Refactoring a Django App as a Stand-Alone Module

Overview

This page catalogs the workflow involved in taking an app that is part of a Django project and refactoring it as a stand-alone module.

Reusable Django Packages/Apps contains an overview of the principles of creating stand-alone Django modules

Workflow

App set up

• Move project files to directory outside Django project, e.g. ~/develop/django/apps

- project_root_dir
    |-- app_dir
    |    |-- tests/
    |    |-- __init__.py
    |    |-- admin.py
    |    |-- app.py
    |    `-- models.py
    |-- .gitignore
    |-- LICENSE
    |-- MANIFEST.IN
    |-- README.md
    `-- setup.py

Configure app files

• Add package config files
  • LICENSE
  • MANIFEST.in
  • README.md
  • setup.py
• Delete migrations directory
• Add project properties in the app directory
  • __init__.py
    • __author__
    • __version__
    • default_app_config = 'app_name.apps.AppNameConfig'
  • apps.py defines a class named AppNameConfig with the following properties:
    • name - app token, e.g. the name of the directory containing the app
    • verbose_name - Plain english description of the app
• Consider moving views defined in the app out of the app and into the actual Django web applications that references the app.
• N.B. that the Grappelli admin app does not handle models that are broken out into separate files.
• Update MANIFEST.in to include any files that are not in the top level of the app directory.
• Update README.md with information about installing, configuring, and using the app.
• Update setup.py with configuration for creating distribution files out of the app.
• Exclude Mac OS files. PyCharm project files, and distribution files in .gitignore.
• Create a distribution for the app: python setup.py sdist --formats=gztar,zip

Configure Django project to use the stand-alone app

• Add app identifier to INSTALLED_APPS in webapp/settings.py
• Add app distribution to requirements.txt
• Incorporate database changes:
  • python manage.py makemigrations app_name
  • python manage.py migrate app_name

Distributing the app

• Upload the app's distribution files to the nrose-django-packages Amazon S3 bucket.
• Create GitHub repo for the app and push code there.