Django-CMS Installation

Preparation

To install and create requirements file for django-cms for Django 2.0.12:

$ python3.6 -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ pip install --upgrade pip
$ pip install --upgrade setuptools
$ pip install -r requirements/local.txt
$ pip freeze > requirements/pre-django-cms.txt
$ pip install django-cms
$ pip install django-filer
$ pip install djangocms-text-ckeditor
$ pip install djangocms-link djangocms-file djangocms-picture djangocms-video \
djangocms-googlemap djangocms-snippet djangocms-style djangocms-column
$ pip freeze > requirements/django-cms.txt
$ diff -Naur requirements/{pre-django-cms,django-cms}.txt > requirements/changes.txt

Django Project

Create a new django project, or work with an existing project.

$ django-admin.py startproject <project-name>

Django Project Settings

Modify the base settings for the Django Project to configure django-cms

Installed Apps

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # This provides some styling that helps make django CMS administration
    # components easier to work with. Optional, but recommended.
    'djangocms_admin_style',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    ...
    # cms and menus are the core django CMS modules.
    'cms',
    'menus',
    # django-treebeard is used to manage django CMS’s page and
    # plugin tree structures.
    'treebeard',
    # sekizai required by django-cms
    'sekizai',
    'filer',
    'easy_thumbnails',
    'mptt',
    # Most useful optional django-cms plugins
    'djangocms_text_ckeditor',
    'djangocms_link',
    'djangocms_file',
    'djangocms_picture',
    'djangocms_video',
    'djangocms_googlemap',
    'djangocms_snippet',
    'djangocms_style',
    'djangocms_column',
]

Middleware

MIDDLEWARE = [
    ...
    # Required by django-cms
    'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.user.CurrentUserMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.page.CurrentPageMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.toolbar.ToolbarMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.language.LanguageCookieMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.utils.ApphookReloadMiddleware',
]

Templates

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        ...
        'DIRS': [
            ...
            'templates',
        ],
        ...
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                ...
                # sekizai required by django-cms
                'sekizai.context_processors.sekizai',
                'cms.context_processors.cms_settings',
            ],
        },
    },
]

Other Settings

# django.contrib.sites, required by django-cms
SITE_ID = 1

# Django CMS requires you to set the LANGUAGES setting. This should list all
# the languages you want your project to serve, and must include the language
# in LANGUAGE_CODE.

LANGUAGES = [
    ('mr', 'Marathi'),
    ('hi', 'Hindi'),
    ('en-us', 'English'),
]

# Django CMS requires at least one template for its pages. The first template
# in the CMS_TEMPLATES list will be the project’s default template.

CMS_TEMPLATES = [
    ('home.html', 'Home page template'),
]

# Add a media root for Django CMS local development configuration

MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media')

# Django CMS thumbnail plugin

THUMBNAIL_HIGH_RESOLUTION = True

THUMBNAIL_PROCESSORS = (
    'easy_thumbnails.processors.colorspace',
    'easy_thumbnails.processors.autocrop',
    'filer.thumbnail_processors.scale_and_crop_with_subject_location',
    'easy_thumbnails.processors.filters'
)

URL Configuration

Modify the main app's urls.py file to include the django CMS URLs. For deployment, you also need to configure suitable media file serving.

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path
from django.conf.urls import url, include
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static


urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    url(r'^', include('cms.urls')),
] + static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

Create a home template

In the root of the project, create a templates directory, and in that, home.html, a minimal django CMS template:

{% load cms_tags sekizai_tags %}
<html>
    <head>
        <title>{% page_attribute "page_title" %}</title>
        {% render_block "css" %}
    </head>
    <body>
        {% cms_toolbar %}
        {% placeholder "content" %}
        {% render_block "js" %}
    </body>
</html>

This is worth explaining in a little detail:

• {% load cms_tags sekizai_tags %} loads the template tag libraries we use in the template.
• {% page_attribute "page_title" %} extracts the page’s page_title attribute.
• {% render_block "css" %} and {% render_block "js" %} are Sekizai template tags that load blocks of HTML defined by Django applications. django CMS defines blocks for CSS and JavaScript, and requires these two tags. We recommended placing {% render_block "css" %} just before the </head> tag, and and {% render_block "js" %} tag just before the </body>.
• {% cms_toolbar %} renders the django CMS toolbar.
• {% placeholder "content" %} defines a placeholder, where plugins can be inserted. A template needs at least one {% placeholder %} template tag to be useful for django CMS. The name of the placeholder is simply a descriptive one, for your reference.

Database Configuration

Create database tables and check CMS configuration

$ python manage.py migrate
$ python manage.py createsuperuser

Check CMS Configuration

Check the Django CMS Configuration

$ python manage.py cms check

Launch the project

Start up the runserver:

$ python manage.py runserver

and access the new site, which you should now be able to reach at http://localhost:8000. Login if you haven’t done so already.