GAE Django Helper

This project allows you to use the django admin interface on google appengine without using django-norel or other wierd hacks. This is a set of tools such as a custom ModelAdmin and AdminSite which work with appengine instead of against it.

Who Should Use This?

Since this involves very little hacking it should be suitable for small projects. But if you need to view > 1000 objects you should really think twice as the django admin is not designed for your large dataset.

Also if you want a quick way to have oauth support for your app and don't care about the admin stuff the auth app works standalone. This is based off the work of git://github.com/mikeknapp/AppEngine-OAuth-Library

Current Admin Options Support

• list_display
• list_filter (BooleanProperty only)
• list_per_page
• form
• exclude
• fields
• fieldsets
• list_display_links
• readonly_fields

In the works:

• inline forms
• search
• actions
• more?

Setup

Install the gae_django app in the root of your Appengine project or on the sys.path somewhere in it. Use Django like normal except use google db.Model/properties.

settings:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'gae_django.db.gae',
        'NAME': '',
        'USER': '',
        'PASSWORD': '',
        'HOST': '',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'gae_django.admin',
    'gae_django.auth',
]

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    'gae_django.auth.backend.GAEBackend',
    'gae_django.auth.backend.GAETwitterBackend'
]

SESSION_ENGINE = 'django.contrib.sessions.backends.cache'
MESSAGE_STORAGE = 'django.contrib.messages.storage.session.SessionStorage'
SESSION_SAVE_EVERY_REQUEST = True

CACHES = {
    'default': {
        'BACKEND': 'django.core.cache.backends.memcached.MemcachedCache',
        'TIMEOUT': 3600*24*2, # Two Weeks
    }
}

To use memcache in appengine simply add a module in your root called memcache.py that just imports googles memcache:

from google.appengine.api.memcache import *

In your urls.py add the following:

from gae_django import admin
admin.autodiscover()
urlpatterns = patterns('',
   url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
   ...
)

In your apps just add the admin.py module like this:

from gae_django import admin

from models import ModelOne, ModelTwo

admin.site.register(ModelOne, list_display=['field_one', 'field_two'])

class OtherWay(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ['field_one', 'field_two']

admin.site.register(ModelTwo, OtherWay)

Now setup a user for yourself and go to town, this is slightly more tricky as you'll need to have an User object that is a superuser and all that. In the future we'll have an easy way to do that as well. For now use the good ol google admin page located at http://localhost:8080/_ah/admin/

Manage.py Script

Appengine comes with a bunch of libraries that allow the dev_appserver.py to serve your django application. You really should use it for runserver. However some management commands are nice here is an example manage.py file which will work:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os, sys

from gae_django.fabric_commands import setup_paths

setup_paths()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "{{ project }}.settings")

    from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line

    # Don't allow runserver command
    if len(sys.argv) > 1:
        if sys.argv[1] == 'runserver':
            print("Use appengine dev_appserver.py or fabric to runserver!")
            sys.exit(1)

    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)

Place this in your project root like this:

manage.py
mysite/
    __init__.py
    settings.py
    urls.py
    ...
    myapp/
        __init__.py
        models.py