CollabSphere Part 1: Setting Up a Modular Django Chat Application

Hey developers! Welcome to the first CollabSphere series. In this post, we'll set up CollabSphere with a modular architecture, separating our application into distinct components: users, rooms, and chat.

Let's dive in!

Project Structure and Initial Setup

Setting Up the Virtual Environment

# create a folder named `CollabSphere`
mkdir CollaSphere 
cd CollaSphere

# Create a new virtual environment
python -m venv .venv

# Activate the virtual environment
# For Windows
.venv\Scripts\activate
# For macOS/Linux
source .venv/bin/activate

# Install required packages
pip install django djangorestframework channels
pip install python-dotenv  # for environment variables

Creating django project

# Create a new Django project
django-admin startproject collabsphere .
mkdir apps
cd apps

# Create our main chat, users, and room application
python manage.py startapp chat
python manage.py startapp users
python manage.py startapp rooms

Project Configuration

# collabSphere/settings.py

import os
from pathlib import Path

BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',

    # Third-party apps
    'rest_framework',
    'channels',

    # Local apps
    'apps.users.apps.UsersConfig',
    'apps.rooms.apps.RoomsConfig',
    'apps.chat.apps.ChatConfig',
]

# Custom user model
AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'users.User'

# Update app directories
import sys
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'apps'))

Creating requirements.txt for our dependencies requirements

# command
pip freeze > requirements.txt


asgiref==3.8.1
Django==5.1.3
djangorestframework==3.15.2
python-decouple==3.8
sqlparse==0.5.2
typing_extensions==4.12.2
pillow == 11.0.0
channels

URL Configuration

# collabSphere/urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', include('apps.users.urls')),
    path('rooms/', include('apps.rooms.urls')),
    path('chat/', include('apps.chat.urls')),
]


This will be our path to our applications

Project Organization

Here's our final project structure:

CollabSphere/
├── apps/
│   ├── users/
│   │   ├── migrations/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   ├── apps.py
│   │   ├── forms.py
│   │   ├── models.py
│   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   └── views.py
│   ├── rooms/
│   │   ├── migrations/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   ├── apps.py
│   │   ├── models.py
│   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   └── views.py
│   └── chat/
│       ├── migrations/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── admin.py
│       ├── apps.py
│       ├── consumers.py
│       ├── models.py
│       ├── urls.py
│       └── views.py
├── collabSphere/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── asgi.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── static/
├── docs/
├── tests/
├── manage.py
└── requirements.txt

Key Benefits of This Structure

• Separation of Concerns: Each app handles its specific functionality
• Maintainability: Easier to maintain and debug code
• Scalability: Can easily add new features or modify existing ones
• Reusability: Apps can be reused in other projects
• Testing: Easier to write and organize tests

Next Steps

In the next post, we'll cover:

• User model (extending Django's AbstractUser)
• Custom user registration
• Login/logout views
• User profiles

Resources

Django documentation

collabsphere github link

That’s all for today. We’ll see you in our next series!