Live Demo on Render: Pyblog

PyBlog is a complete, feature-rich blog application built on the Django web framework. This project demonstrates proficiency in full-stack web development, covering everything from user authentication and database management to static file handling and secure deployment. It serves as a personal portfolio piece showcasing a comprehensive understanding of modern web development principles and best practices.

• User Authentication & Authorization: Secure user registration, login, and logout. Users can only create, edit, or delete their own posts.
• Post Management (CRUD): A complete system for creating, reading, updating, and deleting blog posts.
• Image Uploads: Users can upload images directly to accompany their posts, demonstrating file handling and storage.
• Persistent File Storage: Implemented a solution to ensure user-uploaded images are not lost on server restarts or redeployments.
• Production-Ready Static File Handling: Implements WhiteNoise to efficiently serve static assets (CSS, JavaScript) in a production environment.
• Dynamic Database: Utilizes PostgreSQL for robust data management, handling posts, users, and other data relationships.
• Contact Form: A functional contact page allows visitors to send messages to the site administrator.

• Python: The core programming language.
• Django: The high-level Python web framework used to build the application.
• Gunicorn: A Python WSGI HTTP server used to run the application in production.
• PostgreSQL: The relational database used for data persistence.

• HTML5 & CSS3: For structuring and styling the web pages.
• JavaScript: For interactive elements.

• Render: The cloud platform used for continuous deployment of the application.
• dj-database-url: A utility for easily configuring the database from a single DATABASE_URL environment variable.
• WhiteNoise: A library to handle the serving of static files from the Django app in production.
• Git: For version control.

To run this project on your local machine, follow these steps.

1. Clone the Repository:

   git clone [https://github.com/meez-111/pyblog.git](https://github.com/meez-111/pyblog.git)
   cd pyblog

2. Create and Activate a Virtual Environment:

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate

3. Install Dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Database Migrations:

   python manage.py makemigrations
   python manage.py migrate

5. Create a Superuser (Optional): To access the Django admin panel, create a superuser account.

   python manage.py createsuperuser

6. Run the Development Server:

   python manage.py runserver

   The application will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

In a production environment, user-uploaded files are lost on every server restart. To solve this problem use a Render Persistent Disk. This volume is mounted to the server, providing a durable location for media files that persists across deployments. This demonstrates an understanding of stateless services and the need for persistent storage in a production environment.

This project is deployed on Render and uses a PostgreSQL database.

• Build Command: pip install -r requirements.txt && python manage.py collectstatic --no-input
• Start Command: gunicorn pyblog.wsgi

Secure environment variables are used for the SECRET_KEY, DATABASE_URL, and other sensitive settings.

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• Email: My Email

• Moaz Sabra - meez-111