Book Image

Building SPAs with Django and HTML Over the Wire

By : Andros Fenollosa
5 (1)
Book Image

Building SPAs with Django and HTML Over the Wire

5 (1)
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

Creating a full Chat

A very popular exercise when implementing WebSockets in any technology is to create a simple Chat. However, the difficulty increases considerably when we have several connected clients who are going to talk in private spaces and open groups so that any client can read or participate. Using Channels, we are creating a solid enough abstraction so that we can focus on other issues.

Let’s create a Chat complete with modern features:

  • Message history
  • Private conversations
  • Groups
  • Customers associated with a registered user in the database

Next, we must define the database. We will define the models for users, rooms, and messages. That way, we will be able to store the actions of each user and there will be a record of everything that happens.

Defining the database

In this section, we are going to create some models in the database to manage customers, groups (which we will call rooms), and messages.

Edit /app/chat/models...