Django Studio

Django Studio — a focused, developer-first IDE for building Django projects with a modern desktop UI.

Django Studio pairs a Django-powered backend with a PySide6 desktop front-end to give you an integrated environment for creating, managing and testing Django projects and apps without jumping between tools.

Key goals

• Streamline Django project creation with a project wizard and app generator.
• Provide visual tools: data modeling, URL routing editor, and API design.
• Built-in API testing (Postman-like tools), test runner and integrated terminal.
• Keep developers in one app: code, test, run, and inspect databases and routes.

Project status Under active development — this repository contains the early scaffolding and launcher. Contributions, ideas and PRs are welcome.

Highlights / Features

• Project wizard: create a new Django project with recommended settings and optional app templates.
• Multi-app generator: add one or multiple apps to a project in a single flow.
• Visual data modeler: design models visually and generate Django model code.
• URL & Router designer: visually map URLs to views/routers and generate route files.
• API Tester: built-in request builder and test runner (similar to Postman) that integrates with your project's Django test client.
• Integrated terminal: run Django management commands, migrations, and custom commands from the app.
• Built-in test runner: run and inspect unit tests inside the IDE with quick failure navigation.
• Database inspector: browse models, rows and run quick queries.
• Extensible: plugin-friendly architecture for adding generators, code templates, and tools.

Why use Django Studio

• Reduce context switching: no more bouncing between an editor, terminal, and API testing tools.
• Accelerate project setup and scaffold repeatable app patterns.
• Visualize complex routing and data relationships to reduce mistakes.

Quick assumptions

• This repository contains a launcher/entrypoint at main.py. The README below assumes main.py starts the desktop application; adapt if your entrypoint differs.
• Python 3.10+ recommended.

Installation (development) These commands are written for Windows PowerShell.

# create and activate a virtual environment
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

# install dependencies (create a requirements.txt in the repo if missing)
pip install -r requirements.txt

# run the app (assumes main.py is the launcher)
python main.py

If you prefer, develop using an IDE (VS Code, PyCharm) with the virtual environment activated.

Quick start (what to try first)

1. Launch the app: python main.py.
2. Use the Project Wizard to create a new Django project scaffold.
3. Run the built-in terminal and execute python manage.py migrate in the project workspace.
4. Add an app using the multi-app generator and open the modeler to design new models.
5. Use the API Tester to craft requests against your local development server.

Development notes

• Architecture: the project pairs a Django backend (providing project/app generation, template rendering and optional local servers) with a PySide6 desktop client that serves as the UI.
• Expect a folder structure that contains UI code (PySide) and Django scaffolding templates. The backend will often run embedded or be called through the launcher process.

Contributing

• Issues and feature requests: file them in the repository's issue tracker with a clear title and reproduction steps.
• Development workflow:
  1. Fork the repo and create a feature branch.
  2. Add tests for new features where applicable.
  3. Open a PR with a clear summary of changes and any migration or environment notes.

Roadmap (next high-value items)

• Add a published requirements.txt and a minimal pyproject.toml.
• Implement the multi-app generator CLI and wire it into the UI.
• Add unit and integration tests for generators and modeler codegen.
• Create template starter projects (minimal, REST API, channels-ready).
• Improve API test runner to save and export request collections.

Files & entry points

• main.py — development launcher / app entrypoint (assumed).
• LICENSE — project license (see repo root).

Security & privacy

• This tool runs locally. When integrating network tools (API tester, request history) be mindful of storing secrets. We recommend an opt-in encrypted store for tokens and credentials.

Contact & credits Built with ❤️ by the project maintainers. If you'd like to help, open an issue or submit a PR.

License See the LICENSE file in the repository root for license details.

Enjoy using Django Studio — feedback and contributions welcome!