Posted on Wed 21 Dec 2011 under Web Development
DjangoApp (renamed as Portable Django) grew out of a need to package a Django project into a desktop application. Instead of embedding it within a desktop GUI program, my solution was to build a self-contained Python/Django environment that can be launched by a simple launcher app. I figured that this can be useful for development purposes as well as for learning. One thing that prevents newbies from exploring Django could be the difficulty of installation. With this app, installing Django is as easy as installing any other self-contained Mac app. Just download the dmg, mount it, drag the app to your Applications folder, and launch! Nothing can be more convenient than that.
The app is available for Mac users at the moment. The launcher part of the app uses wxPython so it is cross-platform and can therefore be built to work on Windows and Linux. However, I have only produced so far the build for the Mac because that's my platform. I've found that it also works in Ubuntu Linux but I don't know yet how to produce a build or package for distribution. As soon as I can get my hand on a Windows machine, I will produce the executable so that more people can use this program. I'd like to assess how this can help other Django developers and those who are trying to learn Django. Feedbacks are very much appreciated.
The link to the source code and the MacOSX build is here.