OK, let’s start installation of the development environment from Python + Django.

Here is step by step instructions:

1) Go to http://www.python.org/download/. Download 64 bit Python (if you use Windows 7 64 bit like me or other 64 bit OS) version 2.6.x (do not install version 3.x as Django not yet available for this Python version) – usually file have name like “python-2.6.x.amd64.msi”.
I recommend to change setup path to C:/Python, instead of C:/Python26

2) Go to Control Panel\System and Security\System in Explorer. Than press “Advanced System Settings”. In System Properties window go to “Advanced” tab and press “Environment Variables” button. Here you need to add path to python in “System Variables”. Just found here “Path” and append “C:\Python”.

Note: I show here and will show in future ways how to finish tasks using windows GUI (if available), instead of command prompt commands (for example instead of usage of PATH command). Sure thing most of operations now can be done using command prompt, especially after introduction of PowerShell by Microsoft (it is build in to Windows 7 / Windows 2008 R2)

3) Go to command prompt (cmd.exe) and check that you can run actually Python by typing “python”.

4) To grab latest source code from SVN repositories (for Django and other soft), let’s install now Subversion Client from http://www.collab.net/downloads/subversion/. I suggest to have this client even in case if you going to use TortoiseSVN. Why? Reason very simple – ones you study how to use it, you will know how to work with SVN in ANY OS, not only in Windows! It is exactly example, when better to use command prompt commands, instead of GUI like I recommend above – in such cases you will be familiar with command that runs on all kinds of operation systems!

CollabNet Subversion Command-Line Client vx.x.x (for Windows)

You can download installation after simple registration. Ones you install SVN client, go to command prompt and try to enter “svn” command. Hopefully you will get something like this:

4) I will use so called “development version” of Django. To install it you need to execute following command:

svn co http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/ C:\django-trunk

This will download latest source code for Django and save it in C:\django-trunk folder. Now it is time to setup PYTHONPATH variable (same way like in topic 2, but this time you need to create new variable, not just edit existed one!)

And before you leave Environment Variables, let’s add to the PATH variable location of Django bin folder (C:\django-trunk\django\bin):

Now it is time to check this setting:

Great Django installed!

One more simple step in installation of gettext-utils that used in Django translation system: go to the http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/dependencies/ and download latest  gettext-runtime-X.zip and gettext-tools-X.zip files. Extract content from bin folders of archives to c:\gettext-utils folder and add this path to PATH variable, same way like add before another locations (see details in topics above):

5) Now it is time to overview folders structure for project:

- C:\Evejob will be home directory for all source code for Evejob project

- C:\Evejob\EvejobDJ will be home directory for Django version of Evejob

- C:\Evejob\EvejobDJG will be home directory for Django + Google AppEngine version of Evejob.

Now, let’s run in command prompt following commands:

Let’s check that at least Django build-in web server works fine:

Please note: Django version can be different on your machine!

Open in browser http://127.0.0.1:8000 and make sure you see something like this:

The same way, let’s create EvejobDJG Project that will be tuned up to work with Google AppEngine (all command like before, just EvejobDJG used instead of EvejobDJ):

6) Django and AppEngine integration

Ok, now let’s install Google AppEngine SDK for Python available at http://code.google.com/intl/en/appengine/downloads.html#Google_App_Engine_SDK_for_Python

I assume that SDK will be installed in following folder: C:\Google\google_appengine\

Also we will need to install the Python for Windows extensions to enable automatic detection of the SDK. Be careful and download 64 bit version, for example pywin32-214.win-amd64-py2.6.exe if you use Windows 64 bit like me. Installation will automatically found your Python language, so if you download correct version of pywin, you will not get any problems during installation at all.

7) Today available few helpers (projects) that can help us create Django application that will be hosted on Google App Engine.

More specifically exists two: Google App Engine Helper for Django (http://code.google.com/p/google-app-engine-django) and App-Engine-Patch (http://code.google.com/p/app-engine-patch)

Each library have own features, but main difference that with App-Engine-Patch you have to use Google’s Model class, while with Google App Engine Helper you can use BaseModel class that appears the same as the standard Django Model class…

Here are some interesting articles related to Django and AppEngine combination:

http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/django.html

http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/appengine_helper_for_django.html

http://www.42topics.com/dumps/appengine/doc.html

http://www.42topics.com/dumps/django/docs.html

http://thomas.broxrost.com/2008/04/08/django-on-google-app-engine/

I will come back to this libraries later, ones finish with more simple EvejobDJ standard Django Model…