Book Image

Building SPAs with Django and HTML Over the Wire

By : Andros Fenollosa
4.5 (2)
Book Image

Building SPAs with Django and HTML Over the Wire

4.5 (2)
By: Andros Fenollosa

Overview of this book

The HTML over WebSockets approach simplifies single-page application (SPA) development and lets you bypass learning a JavaScript rendering framework such as React, Vue, or Angular, moving the logic to Python. This web application development book provides you with all the Django tools you need to simplify your developments with real-time results. You’ll learn state-of-the-art WebSocket techniques to realize real-time applications with minimal reliance on JavaScript. This book will also show you how to create a project with Docker from the ground up, test it, and deploy it on a server. You’ll learn how to create a project, add Docker, and discover development libraries, Django channels, and bidirectional communication, and from then, on you’ll create real projects of all kinds using HTML over WebSockets as a chat app or a blog with real-time comments. In addition, you’ll modernize your development techniques by moving from using an SSR model to creating web pages using WebSockets over HTML. With Django, you’ll be able to create SPAs with professional real-time projects where the logic is in Python. By the end of this Django book, you’ll be able to build real-time applications, as well as gaining a solid understanding of WebSockets with Django.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Started with Python
4
Part 2: WebSockets in Django
8
Part 3: HTML over WebSockets
11
Part 4: Simplifying the frontend with Stimulus

Installing and configuring Stimulus

Before you can use Stimulus, you will need to download and install the framework. If you don’t want to complicate things, you can import it from its CDN. Just add the following script in the HTML template:

<script type="module" src=
https://unpkg.com/@hotwired/[email protected]/dist/stimulus.js
> 

If you opt for this solution, you can ignore the rest of this section.

However, if you want to download Stimulus, which is very good practice, please note that it is available in the npm packages, so let’s install it with a command:

npm i @hotwired/stimulus

From here, you have three different configuration possibilities: using Webpack, using another build system, or using the native JavaScript module system. We are going to focus on the last option, using modules, to simplify your implementation and not add more complexity:

  1. Copy the Stimulus file to a folder inside static, for example, in the static/js...