Run the Web Server

Quick reference

• 00:03 All right, in this video we want to run the web server.
• 00:04 So, Django comes with its own built in web server.
• 00:09 And what the web server does is allows us to actually run our project in real time.
• 00:13 So, as we're building out our website,
• 00:16 we can actually view it in our web browser, which is super useful.
• 00:20 Now, later on in the course, we'll actually push our code up to web hosting
• 00:24 so that the website is live online.
• 00:26 But until we actually build it out, we don't want it live online.
• 00:29 We just want it on our own local computer and
• 00:32 we want to be able to mess around with it, and work on it locally.
• 00:35 So, that's what the web browser does.
• 00:37 So, to use the Django web server, you just type in python manage.py.
• 00:42 And you'll get used to typing in python manage.py because that's
• 00:47 always what we type when we want to run a Django command, right?
• 00:52 Remember a couple of videos ago I said,
• 00:53 we always want to be in the directory that has our managed.py file.
• 00:57 This is why, so that we can run this file to actually run commands.
• 01:01 So, the command we want to use is runserver, and
• 01:04 we do this it says watching for file changes with StatReloader.
• 01:08 That means the web server has started, it's fired up, it's ready to go.
• 01:12 Now, to actually see our website in a web browser,
• 01:15 just head over to your web browser and type in localhost colon 8000.
• 01:20 And 8000 is the port number that the web server is running on.
• 01:24 So, when we do that,
• 01:26 we get a hopefully you'll see this little rocket kind of shaking around here.
• 01:31 This is the default web server page that comes whenever you create a new Django
• 01:36 project.
• 01:36 So, if you see this, it means your project was created successfully.
• 01:40 It means everything is working correctly.
• 01:42 And, you're good to go.
• 01:44 If you don't see this, it means you have an error.
• 01:46 You did something wrong along the way.
• 01:48 Go back and watch the last couple of videos and
• 01:50 make sure that you created your project successfully.
• 01:53 Now, if we go back to our terminal, you'll see stuff has changed inside the terminal.
• 02:00 And that's because as we call on the web server, things happen behind the scenes.
• 02:06 It actually fetches some stuff from our project,
• 02:10 favicon is a little icon that appears right up here.
• 02:13 So, anytime you do something, if we hit reload,
• 02:16 something will happen behind the scenes in this web server.
• 02:20 And you'll notice our command prompt has disappeared.
• 02:23 This is the command prompt right here.
• 02:25 It's disappeared right here, and we just see a blinking cursor.
• 02:31 Well, that's because this web server is continuing to run.
• 02:34 So, we can break out of here by hitting the control and
• 02:37 the C button at the same time.
• 02:39 And when we do, we see this migration thing.
• 02:42 We'll talk about that in the next video.
• 02:44 But you see now, the web server is no longer running.
• 02:46 So, now if we go back to our web browser and click reload,
• 02:51 we see this error, site can't be reached.
• 02:54 And that's because the web server has to be running in order for
• 02:58 us to be able to view our project, our Django project.
• 03:02 So, what I like to do is come back here and
• 03:05 hit up on my arrow key to do the last command and turn this server back on.
• 03:10 I like to just keep my web server running all the time while I'm
• 03:13 working on my Django project.
• 03:15 The problem is from time to time,
• 03:17 we're going to have to actually type in other Django commands.
• 03:20 And when we do, it's kind of a hassle to come here and hit Ctrl C,
• 03:24 break out of here and then when we're done, run it again.
• 03:27 It's just it's kind of a hassle.
• 03:29 So, what I like to do, I'll just open up another Git Bash terminal, and
• 03:34 I can pull it over here and you can see this one is still running.
• 03:37 The web server is still running in this one.
• 03:39 But now, we have this second one that we can run actual commands in.
• 03:41 So, we can go ahead and expand this second one,
• 03:47 and let's move back into our project.
• 03:51 So, that was mywebsite, and if we hit ls we see okay, there's the virtual.
• 03:55 And notice our virtual environment is not been turned on in this terminal.
• 04:00 So, we need to turn that on.
• 04:01 So, let's go source virtual scripts activate.
• 04:05 And when we do we see this little thing here.
• 04:07 So, now if we hit ls again, we're still in this directory, and
• 04:11 we need to be in this one.
• 04:13 So, let's cd into that directory, djangowebsite, okay?
• 04:18 Now, if we hit ls, we see this managed.py file.
• 04:20 And remember, you always want to be in the directory that has the managed.py file.
• 04:27 So, we know we're in the right place.
• 04:28 Our virtual environment is turned on, and
• 04:32 we can toggle back and forth to these two terminals if we want.
• 04:37 This one just has the web server running.
• 04:39 And it just continues to run.
• 04:41 So, we're just going to let it run, and
• 04:42 from now on renews the second one to actually type in our Django commands.
• 04:46 So, that's all for this video.
• 04:47 In the next video, we'll look at migrating the database.
• 04:50 I'll tell you what that's all about and why it's important.
• 04:53 And that'll be in the next video.

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