswatch- Front-end framework used for styling

PrismJS - Syntax Highlighter

Django Rest Framwork - The RESTAPI framework used to build APIs

Contribution

Please read CONTRIBUTING for details code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

Support

If you need any help or have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Conclusion

The app is a great starting point for anyone looking to build a personal blog website using Django. It demonstrates the use of Django's built-in pagination, forms and the rich text editor for handling user input. The app is easy to customize and extend to suit your needs.

Fun Section

The demo web site is up and running at here but it may be temporarily down because the developer needs a coffee break. If you find the app helpful, feel free to buy the developer a coffee! here

Authors

Balaji Jethliya - Initial work - GitHub, Twitter