Getting help¶

Having trouble? We’d like to help!

• Try the FAQ – it’s got answers to many common questions.
• Looking for specific information? Try the Index, Module Index or the detailed table of contents.
• Search for information in the archives of the django-users mailing list, or post a question.
• Ask a question in the #django IRC channel, or search the IRC logs to see if it’s been asked before.
• Report bugs with Django in our ticket tracker.

First steps¶

Are you new to Django or to programming? This is the place to start!

• From scratch: Overview | Installation
• Tutorial: Part 1: Models | Part 2: The admin site | Part 3: Views and templates | Part 4: Forms and generic views | Part 5: Testing | Part 6: Static files
• Advanced Tutorials: How to write reusable apps | Writing your first patch for Django

The model layer¶

Django provides an abstraction layer (the “models”) for structuring and manipulating the data of your Web application. Learn more about it below:

• Models: Introduction to models | Field types | Meta options | Model class
• QuerySets: Executing queries | QuerySet method reference | Lookup expressions
• Model instances: Instance methods | Accessing related objects
• Migrations: Introduction to Migrations | Operations reference | SchemaEditor | Writing migrations
• Advanced: Managers | Raw SQL | Transactions | Aggregation | Custom fields | Multiple databases | Custom lookups | Query Expressions | Conditional Expressions | Database Functions
• Other: Supported databases | Legacy databases | Providing initial data | Optimize database access | PostgreSQL specific features

The view layer¶

Django has the concept of “views” to encapsulate the logic responsible for processing a user’s request and for returning the response. Find all you need to know about views via the links below:

• The basics: URLconfs | View functions | Shortcuts | Decorators
• Reference: Built-in Views | Request/response objects | TemplateResponse objects
• File uploads: Overview | File objects | Storage API | Managing files | Custom storage
• Class-based views: Overview | Built-in display views | Built-in editing views | Using mixins | API reference | Flattened index
• Advanced: Generating CSV | Generating PDF
• Middleware: Overview | Built-in middleware classes

The template layer¶

The template layer provides a designer-friendly syntax for rendering the information to be presented to the user. Learn how this syntax can be used by designers and how it can be extended by programmers:

• The basics: Overview
• For designers: Language overview | Built-in tags and filters | Humanization
• For programmers: Template API | Custom tags and filters

Forms¶

Django provides a rich framework to facilitate the creation of forms and the manipulation of form data.

• The basics: Overview | Form API | Built-in fields | Built-in widgets
• Advanced: Forms for models | Integrating media | Formsets | Customizing validation

The development process¶

Learn about the various components and tools to help you in the development and testing of Django applications:

• Settings: Overview | Full list of settings
• Applications: Overview
• Exceptions: Overview
• django-admin and manage.py: Overview | Adding custom commands
• Testing: Introduction | Writing and running tests | Included testing tools | Advanced topics
• Deployment: Overview | WSGI servers | FastCGI/SCGI/AJP (deprecated) | Deploying static files | Tracking code errors by email

The admin¶

Find all you need to know about the automated admin interface, one of Django’s most popular features:

• Admin site
• Admin actions
• Admin documentation generator

Security¶

Security is a topic of paramount importance in the development of Web applications and Django provides multiple protection tools and mechanisms:

• Security overview
• Disclosed security issues in Django
• Clickjacking protection
• Cross Site Request Forgery protection
• Cryptographic signing
• Security Middleware

Internationalization and localization¶

Django offers a robust internationalization and localization framework to assist you in the development of applications for multiple languages and world regions:

• Overview | Internationalization | Localization | Localized Web UI formatting and form input
• “Local flavor”
• Time zones

Performance and optimization¶

There are a variety of techniques and tools that can help get your code running more efficiently - faster, and using fewer system resources.

• Performance and optimization overview

Python compatibility¶

Django aims to be compatible with multiple different flavors and versions of Python:

• Jython support
• Python 3 compatibility

Geographic framework¶

GeoDjango intends to be a world-class geographic Web framework. Its goal is to make it as easy as possible to build GIS Web applications and harness the power of spatially enabled data.

Common Web application tools¶

Django offers multiple tools commonly needed in the development of Web applications:

• Authentication: Overview | Using the authentication system | Password management | Customizing authentication | API Reference
• Caching
• Logging
• Sending emails
• Syndication feeds (RSS/Atom)
• Pagination
• Messages framework
• Serialization
• Sessions
• Sitemaps
• Static files management
• Data validation

Other core functionalities¶

Learn about some other core functionalities of the Django framework:

• Conditional content processing
• Content types and generic relations
• Flatpages
• Redirects
• Signals
• System check framework
• The sites framework
• Unicode in Django

The Django open-source project¶

Learn about the development process for the Django project itself and about how you can contribute:

• Community: How to get involved | The release process | Team organization | Meet the team | Current roles | The Django source code repository | Security policies | Mailing lists
• Design philosophies: Overview
• Documentation: About this documentation
• Third-party distributions: Overview
• Django over time: API stability | Release notes and upgrading instructions | Deprecation Timeline