How I configure my Django projects

There are many ways to configure Django, like multiple settings files or .env files. Here’s how I do it.

read more

Validate PayPal webhooks using Python

Paypal’s documentation only shows a JavaScript example. How do you validate the webhooks in Python though?

read more

Changing the way Django 5.1 generates admin list labels

Django 5.1 adds related field lookup to the model admin’s list_display, but with an annoying quirk. Let’s fix that!

read more

Extend Django’s autocomplete widget actions

Extending Django’s autocomplete widget with a new action which copies the linked user’s email address to the clipboard.

read more

Deleting anonymous users' baskets when their sessions expire

How do you delete baskets belonging to anonymous users when their sessions expires? It wasn't quite as simple as I thought.

read more

Adding custom actions to the Django Admin

Let's add custom actions to Django's admin site - but to the change form, not the list view.

read more

Setting up a Debian 11 server for SvelteKit and Django

I recently had to set up a brand new server for a website running on SvelteKit and its API running on Django. I am a software developer and setting up servers and hosting isn't something I normally do, so I followed a bunch of different tutorials. In this article I want to combine all these tutorials, mostly for future me, but hopefully you'll find it useful as well.

read more

Vapor 4 vs. Django REST Framework

Over two years ago I wrote an article where I compared Vapor 3 to Django REST Framework. It's time for a rematch with Vapor 4.

read more

Vapor 3 vs. Django REST Framework

A little while ago I wrote about starting a new side project, where I was using Vapor 3 to build the backend. My initial impressions were extremely positive, but I ended up running into a few issues that made working with the framework a little bit...

read more

Review roundup: the search for the perfect Python IDE (for Django)

When I first started working with Python in September 2009, I needed a good IDE. I quickly settled for Netbeans and I’ve been using it ever since, even though there are some things that really irritate me. But at least it works, and fits well in my...

read more

Django-CMS backend usability

Yesterday I wrote an article comparing Django-CMS, FeinCMS and Mezzanine. One of the conclusions was that while Django-CMS is the best CMS on paper, I don’t like its backend interface that much. I thought it would be a good idea to properly explain...

read more

Django-CMS vs. FeinCMS vs. Mezzanine

When you need a content management system for Django, there is enough choice. Maybe even too much: the very helpful site djangopackages.com lists 13. Some are mature and very feature-complete, while others are barely more than a basic model and a...

read more

Looking for a Django CMS which suits my needs

I need to build a content-based website for a client, in Django. Well, that’s easy right? Pick one of the content management systems available, build some templates and css, and ta-da, done. Since I have used Django-CMS in previous projects, that...

read more

Serving 5000 pages per second with Django

Okay, this website wasn’t slow and will never need to serve 5000 pages per second, but hey, it’s possible now! Oh right, and it was fun to play around with a nice caching system. Almost everything on mixedCase.nl needs to come from the database: the...

read more

Django 1.2, a great release

I’ve been playing with the Beta release of Django 1.2 (get it here) and I love many of the new improvements. I’d like to list the best and biggest new features, and also some problems I encountered while using it. Smarter if tag I was already using...

read more

Making Django suck less

Or, “How to make Django even better then it already is”. Because it really isn’t as bad as the title implies :) In my previous post Things I hate about Python and Django, I said that one of the things I “hate” about Django is its template language....

read more

Things I hate about Python and Django

I have been a PHP programmer for the last 9 years, and only in September of 2009 I switched to Python and the Django framework. While I really love the Python language and the Django framework (especially compared to something like the Zend PHP...

read more

Using the Google Visualization API in Django

In a project I am working on, I need to show a lot of graphs and charts. Together with the client we chose to use the Visualization API by Google, which provides a Python library, offers many different kinds of charts and very important: the data is...

read more

How to dynamically add fields to a Django model

For a project I needed to create a Django model from a list of fields that were defined somewhere else. It took me hours to get this to work, so to save you the time, here is the solution: fields = ['field_a', 'field_b', 'field_c'] # the base model...

read more