Set Up Your Development Environment: Recap

Hi, just finished part 2. It is probably obvious for experienced dev but on Windows venv doesn’t create the same folder structure. The interpreter is in Scripts not bin folder. Love it so far, the pace is perfect.

Thanks for mentioning @regiscorblin! I’ve been working on UNIX machines, which creates a different folder structure than on Windows. Check for more info here in the docs.

But you’ve already mentioned it: it’ll be in the Scripts\ folder.

C:\> <venv>\Scripts\activate.bat

I simply did the following (on Windows):

• pip install pipenv
• pipenv shell to create the virtual environment.
• pipenv install django to install the package.

Anytime I navigate to the folder and do ‘pipenv shell’ it activates the existing virtual environment or creates a new one if it does not exist already.

Also I was glad to know that: django-admin projname . (with a period at the end) prevents the creation of the inner directories which in the past were very confusing for me. I often wrestled with whether I had to be in the projname directory as opposed to being in the projname/projname directory.

Thanks for that!

pipenv is a great way to handle virtual environments! There are plans for it to eventually replace Python’s current standard packaging manager pip, and I hope it’ll happen.

It’s definitely worth to look into their docs and give it a try. For a walkthrough on using it, you can also check out this Guide on using pipenv.

Yeah, same for me! This little . at the end of the django-admin startproject command is a life-saver :)

Excellent step by step explanation. I’m impressed with this course.

Please the server or localhost:8000 didn’t appear after typing “django-admin startproject portfolio.” What is wrong with setup please?

Thanks for helping.

Hi @fredmord. After creating your project with that command, you need to cd into the new folder. Then you need to start the development server with:

python manage.py runserver

The command you posted only creates a folder structure and a couple of files, but doesn’t start the server at localhost.

“python: can’t open file ‘manage.py’: [Error 2] No such file or directory “

Please this is what I received after typing “python manage.py runserver.”

Please may I know what is wrong?

Thank you.

You need to be in the right directory. As I mentioned above, you will need to move into the right folder first. Make sure that when you type:

ls

that you can see the file manage.py listed. If that is the case, you can run the command.

“python: can’t open file ‘manage.py’: [Error 2] No such file or directory “

Please this is what I received after typing “python manage.py runserver.”

Please may I know what is wrong?

Thank you.

I am stuck, nothing seems to be working for me to progress therefore, I have to quit for the mean time.

Hi @fredmord, sorry to hear that you haven’t yet solved your issue. Taking a break can often be helpful, but make sure to get back to trying!

Double-check the responses I posted to you further up. The error you are getting tells you that either:

• You are in the wrong directory (typing ls doesn’t show a file called manage.py)
• Or you haven’t yet created the Django project with the startproject command, which creates the folder structure and also your manage.py file

Make sure you understand how files and folder structures work and practice using the command-line interface a bit, then come back here and give it another go. You can do it! 💯

Please my current command prompt is: “(venv) C:\Users\hp\PycharmProjects>”

Ah! You are on Windows! 💡 That means your command-line works a bit differently than on UNIX systems (Mac and Linux). Check out this resource for some basic commands. To list the files in your directory, you need to run the command dir.

Okay, so I hope that clears some things up. It certainly does for me :) Now, if you ran the command:

django-admin startproject portfolio

inside the folder at your current path, you need to next type:

cd portfolio

Now you should be inside a folder that contains the file manage.py. Check up on that with typing:

dir

You can now run your development server with:

python manage.py runserver

Does it work for you?

Below is what I had:

“You have 17 unapplied migration(s). Your project may not work properly until you apply the migrations for the app(s): admin, auth, contenttypes, sessions. Run ‘python manage.py migrate’ yo apply them.”

Please kindly throw more light on this.Thanks.

The rest are:

“Django version 3.0.4, using settings ‘portfolio.settings’ Starting development server at 127.0.0.1:8000/ Quit the server with CTRL-BREAK.”

Now I don’t know what to do with the above information. The command prompt is just blinking and and I’m stuck.

That output means you started your development server successfully and you can now go to 127.0.0.1:8000 to access your Django app.

Please consider to continue watching the videos of this course, since I walk you over all of this in the upcoming content sections :)

Also, if you would like more real-time support it will be much easier if you post your questions on the community slack channel.

Good job for getting the development server running, and keep on working through the course material!

Ok. Thanks.

Again, Martin you really made it easy for me to create a virtual environment. I would love to hear from you what a virtual environment is, why we need it? I googled it tho, but still not clear. And also I install django for this portfolio project and the django version is: Django==3.0.4, whereas you used different version, What you recommend shall I stick to this version coz I dont want to face hiccup uphill. Thank you indeed.

Hi @emalfiza! Glad the videos are helpful for you :)

More On Virtual Environments

We’ve got a great article and a video tutorial on virtual environments right here on Real Python. 🐍

Install Specific Package Versions

Generally it’s a good idea to stick with the same version as the tutorial. Exactly for the reason you mentioned: to avoid running into hiccups uphill.

I think you should be fine in this case even though it’s a big version bump from 2 to 3 for Django, but if you want to install the specific Django version you can type the following:

pip uninstall django
pip install django==2.2.1

Keep it up! 🙌

Cool, I finally understand the importance of venv…I am just revert back to the version of django that you used for the video. excited to learn more from you amazing pythonista.