# How to Create a Grocery Bag App Using Django (Part-I) ## Introduction Grocery Bag is a way to store grocery items for marketing. It will contain a homepage that will be showing all the list of items to buy and already bought. Users will be able to add items and update items, and can even delete them. ![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1640532971546/TPIYx35Kw.png) **Requirements** * Users can register themselves and will have a login/logout system. * Users can create a list of grocery items to buy. * Create a flag like - bought, left and not-available * Create a bar to show saved lists, and on the home page, it will show all the lists according to date. ## Screenshots Below given some screenshots that will give you an idea of what we're building. ##### **Index Page** **![](https://res.cloudinary.com/dlomjljb6/image/upload/v1637750232/media/blog/uploads/2021/11/24/Screenshot%5F2021-11-24%5F160304%5Fcs5qkq.png)** **Add new item** **![](https://res.cloudinary.com/dlomjljb6/image/upload/v1637750233/media/blog/uploads/2021/11/24/Screenshot%5F2021-11-24%5F160333%5Fbob3kz.png)** **Update an item** **![](https://res.cloudinary.com/dlomjljb6/image/upload/v1637750094/media/blog/uploads/2021/11/24/image%5Fsfak6v.png)** ## Project Setup Before you start with the project setup, make sure you have Python installed in your system. You can verify it with the following command: ```bash $ python Python 3.9.7 (tags/v3.9.7:1016ef3, Aug 30 2021, 20:19:38) [MSC v.1929 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> ``` If you get the above output, you have Python installed. If not, you can download it from [this page](https://www.python.org/downloads/). We'll be using a virtual environment `env` for our project. Let's create the environment: ```bash $ python -m venv env ``` Note: You can use `python3` in place of `python` as per your requirement. To activate the environment, use the command: * On Windows, run: ```bash $ env\Scripts\activate.bat ``` * On Unix or MacOs, run: ```bash $ source env/Scripts/activate ``` Now that we have the virtual environment activated, we can install the required libraries using the command below: ```bash $ pip install Django ``` The above command will install Django in our virtual environment. Now we are ready to create our Django project called `GroceryBag`. Run the following command to create the project in the current directory: ```bash $ django-admin startproject GroceryBag . ``` Now, as per the requirements, we need two apps - `bag`to handle the CRUD operations on the Grocery bag, and `accounts` to handle the authentication. Let's create these apps one by one. ```bash $ python manage.py startapp bag $ python manage.py startapp accounts ``` After the two apps have been created, create separate `urls.py` file in both of the apps directory, and add the following content in both files. ```py from django.urls import path urlpatterns = [ ] ``` Then we need to register these two apps in our project. So, open the `settings.py` in the GroceryBag directory and add the two apps to the `INSTALLED_APPS` list. ```py INSTALLED_APPS = [ 'django.contrib.admin', 'django.contrib.auth', 'django.contrib.contenttypes', 'django.contrib.sessions', 'django.contrib.messages', 'django.contrib.staticfiles', # Your apps below 'accounts', 'bag', ] ``` At the later stage of the project, we'll be deploying it on a free cloud platform. So, we need to setup environment variables. Let's install python-decouple to help us with them: ```bash $ pip install python-decouple ``` Once installed, create a file `.env` in the current directory and add the following content inside it. ```markdown SECRET_KEY=django-insecure-6wx#%@2ift=4@1(\*eiw5n&rh!5t!bytp6=#8viz^$ola#p5nsm DEBUG=True ``` Now, we need to make a few changes in the `settings.py` file. Let's make them: ```py """ Django settings for GroceryBag project. Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 3.2.9. For more information on this file, see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/topics/settings/ For the full list of settings and their values, see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/ """ from pathlib import Path from decouple import config ## Build paths inside the project like this: BASE_DIR / 'subdir'. BASE_DIR = Path( __file__ ).resolve().parent.parent ## Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production ## See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/howto/deployment/checklist/ ## SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret! SECRET_KEY = config('SECRET_KEY') # Get value from environment variables ## SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production! DEBUG = config('DEBUG') # Get value from environment variables ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['127.0.0.1', 'localhost'] # Add these two for now ## Application definition INSTALLED_APPS = [ 'django.contrib.admin', 'django.contrib.auth', 'django.contrib.contenttypes', 'django.contrib.sessions', 'django.contrib.messages', 'django.contrib.staticfiles', # Your apps below 'accounts', 'bag', ] MIDDLEWARE = [ 'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware', 'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware', 'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware', 'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware', 'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware', 'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware', 'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware', ] ROOT_URLCONF = 'GroceryBag.urls' TEMPLATES = [ { 'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates', 'DIRS': [BASE_DIR / 'templates'], # Add the templates directory 'APP_DIRS': True, 'OPTIONS': { 'context_processors': [ 'django.template.context_processors.debug', 'django.template.context_processors.request', 'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth', 'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages', ], }, }, ] WSGI_APPLICATION = 'GroceryBag.wsgi.application' ## Database ## https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#databases DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3', 'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3', } } ## Password validation ## https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [ { 'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator', }, { 'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator', }, { 'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator', }, { 'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator', }, ] ## Internationalization ## https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/topics/i18n/ LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us' TIME_ZONE = 'UTC' USE_I18N = True USE_L10N = True USE_TZ = True ## Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images) ## https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/howto/static-files/ STATIC_URL = '/static/' STATIC_ROOT = BASE_DIR / 'staticfiles' STATICFILES_DIRS = [ BASE_DIR / "static", ] ## Default primary key field type ## https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#default-auto-field DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD = 'django.db.models.BigAutoField' ``` In the above file, we have made important changes related to templates and static directories. After this, create a `templates` directory and a `static` directory in the current directory for HTML files and static files(CSS, JavaScript, Images) respectively. Inside the static folder, create another folder called `css` where all the CSS files will be stored. Download the HTML templates and CSS file from [here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1l7W2OyYIH0fotjXC7rr-l01yUdjI50Y6?usp=sharing) and add them in their respective directories. Now, open the `GroceryBag/urls.py` file and modify it as below: ```py from django.contrib import admin from django.urls import path, include from django.conf import settings from django.conf.urls.static import static urlpatterns = [ path('admin/', admin.site.urls), path('', include('bag.urls')), path('accounts/', include('accounts.urls')), ] if settings.DEBUG: urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT) ``` In the above script, we have included the URLs from the `bag` and `accounts` apps. Also, we have created URL pattern for the static files we are going to serve. The next thing we need to do is to migrate the database using the following command: ```bash $ python manage.py migrate ``` When you run the command, you'll see some output. After it has completed, you'll see a `db.sqlite3` file in the current directory. This shows that our database has been migrated successfully. Now, we can run the server as: ```bash $ python manage.py runserver ``` When you run the server, you'll get a URL in the console. Open that in your favorite browser and you'll see a similar output. ![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1640532973458/9EyaKmUx2.png) Don't worry about this error for now. It just tells us that, it's not able to find the `/` route. We'll resolve this in the next blog. With this, we have completed the setup of the project. You can match the directory structure until now: ```markdown . ├── GroceryBag │ ├── **init**.py │ ├── asgi.py │ ├── settings.py │ ├── urls.py │ └── wsgi.py ├── accounts │ ├── **init**.py │ ├── admin.py │ ├── apps.py │ ├── migrations │ │ └── **init**.py │ ├── models.py │ ├── tests.py │ ├── urls.py │ └── views.py ├── bag │ ├── **init**.py │ ├── admin.py │ ├── apps.py │ ├── migrations │ │ └── **init**.py │ ├── models.py │ ├── tests.py │ ├── urls.py │ └── views.py ├── db.sqlite3 ├── manage.py ├── static │ └── css │ └── style.css └── templates ├── add.html ├── index.html └── update.html ``` ## Conclusion In this blog, we have understood what we are going to build in this project. We have also setup our project. In the next blog, we'll start working on the project. Stay tuned! Code till now: