README.md

ProdUtils

A bookmark app built using VueJS and Django with DRF.

It has a clear separation: use Vue, Yarn, and Webpack to handle all frontend logic and assets bundling, and use Django with Django REST framework to manage the Data Models, Web API, and serve static files.

Includes

• Django
• Django REST framework
• Django Whitenoise, CDN Ready
• Vue CLI 3
• Vue Router
• Vuex
• Gunicorn*
• Configuration for Heroku Deployment

Template Structure

Location	Content
/backend	Django Project & Backend Config
/backend/api	Django App (/api)
/src	Vue App .
/src/main.js	JS Application Entry Point
/public/index.html	Html Application Entry Point (/)
/public/static	Static Assets
/dist/	Bundled Assets Output (generated at yarn build)

Prerequisites

Before getting started you should have the following installed and running:

• Yarn - instructions
• Vue CLI 3 - instructions
• Python 3 - instructions
• virtualenv

Setup Template

$ git clone https://github.com/gtalarico/django-vue-template
$ cd django-vue-template

Setup

$ yarn install
$ virtualenv -p python3 env
$ source env/bin/activate
$ python manage.py migrate

Running Development Servers

$ python manage.py runserver 8888

From another tab in the same directory:

$ yarn serve

The Vue application will be served from localhost:8080 and the Django API and static files will be served from localhost:8888.

The dual dev server setup allows you to take advantage of webpack's development server with hot module replacement.

Deploy

• Set ALLOWED_HOSTS on backend.settings.prod

Heroku Server

$ heroku apps:create django-vue-template-demo
$ heroku git:remote --app django-vue-template-demo
$ heroku buildpacks:add --index 1 heroku/nodejs
$ heroku buildpacks:add --index 2 heroku/python
$ heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev
$ heroku config:set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=backend.settings.prod
$ heroku config:set DJANGO_SECRET_KEY='...(your django SECRET_KEY value)...'

$ git push heroku

Heroku's nodejs buildpack will handle install for all the dependencies from the package.json file. It will then trigger the postinstall command which calls yarn build. This will create the bundled dist folder which will be served by whitenoise.

The python buildpack will detect the Pipfile and install all the python dependencies.

The Procfile will run Django migrations and then launch Django'S app using gunicorn, as recommended by heroku.

Static Assets

See settings.dev and vue.config.js for notes on static assets strategy.

This template implements the approach suggested by Whitenoise Django. For more details see WhiteNoise Documentation

It uses Django Whitenoise to serve all static files and Vue bundled files at /static/. While it might seem inefficient, the issue is immediately solved by adding a CDN with Cloudfront or similar. Use vue.config.js > baseUrl option to set point all your assets to the CDN, and then set your CDN's origin back to your domains /static url.

Whitenoise will serve static files to your CDN once, but then those assets are cached and served directly by the CDN.

This allows for an extremely simple setup without the need for a separate static server.

Cloudfront Setup Wiki

License

Anyone has the right to use this project in accordance with Islamic law and its values.