# Django 1.11.dev20170112000130 documentation

# Django documentation

Everything you need to know about Django.

## Getting help

Having trouble? We’d like to help!

- Try the FAQ – it’s got answers to many common questions.
- Looking for specific information? Try the Index, Module Index or the detailed table of contents.
- Search for information in the archives of the django-users mailing list, or post a question.
- Ask a question in the #django IRC channel, or search the IRC logs to see if it’s been asked before.
- Report bugs with Django in our ticket tracker.

## How the documentation is organized

Django has a lot of documentation. A high-level overview of how it’s organized will help you know where to look for certain things:

- Tutorials take you by the hand through a series of steps to create a Web application. Start here if you’re new to Django or Web application development. Also look at the “First steps” below.
- Topic guides discuss key topics and concepts at a fairly high level and provide useful background information and explanation.
- Reference guides contain technical reference for APIs and other aspects of Django’s machinery. They describe how it works and how to use it but assume that you have a basic understanding of key concepts.
- How-to guides are recipes. They guide you through the steps involved in addressing key problems and use-cases. They are more advanced than tutorials and assume some knowledge of how Django works.

## First steps

Are you new to Django or to programming? This is the place to start!

- From scratch: Overview | Installation
- Tutorial: Part 1: Requests and responses | Part 2: Models and the admin site | Part 3: Views and templates | Part 4: Forms and generic views | Part 5: Testing | Part 6: Static files | Part 7: Customizing the admin site
- Advanced Tutorials: How to write reusable apps | Writing your first patch for Django

## The model layer

Django provides an abstraction layer (the “models”) for structuring and manipulating the data of your Web application. Learn more about it below:

- Models: Introduction to models | Field types | Indexes | Meta options | Model class
- QuerySets: Executing queries | QuerySet method reference | Lookup expressions
- Model instances: Instance methods | Accessing related objects
- Migrations: Introduction to Migrations | Operations reference | SchemaEditor | Writing migrations
- Advanced: Managers | Raw SQL | Transactions | Aggregation | Search | Custom fields | Multiple databases | Custom lookups | Query Expressions | Conditional Expressions | Database Functions
- Other: Supported databases | Legacy databases | Providing initial data | Optimize database access | PostgreSQL specific features

## The view layer

Django has the concept of “views” to encapsulate the logic responsible for processing a user’s request and for returning the response. Find all you need to know about views via the links below:

- The basics: URLconfs | View functions | Shortcuts | Decorators
- Reference: Built-in Views | Request/response objects | TemplateResponse objects
- File uploads: Overview | File objects | Storage API | Managing files | Custom storage
- Class-based views: Overview | Built-in display views | Built-in editing views | Using mixins | API reference | Flattened index
- Advanced: Generating CSV | Generating PDF
- Middleware: Overview | Built-in middleware classes

## The template layer

The template layer provides a designer-friendly syntax for rendering the information to be presented to the user. Learn how this syntax can be used by designers and how it can be extended by programmers:

- The basics: Overview
- For designers: Language overview | Built-in tags and filters | Humanization
- For programmers: Template API | Custom tags and filters

## Forms

Django provides a rich framework to facilitate the creation of forms and the manipulation of form data.

- The basics: Overview | Form API | Built-in fields | Built-in widgets
- Advanced: Forms for models | Integrating media | Formsets | Customizing validation

## The development process

Learn about the various components and tools to help you in the development and testing of Django applications:

- Settings: Overview | Full list of settings
- Applications: Overview
- Exceptions: Overview
- django-admin and manage.py: Overview | Adding custom commands
- Testing: Introduction | Writing and running tests | Included testing tools | Advanced topics
- Deployment: Overview | WSGI servers | Deploying static files | Tracking code errors by email

## The admin

Find all you need to know about the automated admin interface, one of Django’s most popular features:

- Admin site
- Admin actions
- Admin documentation generator

## Security

Security is a topic of paramount importance in the development of Web applications and Django provides multiple protection tools and mechanisms:

- Security overview
- Disclosed security issues in Django
- Clickjacking protection
- Cross Site Request Forgery protection
- Cryptographic signing
- Security Middleware

## Internationalization and localization

Django offers a robust internationalization and localization framework to assist you in the development of applications for multiple languages and world regions:

- Overview | Internationalization | Localization | Localized Web UI formatting and form input
- Time zones

## Performance and optimization

There are a variety of techniques and tools that can help get your code running more efficiently - faster, and using fewer system resources.

- Performance and optimization overview

## Python compatibility

Django aims to be compatible with multiple different flavors and versions of Python:

- Jython support
- Python 3 compatibility

## Geographic framework

GeoDjango intends to be a world-class geographic Web framework. Its goal is to make it as easy as possible to build GIS Web applications and harness the power of spatially enabled data.

## Common Web application tools

Django offers multiple tools commonly needed in the development of Web applications:

- Authentication: Overview | Using the authentication system | Password management | Customizing authentication | API Reference
- Caching
- Logging
- Sending emails
- Syndication feeds (RSS/Atom)
- Pagination
- Messages framework
- Serialization
- Sessions
- Sitemaps
- Static files management
- Data validation

## Other core functionalities

Learn about some other core functionalities of the Django framework:

- Conditional content processing
- Content types and generic relations
- Flatpages
- Redirects
- Signals
- System check framework
- The sites framework
- Unicode in Django

## The Django open-source project

Learn about the development process for the Django project itself and about how you can contribute:

- Community: How to get involved | The release process | Team organization | Meet the team | Current roles | The Django source code repository | Security policies | Mailing lists
- Design philosophies: Overview
- Documentation: About this documentation
- Third-party distributions: Overview
- Django over time: API stability | Release notes and upgrading instructions | Deprecation Timeline