Project templates - alternatives and tools

Emmanuelle Delescolle slides - http://slides.com/emma_be/django-project-templates-and-more#/

What does a Django project look like?

• having a core app with most logic bothers me
• saw talk - Mark Lavin - Anatomy of a Django Project
  • a Django project is not a thing
• put more things in the base project directory
  • environ.py.dist
  • manage.py
  • requirements.txt
  • settings.py
  • urls.py

settings.py

• Put project at top of INSTALLED_APPS list - load my stuff first
• template loading magic
• Use the --template argument to django-admin.py startproject
• Various availabe on the internet
• template looks pretty similar to project, but
  • use dir name project_name - converted to your actual project name
  • in files, can use {{ project_name }} and that will also be converted
  • but only python source files are template-able by default
  • want to do stuff in sass, create a virtualenv, ...

Solution

• cookiecutter by audreyr and pydanny
• every file is template-able (using jinja2)
• you can add hooks for more automation

$ cookiecutter django_template/cc_project_app
# questions asked to set variables

• cookiecutter template is similar to django project template, but directory name can be {{ cookiecutter.project_name }}
• cookiecutter.json defines the questions/variables used