Settings

common.py

This file contains settings which are shared between development- and production-settings. The provide sane defaults for developing and a solid base for production settings.

Path Configuration

DJANGO_ROOT

Absolute path of the projects Django directory

PROJECT_ROOT

Absolute path of the project directory

SITE_NAME

The name of our project

STATIC_ROOT

The directory to collect static files into. It will be set to [project_root]/run/static. Please refer to the official settings documentation on STATIC_ROOT and this howto on static files.

MEDIA_ROOT

The directory for user-uploaded files. It will be set to [project_root]/run/media. Please refer to the official settings documentation on MEDIA_ROOT.

STATICFILES_DIRS

Django will look in these locations for additional static assets to collect. Our settings module adds [project_root]/static to the list. See the official settings documentation on STATICFILES_DIRS for more details.

TEMPLATE_DIRS

Django will look in these locations for additional templates. Our settings module adds [project_root]/templates. See the official settings documentation on TEMPLATE_DIRS for more details.

Application Configuration

DEFAULT_APPS

These are the default apps of django-admin startproject. Please note that this is no official setting. Django operates with INSTALLED_APPS, which will be set in dev.py.

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES

These are the default middleware classes, directly taken from the default settings created by django-admin startproject. See the official settings documentation on MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES for more details.

TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS

This setting is not included in the settings of django-admin startproject but is added using the default values. See the official settings documentation on TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS for more details.

Security Configuration

SECRET_FILE

Django uses a SECRET_KEY for security purposes. As you can clearly see, this is a very sensitive information. We will store this key in a file. This file’s location is set up here. Default value is [project_root]/run/SECRET.key.

ADMINS

You will have to fill this setting yourself, please refer to official settings documentation on ADMINS.

MANAGERS

You will have to fill this setting yourself, please refer to official settings documentation on MANAGERS.

Django Running Configuration

WSGI_APPLICATION

This setting determines the path to the WSGI-application. We’ll use the default one, so this setting is set to [project_name].wsgi.application.

ROOT_URLCONF

Determines the root URLconf. Set to [project_name].urls. See official settings documentation on ROOT_URLCONF.

SITE_ID

A unique ID of the site. See official settings documentation on SITE_ID.

STATIC_URL

Determines, under which URL static files are served. You will want to adjust this in a production scenario. Our default value is /static/. See official settings documentation on STATIC_URL.

MEDIA_URL

Determines, under which URL media files are served. You will want to adjust this in a production scenario. Our default value is /media/. See official settings documentation on MEDIA_URL.

Debug Configuration

DEBUG

Activates debugging. In this file, this is set to False, because these are our common settings, which are shared between all configurations. We just want debugging while we are developing, so debugging will be activated in dev.py. See official settings documentation on DEBUG for additional information.

TEMPLATE_DEBUG

I have never really understood why DEBUG is seperated from TEMPLATE_DEBUG. So let’s just keep them in sync.

Internationalization

LANGUAGE_CODE

Sets the language of this project. See official settings documentation on LANGUAGE_CODE.

TIME_ZONE

Sets the time zone of this project. See official settings documentation on TIME_ZONE.

USE_I18N

Activates Django’s translation system. See official settings documentation on USE_I18N.

USE_L10N

Activates Django’s localization engine. See official settings documentation on USE_L10N.

USE_TZ

Make datetimes timezone aware. See official settings documentation on USE_TZ.

dev.py

This file contains development settings.

Debug Configuration

DEBUG

We are developing, so activate debugging.

TEMPLATE_DEBUG

See my above nerdrage about template debugging vs. debugging. Keep them in sync.

Database Configuration

DATABASES

I use SQLite for development. The database file will be created in [project_root]/run/dev.sqlite3.

Application Configuration

INSTALLED_APPS

We have set the default apps. Now we build the (required) INSTALLED_APPS-setting by using DEFAULT_APPS and add any app we need for development.

production.py

This file contains all production settings. Please note, that the current setup leaves this empty and simply imports the dev-settings. This is done, because we have adjusted manage.py and [project_root]/wsgi.py to use the production settings.

djangodefault.py

This are the saved settings from django-admin startproject. We just keep them for completeness, these settings are not actually used.