Documentation

These docs are for Django's SVN release, which can be significantly different from previous releases. Get old docs here: 0.96, 0.95.

The Django Book

You can read the entire Django Book for free at djangobook.com or buy a print version in finer bookstores. We recommend reading the first few chapters as your first introduction to Django.

The essential documentation

Make sure to read the following documentation. The rest (in the "Reference" section below) can be read in any particular order, as you need the various functionality.

• Django overview
• Installation guide
• Tutorial: Writing your first Django app
  • Part 1: Initialization, creating models, the database API
  • Part 2: Exploring the automatically-generated admin site
  • Part 3: Creating the public interface views
  • Part 4: Simple form processing and generic views
• Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
• How to read this documentation

Reference

• The django-admin.py and manage.py utilities
• Models: Creating models | Examples | The database API | Transactions
• Templates: Guide for HTML authors | Guide for Python programmers
• Forms
• New: Files: file handling | file uploads
• Testing Django applications
• Sessions
• Caching
• Internationalization
• Middleware
• Settings files
• URL configuration
• Request and response objects
• Generic views
• Authentication
• Shortcut functions
• New: Unicode data in Django
• New: Pagination
• New: Serialization
• The django.contrib add-ons
  • The automatic admin interface (django.contrib.admin)
  • Contenttypes Framework (django.contrib.contenttypes)
  • Cross Site Request Forgery protection (django.contrib.csrf)
  • Databrowse (django.contrib.databrowse)
  • Flatpages (django.contrib.flatpages)
  • New: Form preview (django.contrib.formtools)
  • New: Form wizard (django.contrib.formtools.wizard)
  • Redirects (django.contrib.redirects)
  • Sites (django.contrib.sites)
  • Sitemaps (django.contrib.sitemaps)
  • Syndication feeds (RSS and Atom) (django.contrib.syndication)
  • New: Web design helpers (django.contrib.webdesign)

Deployment

• Using Django with mod_python
• How to use Django with FastCGI, SCGI or AJP

Solving specific problems

• Authenticating against Django's user database from Apache
• Serving static/media files
• Sending e-mail
• Integrating with (introspecting) a legacy database
• Outputting PDFs dynamically
• Outputting CSV dynamically

Et cetera

• Design philosophies
• How to contribute to Django
• Django admin CSS guide
• API stability
• Backwards-incompatible changes

Release notes

• Version 1.0 Alpha
• Version 0.96
• Version 0.95