django-extentions and more to enrich your development environment

I recently install django-extensions, ptpython and django-browser-reload packages on a project, it is convenient packages to Django developer.

Installation

install it with pip:

pip install django-extensions ptpython django-browser-reload

or reference it in your package manager, I personaly prefer to set it in dev-requirements.txt and activate them only for DEVELOPMENT environment : configuration proposed below.

Then, you’ll have to declare it on the INSTALL_APPS of your application

if ENVIRONMENT == "development":
    INSTALLED_APPS.extend(
        [
            "django_extensions",
            "django_browser_reload",
        ]
    )
    SHELL_PLUS_PRINT_SQL = True

SHELL_PLUS_PRINT_SQL will print the SQL query on your shll_plus : exemple below

Configure your middlewares :

if "django_browser_reload" in INSTALLED_APPS:
    MIDDLEWARE.extend(
        [
            "django_browser_reload.middleware.BrowserReloadMiddleware",
        ]
    )

and you urls.py

if "django_browser_reload" in settings.INSTALLED_APPS:
    urlpatterns.extend(
        [
            path("__reload__/", include("django_browser_reload.urls")),
        ]
    )

Features

Shell plus

Main feature of django is the command shell_plus. It will load yours models and some package by default.

Using ptpython, your prompt will provide coloration and auto-completion :

$> python manage.py shell_plus

Hot reload

django-browser-reload will provide hotreload. Everytime your application is reloaded, your page in your browser is reloaded to. this avoid a lot of F5.

Conclusion

Those package are very useful for django developer.

Django-extensions as a lot more helper command, to dig in, please visit command extensions page.