Installation
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If you're doing the tutorial at home, not at one of the , you can completely skip this chapter now and go straight to the chapter.
This is because we cover installing things as they are needed in the tutorial -- this is just an additional page that gathers all of the installation instructions in one place (which is useful for some workshop formats). You can choose to install everything that is on this page right now if you wish. But if you want to start learning things before installing a bunch of stuff on your computer, skip this chapter and we will explain the installation parts to you later on, as they are needed.
Good luck!
If you are attending one of the :
Your workshop may have an "installation party" before the main workshop. If you are at an installation party, this page is for you! Follow the instructions here to get everything you need for the workshop installed, with the help of the coaches if needed. Then at the main workshop, you'll be able to skip installation instructions you'll encounter in the main tutorial when you get to them.
The organizers of your workshop may have asked you to try at home to install everything on your computer before the workshop starts. If you have been asked to do that, this page is for you! Follow the instructions here, as best you can. Then at the main workshop, when you get to an installation step in the main tutorial, if you were not able to get that piece installed you can get help from your coach.
If your workshop does not have an installation party (or you couldn't attend), and if the organizers didn't ask you to try to install everything before you arrived, skip this page and go straight to the chapter. You'll be installing everything you need as you work through the tutorial.
In this tutorial you will be building a blog. In order to do that, as you go through the tutorial you'll be instructed on how to install various software on your computer and set up some online accounts as they are needed. This page gathers all of the installation and sign-up instructions in one place (which is useful for some workshop formats).
Chromebook setup (if you're using one)
You can if you're not using a Chromebook. If you are, your installation experience will be a little different. You can ignore the rest of the installation instructions.
Cloud IDE is a tool that gives you a code editor and access to a computer running on the Internet where you can install, write, and run the software. For the duration of the tutorial, cloud IDE will act as your local machine. You'll still be running commands in a terminal interface just like your classmates on OS X, Ubuntu, or Windows, but your terminal will be connected to a computer running somewhere else that cloud IDE sets up for you. Here are the instructions for cloud IDEs (PaizaCloud Cloud IDE, AWS Cloud9, Glitch.com). You can choose one of the cloud IDEs, and follow the instruction of the cloud IDE.
PaizaCloud Cloud IDE
Sign up for an account
Click New Server and choose the Django app
Click Terminal button(on the left side of the window)
Now you should see an interface with a sidebar, buttons at the left. Click "Terminal" button to open terminal window with prompt like this:
Terminal
The terminal on the PaizaCloud Cloud IDE is prepared for your instructions. You can resize or maximize that window to make it a bit bigger.
AWS Cloud9
Currently Cloud 9 requires you to sign up with AWS and enter credit card information.
Sign up for an AWS account (requires credit card information, but you can use it for free)
In the AWS Dashboard, enter Cloud9 in the search bar and click it
In the Cloud 9 dashboard, click Create environment
Name it django-girls
While configuring settings, select Create a new instance for environment (EC2) for "Environment Type" and the t2.micro "Instance type" (it should say "Free-tier eligible."). The default cost-saving setting is fine and you can keep the other defaults.
Click Next step
Click Create environment
Now you should see an interface with a sidebar, a big main window with some text, and a small window at the bottom that looks something like this:
bash
This bottom area is your terminal. You can use the terminal to send instructions to the remote Cloud 9 computer. You can resize that window to make it a bit bigger.
Glitch.com Cloud IDE
Click New Project and choose hello-webpage
Click on the Tools dropdown list (at the bottom left side of the window), then on Terminal button to open terminal tab with a prompt like this:
Terminal
When using Glitch.com as your Cloud IDE, you don't have to create a virtual environment. Instead, create the following files manually:
glitch.json
requirements.txt
.bash_profile
start.sh
Once these files are created, go to the Terminal and execute the following commands to create your first Django project:
Terminal
In order to see detailed error messages, you can activate Django debug logs for your Glitch application. Simply add the following at the end of the mysite/settings.py file.
mysite/settings.py
This will create a debug.log file detailing Django operations and any error messages that might come up, making it much easier to fix if your website does not work.
The initial restarting of the Glitch project should fail. (If you click on the top dropdown button Show then click on In a New Window, you will receive a DisallowedHost error message.) Do not worry about it at this stage, the tutorial will fix this as soon as you update the Django settings of your project in the mysite/settings.py file.
A virtual environment (also called a virtualenv) is like a private box we can stuff useful computer code into for a project we're working on. We use them to keep the various bits of code we want for our various projects separate so things don't get mixed up between projects.
Run:
Cloud 9
(note that on the last line we use a tilde followed by an equal sign: ~=).
The Django Girls tutorial includes a section on what is called Deployment, which is the process of taking the code that powers your new web application and moving it to a publicly accessible computer (called a server) so other people can see your work.
This part is a little odd when doing the tutorial on a Chromebook since we're already using a computer that is on the Internet (as opposed to, say, a laptop). However, it's still useful, as we can think of our Cloud 9 workspace as a place for our "in progress" work and Python Anywhere as a place to show off our stuff as it becomes more complete.
Many of the steps below reference the "console", "terminal", "command window", or "command line" -- these all mean the same thing: a window on your computer where you can enter commands. When you get to the main tutorial, you'll learn more about the command line. For now, the main thing you need to know is how to open a command window and what it looks like:
Opening: Windows
Depending on your version of Windows and your keyboard, one of the following should open a command window (you may have to experiment a bit, but you don't have to try all of these suggestions):
Go to the Start menu or screen, and enter "Command Prompt" in the search field.
Go to Start menu → Windows System → Command Prompt.
Go to Start menu → All Programs → Accessories → Command Prompt.
Go to the Start screen, hover your mouse in the lower-left corner of the screen, and click the down arrow that appears (on a touch screen, instead flick up from the bottom of the screen). The Apps page should open. Click on Command Prompt in the Windows System section.
Hold the special Windows key on your keyboard and press the "X" key. Choose "Command Prompt" from the pop-up menu.
Hold the Windows key and press the "R" key to get a "Run" window. Type "cmd" in the box, and click the OK key.
Later in this tutorial, you will need to have two command windows open at the same time. However, on some versions of Windows, if you already have one command window open and you try to open a second one using the same method, it will instead point you to the command window you already have open. Try it now on your computer and see what happens! If you only get one command window, try one of the other methods in the list above. At least one of them should result in a new command window being opened.
Opening: OS X
Go to Applications → Utilities → Terminal.
Opening: Linux
It's probably under Applications → Accessories → Terminal, or Applications → System → Terminal, but that may depend on your system. If it's not there, you can try to Google it. :)
Django is written in Python. We need Python to do anything in Django. Let's start by installing it! We want you to install the latest version of Python 3, so if you have any earlier version, you will need to upgrade it. If you already have version 3.6 or higher you should be fine.
Please install normal Python as follows, even when you have Anaconda installed on your computer.
Install Python: Windows
First check whether your computer is running a 32-bit version or a 64-bit version of Windows, on the "System type" line of the System Info page. To reach this page, try one of these methods:
Press the Windows key and Pause/Break key at the same time
Open your Control Panel from the Windows menu, then navigate to System & Security, then System
Press the Windows button, then navigate to Settings > System > About
Search the Windows Start menu for "System Information". To do that, click the Start button or press the Windows key, then begin to type System Information. It will start making suggestions as soon as you type. You can select the entry once it shows up.
One thing to watch out for: During the installation, you will notice a window marked "Setup". Make sure you tick the "Add Python 3.8 to PATH" or 'Add Python to your environment variables" checkbox and click on "Install Now", as shown here (it may look a bit different if you are installing a different version):
When the installation completes, you may see a dialog box with a link you can follow to learn more about Python or about the version you installed. Close or cancel that dialog -- you'll be learning more in this tutorial!
Django 2.2.4 needs Python 3.6 or greater, which does not support Windows XP or earlier versions.
Install Python: OS X
Note Before you install Python on OS X, you should ensure your Mac settings allow installing packages that aren't from the App Store. Go to System Preferences (it's in the Applications folder), click "Security & Privacy," and then the "General" tab. If your "Allow apps downloaded from:" is set to "Mac App Store," change it to "Mac App Store and identified developers."
Download the Mac OS X 64-bit/32-bit installer file,
Double click python-3.8.6-macosx10.9.pkg to run the installer.
Install Python: Linux
It is very likely that you already have Python installed out of the box. To check if you have it installed (and which version it is), open a console and type the following command:
command-line
If you have a different version of Python installed, at least 3.6 (e.g. 3.6.8), then you don't have to upgrade. If you don't have Python installed, or if you want a different version, first check what Linux distribution you are using with the following command:
command-line
Afterwards, depending on the result, follow one of the following installation guides below this section.
Install Python: Debian or Ubuntu
Type this command into your console:
command-line
Install Python: Fedora
Use this command in your console:
command-line
If you're on older Fedora versions you might get an error that the command dnf is not found. In that case, you need to use yum instead.
Install Python: openSUSE
Use this command in your console:
command-line
Verify the installation was successful by opening a command prompt and running the python3 command:
command-line
The version shown may be different from 3.8.6 -- it should match the version you installed.
NOTE: If you're on Windows and you get an error message that python3 wasn't found, try using python (without the 3) and check if it still might be a version of Python that is 3.6 or higher. If that doesn't work either, you may open a new command prompt and try again; this happens if you use a command prompt left open from before the Python installation.
If you have any doubts, or if something went wrong and you have no idea what to do next, please ask your coach! Sometimes things don't go smoothly and it's better to ask for help from someone with more experience.
There are a lot of different editors and it largely boils down to personal preference. Most Python programmers use complex but extremely powerful IDEs (Integrated Development Environments), such as PyCharm. As a beginner, however, that's probably less suitable; our recommendations are equally powerful, but a lot simpler.
Our suggestions are below, but feel free to ask your coach what their preferences are – it'll be easier to get help from them.
Visual Studio Code is a source code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and macOS. It includes support for debugging, embedded Git control, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, and code refactoring.
Gedit is an open-source, free editor, available for all operating systems.
Sublime Text is a very popular editor with a free evaluation period and it's available for all operating systems.
You might be wondering why we are installing this special code editor software, rather than using something like Word or Notepad.
The second reason is that code editors are specialized for editing code, so they can provide helpful features like highlighting code with color according to its meaning, or automatically closing quotes for you.
We'll see all this in action later. Soon, you'll come to think of your trusty old code editor as one of your favorite tools. :)
Before we install Django we will get you to install an extremely useful tool to help keep your coding environment tidy on your computer. It's possible to skip this step, but it's highly recommended. Starting with the best possible setup will save you a lot of trouble in the future!
So, let's create a virtual environment (also called a virtualenv). Virtualenv will isolate your Python/Django setup on a per-project basis. This means that any changes you make to one website won't affect any others you're also developing. Neat, right?
All you need to do is find a directory in which you want to create the virtualenv; your home directory, for example. On Windows, it might look like C:\Users\Name\ (where Name is the name of your login).
NOTE: On Windows, make sure that this directory does not contain accented or special characters; if your username contains accented characters, use a different directory, for example,
C:\djangogirls.
For this tutorial we will be using a new directory djangogirls from your home directory:
command-line
We will make a virtualenv called myvenv. The general command will be in the format:
command-line
Virtual environment: Windows
To create a new virtualenv, you need to open the command prompt and run python -m venv myvenv. It will look like this:
command-line
Where myvenv is the name of your virtualenv. You can use any other name, but stick to lowercase and use no spaces, accents or special characters. It is also good idea to keep the name short – you'll be referencing it a lot!
Virtual environment: Linux and OS X
We can create a virtualenv on both Linux and OS X by running python3 -m venv myvenv. It will look like this:
command-line
myvenv is the name of your virtualenv. You can use any other name, but stick to lowercase and use no spaces. It is also a good idea to keep the name short as you'll be referencing it a lot!
NOTE: On some versions of Debian/Ubuntu you may receive the following error:
command-line
In this case, follow the instructions above and install the
python3-venvpackage:command-line
NOTE: On some versions of Debian/Ubuntu initiating the virtual environment like this currently gives the following error:
command-line
To get around this, use the
virtualenvcommand instead.command-line
NOTE: If you get an error like
command-line
then instead run:
command-line
The command above will create a directory called myvenv (or whatever name you chose) that contains our virtual environment (basically a bunch of directory and files).
Working with virtualenv: Windows
Start your virtual environment by running:
command-line
NOTE: on Windows 10 you might get an error in the Windows PowerShell that says
execution of scripts is disabled on this system. In this case, open another Windows PowerShell with the "Run as Administrator" option. Then try typing the following command before starting your virtual environment:command-line
NOTE: For users of the popular editor VS Code, which come with an integrated terminal based off windows PowerShell, if you wish to stick with the integrated terminal, you may run the following command to activate your virtual environment:
The advantage is that you don't have to switch between editor windows and command-line windows
Working with virtualenv: Linux and OS X
Start your virtual environment by running:
command-line
Remember to replace myvenv with your chosen virtualenv name!
NOTE: sometimes
sourcemight not be available. In those cases try doing this instead:command-line
You will know that you have virtualenv started when you see that the prompt in your console is prefixed with (myvenv).
When working within a virtual environment, python will automatically refer to the correct version so you can use python instead of python3.
OK, we have all important dependencies in place. We can finally install Django!
Now that you have your virtualenv started, you can install Django.
Before we do that, we should make sure we have the latest version of pip, the software that we use to install Django:
command-line
A requirements file keeps a list of dependencies to be installed using pip install:
First create a requirements.txt file inside of the djangogirls/ folder, using the code editor that you installed earlier. You do this by opening a new file in the code editor and then saving it as requirements.txt in the djangogirls/ folder. Your directory will look like this:
In your djangogirls/requirements.txt file you should add the following text:
djangogirls/requirements.txt
Now, run pip install -r requirements.txt to install Django.
command-line
Installing Django: Windows
If you get an error when calling pip on Windows platform, please check if your project pathname contains spaces, accents or special characters (for example,
C:\Users\User Name\djangogirls). If it does, please consider using another place without spaces, accents or special characters (suggestion:C:\djangogirls). Create a new virtualenv in the new directory, then delete the old one and try the above command again. (Moving the virtualenv directory won't work since virtualenv uses absolute paths.)
Installing Django: Windows 8 and Windows 10
Your command line might freeze after when you try to install Django. If this happens, instead of the above command use:
command-line
Installing Django: Linux
If you get an error when calling pip on Ubuntu 12.04 please run
python -m pip install -U --force-reinstall pipto fix the pip installation in the virtualenv.
That's it! You're now (finally) ready to create a Django application!
Git is a "version control system" used by a lot of programmers. This software can track changes to files over time so that you can recall specific versions later. A bit like the "track changes" feature in word processor programs (e.g., Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer), but much more powerful.
Installing Git: Windows
Do not forget to restart the command prompt or PowerShell after the installation finished successfully.
Installing Git: Debian or Ubuntu
command-line
Installing Git: Fedora
command-line
Installing Git: openSUSE
command-line
PythonAnywhere is a service for running Python code on servers "in the cloud". We'll use it for hosting our site, live and on the Internet.
We will be hosting the blog we're building on PythonAnywhere. Sign up for a "Beginner" account on PythonAnywhere (the free tier is fine, you don't need a credit card).
Note When choosing your username here, bear in mind that your blog's URL will take the form
yourusername.pythonanywhere.com, so choose either your own nickname or a name for what your blog is all about. Also, be sure to remember your password (add it to your password manager, if you use one).
This is something you only need to do once. When you've signed up for PythonAnywhere, you'll be taken to your dashboard. Find the link near the top right to your "Account" page:
then select the tab named "API token", and hit the button that says "Create new API token".
Congratulations, you are all set up and ready to go! If you still have some time before the workshop, it would be useful to start reading a few of the beginning chapters:
Go to
Install Cloud 9 from the
Go to and click Get started with AWS Cloud9
Go to
Sign up for an account () or use your GitHub account if you have one. (See GitHub instructions below.)
Make a account.
Thus, sign up for a new Python Anywhere account at .
For readers at home: this chapter is covered in the video.
This section is based on a tutorial by Geek Girls Carrots ()
You can download Python for Windows from the website . Click on the "Latest Python 3 Release - Python x.x.x" link. If your computer is running a 64-bit version of Windows, download the Windows x86-64 executable installer. Otherwise, download the Windows x86 executable installer. After downloading the installer, you should run it (double-click on it) and follow the instructions there.
Note: If you are using an older version of Windows (7, Vista, or any older version) and the Python 3.8 installer fails with an error, then install all Windows Updates and try to install Python again. If you still have the error, try installing Python version 3.6.8 from .
You need to go to the website and download the latest Python installer:
Atom is another popular editor. It's free, open-source and available for Windows, OS X and Linux. Atom is developed by .
The first reason is that code needs to be plain text, and the problem with programs like Word and Textedit is that they don't actually produce plain text, they produce rich text (with fonts and formatting), using custom formats like .
Part of this section is based on tutorials by Geek Girls Carrots ().
Part of this section is based on the licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The django-marcador tutorial is copyrighted by Markus Zapke-Gründemann et al.
You can download Git from . You can hit "next" on all steps except for two: in the step where it asks to choose your editor, you should pick Nano, and in the step entitled "Adjusting your PATH environment", choose "Use Git and optional Unix tools from the Windows Command Prompt" (the bottom option). Other than that, the defaults are fine. Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings is good.
Go to and sign up for a new, free user account. Be sure to remember your password (add it to your password manager, if you use one).
When you begin the workshop, you'll be able to go straight to because you already covered the material in the earlier chapters.