Django Third-Party Packages

Django third-party packages are additional libraries or extensions that are developed by the Django community to enhance the functionality and capabilities of the Django web framework. These packages provide ready-made solutions for common tasks, such as user authentication, API development, form handling, database management, and more.

I have carefully enlisted five of the Django third-party packages that I have worked with, enjoy!

Five Third-Party Packages

Django Debug Toolbar:

Django Debug Toolbar is a handy debugging tool that provides various panels displaying detailed information about the current request/response. It helps developers analyze and optimize the performance of their Django applications.

Example usage: To enable Django Debug Toolbar, you need to install it and add it to your Django project's middleware and installed apps. Here's an example:

# settings.py
MIDDLEWARE = [
    ...
    "debug_toolbar.middleware.DebugToolbarMiddleware",
    ...
]

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    "debug_toolbar",
    ...
]

# urls.py
from django.conf import settings
from django.urls import include, path

if settings.DEBUG:
    import debug_toolbar

    urlpatterns = [
        path("__debug__/", include(debug_toolbar.urls)),
        ...
    ] + urlpatterns

Django Celery:

Django Celery is a package that integrates the Celery task queue with Django. It allows you to run asynchronous, distributed tasks in your Django application, improving performance and scalability.

Example usage: To use Django Celery, you need to install Celery and configure it with your Django project. Here's an example:

# settings.py
CELERY_BROKER_URL = 'amqp://localhost'
CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND = 'db+sqlite:///results.sqlite'
CELERY_ACCEPT_CONTENT = ['json']
CELERY_RESULT_SERIALIZER = 'json'
CELERY_TASK_SERIALIZER = 'json'

# myapp/tasks.py
from celery import shared_task

@shared_task
def add_numbers(x, y):
    return x + y

# myapp/views.py
from .tasks import add_numbers

def my_view(request):
    result = add_numbers.delay(3, 4)
    return HttpResponse(f'Result: {result.get()}')

Django Guardian:

Django Guardian provides per-object permissions for Django models. It allows you to define custom object-level permissions and manage object-level permissions in a granular manner.

Example usage: To use Django Guardian, you need to install it and define the necessary permissions. Here's an example:

# models.py
from django.db import models

class MyModel(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)

# views.py
from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404
from guardian.shortcuts import assign_perm
from .models import MyModel

def my_view(request, model_id):
    my_model = get_object_or_404(MyModel, id=model_id)
    assign_perm('view_mymodel', request.user, my_model)
    return HttpResponse('Permission assigned.')

# permissions.py
from guardian.shortcuts import register

register(MyModel)

Django Crispy Forms:

Django Crispy Forms is a package that allows you to easily render Django forms in a visually appealing and customizable way. It provides a set of template tags and form layouts to simplify form rendering.

Example usage: To use Django Crispy Forms, you need to install it and specify the layout for your forms. Here's an example:

# models.py
from django.db import models

class MyModel(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)

# views.py
from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404
from guardian.shortcuts import assign_perm
from .models import MyModel

def my_view(request, model_id):
    my_model = get_object_or_404(MyModel, id=model_id)
    assign_perm('view_mymodel', request.user, my_model)
    return HttpResponse('Permission assigned.')

# permissions.py
from guardian.shortcuts import register

register(MyModel)

Django Allauth:

Django Allauth is a versatile package that provides user authentication, social authentication (using providers like Google, Facebook, Twitter), and account management functionalities out of the box. It simplifies the process of adding user authentication and registration features to your Django project.

Example usage: To use Django Allauth, you need to install it and configure it with your Django project. Here's an example:

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'allauth',
    'allauth.account',
    'allauth.socialaccount',
    ...
]

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    ...
    'allauth.account.auth_backends.AuthenticationBackend',
    ...
]

SITE_ID = 1

# urls.py
from django.urls import include, path

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path('accounts/', include('allauth.urls')),
    ...
]

Once configured, you can use the provided templates and views to handle user registration, login, password reset, and social authentication.

For example, you can create a registration form using the following template:

<!-- registration.html -->
{% extends 'base.html' %}

{% block content %}
    <h2>Register</h2>
    <form method="post" action="{% url 'account_signup' %}">
        {% csrf_token %}
        {{ form.as_p }}
        <button type="submit">Register</button>
    </form>
{% endblock %}

Django Allauth also allows you to customize the authentication flow, add additional social providers, and integrate with other Django packages such as Django crispy forms for improved form rendering.

In addition to the above, I recommend that you consult the Django Allauth documentation for detailed information on configuration options and advanced usage if ever you want to work with Django Allauth.

I feel like adding the Django Rest Framework (DRF) because it is an extremely powerful and flexible toolkit for building Web APIs, as it provides a set of serializers, views, and authentication mechanisms that make it easy to build RESTful APIs in Django, but I won't do that because I want a list of five.

If you have used any of the packages enlisted above, please let me know, if you feel that a particular package should have made it to the list let me also know in the comment section, It will be exciting to hear from you!