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Denis Ogutu for Swahilipot Developers

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Technical Article:For Django And NextJS.

Overview

A web application built with Django and a dashboard using Next.js have seen substantial development over the last two weeks. This document offers a thorough rundown of the environment configuration, development tasks, and significant connections with different project components.

Environment Setup for Django Project

Setup Python:

The aim is to guarantee that Python is accessible for Django programming.
Procedure: I downloaded Python's most recent version from the official website.
PIP and Python may be accessed from the command line thanks to environment variable configuration.Setting up Django:

Goal: Set up the web development framework Django.
The process involved using pip to install Django.
Confirming the installation was successful, I looked up the Django version.
Checking the versions of Python and pip installed allowed for verification.
Establishment and Configuration of Projects

Project Start-Up:

Goal: Start a brand-new Django project.
Procedure: Using the Django command-line tool, create a new project called my_site.
Result: The project structure was generated, together with necessary files like manage.py, urls.py, and settings.py.

Making of an Application:

Goal: Expand the Django project by adding a new application.
Procedure: Developed a polls application inside the my_site project.
Result: The relevant files, models.py, views.py, forms.py, and urls.py, were added to the polls application directory.
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Activities for Development

Opinions

Goal: Create views to manage queries and answers over the HTTP protocol.
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Details: Views that connect with the database, process user input, and render templates have been implemented.

Forms

Control and verify user input is the goal.
Details: Made forms that leverage Django's form handling features to manage user input and validation.

URLs

Setting up URL routing for the application is the goal.
Details: Map URLs to certain view functionalities by configuring URL patterns.

Configuration of Settings:

Goal: Consolidate the new application inside the Django framework.
Details: Added the polls app to the INSTALLED_APPS list by updating the settings.py file.

Models:

Goal: specify the structure of the database.
Details: Fields and associations were defined, and models were created to reflect the database structure.

Database Communication:

Applying schema modifications to the database is the goal.
Procedure: Created database tables based on the models and ran migrations using Django's ORM.
Details: Commands to generate and apply migrations were executed, and the database schema was updated.

Setup of the Next.js Project Environment

Installing npm with Node.js:

Goal: Ascertain that npm and Node.js are accessible for developing Next.js.
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Method: npm was installed together with Node.js from the official website.
Verification: I checked the versions of Node.js and npm to confirm that they were installed.

Installing pnpm:

Goal: Make effective use of pnpm for package management.
Procedure: Used npm to install pnpm globally.

Establishing and Setting Up Projects

Initialization of the Next.js Application:

Goal: Launch a fresh Next.js application.
Procedure: Using the create-next-app command, the my-nextjs-dashboard project was initially created.
Result: A brand-new Next.js project was built, complete with public assets, styles, configuration files, and folders for pages.
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Vercel Implementation:

Goal: Install the Next.js program on Vercel.
Procedure: Continuous deployment and online access were made possible by using the Vercel CLI to deploy the application.

Developmental Tasks

Learning Platform for Next.js:

First of all,

Goal: Become acquainted with Next.js via methodical education.
Activities: Finished the Next.js Learning Platform lessons on data fetching, routing, and API integration.
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Adaptive Routing:

Goal: Integrate dynamic routing into the program.
Details: Configure dynamic routes to accommodate various post IDs and provide content that matches them.

Fetching Data:

Goal: Retrieve and show data from APIs.
Details: To increase efficiency, static data fetching was implemented at build time.

API Consolidation:

Goal: Develop and incorporate APIs into the Next.js program.
Specifics: Created a JSON response-returning API endpoint.

Optimizing Performance:

Improving application performance is the goal.
Details: To increase load times and responsiveness, technologies including image optimization, code splitting, and caching were used.

Testing

Goal: Verify the application's dependability.
Tools: For unit testing, Jest was used.
Details: Tests were created and run to ensure that functionality and component rendering were accurate.

In summary

Both the Next.js and Django projects have made significant development in the last two weeks. Creating and establishing a project and application, as well as generating essential components like views, forms, URLs, and models, were all part of the Django project. The Next.js project concentrated on configuring the environment, starting the program, deploying it to Vercel, and putting capabilities like data fetching, dynamic routing, API integration, and performance optimization into practice. The underlying components of both projects have been developed, and the key features have been tested and put into practice.

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