Using IntelliJ for Django Development

oliver — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:08:56 +0000

About a year ago I’ve switched over to IntelliJ as my primary Java IDE. When I began to dabble a bit in Django a few days ago, I realized that IntelliJ had me spoiled when it comes to Editor Features – especially when working with Javascript and HTML files. Notepad++ – although a great text editor on its own right – simply didn’t cut it for me for web development.

When I tried opening my Django files in IntelliJ I had to realize that IntelliJ needs a project context for opening a file. Even for a simple html file. Fortunately the solution was pretty straight forward. Navigate to your Django project root directory and create a new file .project. Some of you have guessed it: we are pretending to be Eclipse. Open the file in a text editor and paste the following snipped into it:

myproject

Edit the tag value and change it to your liking.

Now it’s time to launch IntelliJ. Select File -> New Project. Select Import project from external model and click Next. Select Eclipse (should be the default) and click Next. Now enter the path to your Django project root folder in the Select Eclipse projects directory field. Click Next. You should now see the name of your pseudo eclipse project in the list. Click Next. You may now change the project name or just click Finish. Open the project view and change to Project mode. Congratulations, you have imported your Django project into IntelliJ.

I’d suggest that you install the Pythonid plugin for IntelliJ in order to get a better Python code editing experience and that you add .pyc and .pyo to the Ignored files and folders in IntelliJ’s General Settings as final steps.

w00t we’ve moved!

oliver — Tue, 22 May 2007 21:41:00 +0000

As you might have noticed the old weichhold.com is gone and the web content has moved to this shiny new site. There were several reasons for this decision. To give you a little insight: the former site was hosted on a dedicated linux box running debian located a Hetzner’s Nürnberg facility. At the beginning the server was just handling email and the website using my own asp.net based CMS. But over the years more and more services were hosted on this box ranging from an MMO guild forum to our family picture gallery. Not surprisingly the amount of time spent with administration work increased by an equal amount – don’t get me wrong: I’m still totally convinced that linux/bsd hosting is the right way to go in terms of stability, security and scalability – I just don’t have the time anymore to manage it on my own.

Another aspect for my decision to “outsource” everything was the quality and maturity levels that content management systems like squarespace.com have reached by now – the squarespace CMS is absolutely incredible and beats everything I’ve used so far hands down. So here we are. My web content is served by squarespace, email/calendar/contacts is hosted by google and our pictures reside on flickr.

P.S: If you are looking for dedicated hosting solution give Hetzner a shot. These guys are just great. If you’ve ever experienced the so-called support of some hosting companies, you appreciate that calling hetzner’s support line connects you directly with the technician with physical access to your machine.

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Using IntelliJ for Django Development

w00t we’ve moved!