CodeStar Blog

CodeStar Blog is a Django blog application with authentication, post publishing, comment moderation, and an About page with a collaboration request form.

What This Project Includes

• Post listing with pagination
• Draft and published post workflow
• Post detail pages with comments
• Comment create/edit/delete for signed-in users
• Admin moderation for comments
• About page content managed from the database
• Collaboration request form
• Cloudinary image hosting for posts and profile images
• Django Allauth authentication flow

Tech Stack

• Python 3.12
• Django 4.2
• PostgreSQL (production)
• SQLite (automatically used during tests)
• Cloudinary + dj3-cloudinary-storage
• Django Summernote editor
• Django Crispy Forms with Bootstrap 5
• Gunicorn + WhiteNoise

Quick Start (Local Development)

1. Clone and enter the project

git clone <your-repository-url>
cd codestar_blog

2. Create and activate a virtual environment

Windows (PowerShell):

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

macOS/Linux:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

3. Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Add environment variables

Create an env.py file in the project root with:

import os

os.environ.setdefault("SECRET_KEY", "your-secret-key")
os.environ.setdefault("DATABASE_URL", "sqlite:///db.sqlite3")
os.environ.setdefault("CLOUDINARY_URL", "your-cloudinary-url")

Notes:

• DATABASE_URL is required by settings.py
• In production, use a PostgreSQL URL for DATABASE_URL
• Keep real values out of version control

5. Apply migrations

python manage.py migrate

6. Create an admin user

python manage.py createsuperuser

7. Start the server

python manage.py runserver

Open:

• Home page: http://127.0.0.1:8000/
• Admin: http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/
• About page: http://127.0.0.1:8000/about/

Main URLs

• / -> blog index
• // -> post detail
• /accounts/ -> authentication routes (Allauth)
• /about/ -> About + collaboration form
• /admin/ -> Django admin

Content Management Workflow

Publish a blog post

1. Log in to /admin/
2. Open Posts
3. Add title, slug, content, featured image, excerpt, and status
4. Set status to Published to show on the site

Moderate comments

1. Open Comments in /admin/
2. Approve comments you want to display publicly

Testing

Run all tests:

python manage.py test

Run app-specific tests:

python manage.py test blog
python manage.py test about

Deployment Notes

• Procfile is configured to run Gunicorn:

web: gunicorn codestar.wsgi

• runtime.txt pins Python:

python-3.12.3

• Required environment variables in deployment:
  • SECRET_KEY
  • DATABASE_URL
  • CLOUDINARY_URL

Project Structure (High Level)

about/       About page and collaboration request app
blog/        Blog posts, comments, and related views/forms
codestar/    Project settings and root URL configuration
templates/   Shared templates and allauth templates
static/      Source static assets
staticfiles/ Collected static assets

License

This project was created as part of the Code Institute learning curriculum.