# Indexpage/homepage with subpages

**URL:** <https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499>\
**Category:** Using Django\
**Created:** [July 18, 2020, 1:48pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499 "2020-07-18T13:48:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 18\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 1:48pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/1 "2020-07-18T13:48:29Z")

</div>

Hello django users,

I am trying to build a digital portfolio but I get stucked every time I want to dived the indexpage(homepage) into subpages and its getting to frustrated me 😅.

I have followed the official django tutorial, [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/intro/tutorial01/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/intro/tutorial01/). And tried to build in to my demandings. What I am trying to build currently is:

- A homepage (here I want to describe a short introduction).
- On this homepage, there should be an button with a link to my digital-portfolio page.

Currently I worked out the two pages in my urls.py. But now I want to link them to eachother. Hopefully someone can help me in this case :).

My codes:

urls.py

```auto
"""mysite URL Configuration

The `urlpatterns` list routes URLs to views. For more information please see:
    https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/http/urls/
Examples:
Function views
    1. Add an import: from my_app import views
    2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: path('', views.home, name='home')
Class-based views
    1. Add an import: from other_app.views import Home
    2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: path('', Home.as_view(), name='home')
Including another URLconf
    1. Import the include() function: from django.urls import include, path
    2. Add a URL to urlpatterns: path('blog/', include('blog.urls'))
"""
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path
from digital_portfolio import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', views.index, name='index'),
    path('digital-portfolio', views.digital_portfolio, name='digital_portfolio')
]

```

settings.py

```auto
"""
Django settings for mysite project.

Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 3.0.8.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/settings/
"""

import os

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath( __file__ )))

DEBUG = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = []

# Application definition

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

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'mysite.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'mysite.wsgi.application'

# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
    }
}

# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/howto/static-files/

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

```

views.py

```auto
from django.shortcuts import render
from django.http import HttpResponse

# Create your views here.
def index(request):
    return HttpResponse("HOMEPAGE")

def digital_portfolio(request):
    return HttpResponse("This is my digital portfolio page")

```

models.py

```auto
from django.db import models

# Create your models here.

```

apps.py

```auto
from django.apps import AppConfig

class DigitalPortfolioConfig(AppConfig):
    name = 'digital_portfolio'

```

Thanks in advance.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 1:59pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/2 "2020-07-18T13:59:05Z")

</div>

If you keep working your way through the tutorial, you will learn about how to build reference URLs into your page templates.

Ken

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 2:08pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/3 "2020-07-18T14:08:34Z")

</div>

In this tutorial, I get stucked with the step when they add the urls.py in the app “polls”. This results in two files of urls.py which is hard to understand for me. As well, their homepage is polls/ while I want just the default url as indexpage. This would mean you should always add /polls in the web browser right?

 ![URLS](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/djangoproject/original/2X/3/372e4924d9cb4be7ce6fbf856e61de78d605f0c7.jpeg)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 2:15pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/4 "2020-07-18T14:15:57Z")

</div>

You can add a root url entry to redirect any bare entries to /polls. You wouldn’t necessary need to add that manually yourself.  
But all of the other URLs within polls is going to have that as part of any generated URLs.

In this case, in the tutorial, polls is just an “app” within your site. At this point, you’re building a site containing two apps - polls and admin. This URL structure allows you to add additional functionality by adding additional apps, and keeping the URL structures separate, avoiding any conflict.

This is a “Good Thing”.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 3:35pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/5 "2020-07-18T15:35:04Z")

</div>

Okay.

So now I want to create a model. But when I try to run:  
python manage.py makemigrations digital\_portfolio

I get the following error:  
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘digitalportfolio’

Is this because I named my app: “digital\_portfolio”?  
And should I change is to: “digitalPortfolio”?

My code inside the setting.py is:

```auto
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'digitalportfolio.apps.DigitalPortfolioConfig',
    'digital_portfolio',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',

```

Code in the apps.py is:

```auto
from django.apps import AppConfig

class DigitalPortfolioConfig(AppConfig):
    name = 'digital_portfolio'

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/6 "2020-07-18T15:57:41Z")

</div>

A module name is the name of the directory. It’s whatever the directory name is. If the directory is digitalportfolio, the app is digitalportfolio. If the directory is digital\_portfolio, the app is digital\_portfolio. If the directory is digitalPortfolio, the app is digitalPortfolio.  
Your naming convention is your choice - make it whatever you want it to be, however, I do suggest you are consistent with whatever pattern you choose.

(I think in the Django world at large, you’ll find a lot more apps named digital\_portfolio than digitalportfolio, and probably never see one named digitalPortfolio or DigitalPortfolio - the last two don’t match common Django coding conventions.)

Also, you have:

```
'digitalportfolio.apps.DigitalPortfolioConfig',
'digital_portfolio',

```

- Having both is redundant. You can either specify an app by the directory name (`digital_portfolio`) or by reference to an app configuration class (`digital_portfolio.apps.DigitalPortfolioConfig`), you don’t need both.
- SInce the two references don’t match, my guess is that one of these is wrong, and based upon the message you relayed, it’s the reference to `digitalportfolio.apps.DigitalPortfolioConfig`

Ken

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 4:08pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/7 "2020-07-18T16:08:11Z")

</div>

I see the issue. I have changed the code into this:

```auto
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'digital_portfolio.apps.DigitalPortfolioConfig',
    #'digital_portfolio',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

```

I have added the ‘digital\_portfolio’, into a comment to test. Afterwards the command in the cmd prompt works! :).

Sometimes I feel very dumb to ask those questions. I really appreciate your help in this. I document all this comments into a report to fall back onto if necessary.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 4:34pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/8 "2020-07-18T16:34:48Z")

</div>

Try not to feel dumb (easier said than done at times, I know). But try to keep in mind:

- You’re climbing a pretty steep learning curve.
- Everyone has had to learn these concepts, and have run into similar issues.
- We’re here to help you along
- We _want_ to see you succeed.

Ken

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 6:59pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/9 "2020-07-18T18:59:10Z")

</div>

I do my best to improve. Hopefully it’s all worth after a couple weeks from now.

For my understanding, I have tried to describe how a web request is processed in Django inside my own project. Is it correct when I say it as follows:

Request is: [http://127.0.0.1:8000/digital-portfolio/](http://127.0.0.1:8000/digital-portfolio/)

1. A request comes in to /digital-portfolio/
2. Django search in the **settings.py** to the **ROOT\_URLCONF** which is **ROOT\_URLCONF = 'mysite.urls’**
3. Django looks at all of the URLpatterns in the URLconf for the first one that matches /digital-portfolio/
4. Django looks for an app **digital\_portfolio** and in this this app the urls

And from here I get stucked… What is django doing here?

Maybe I should make a seperate topic for this. Please let me know.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/10 "2020-07-18T20:43:37Z")

</div>

The overview for what’s happening here can be found in the [How Django processes a request](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/http/urls/#how-django-processes-a-request) section of the [URL dispatcher](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/http/urls/) page.

Just keep in mind that the URL “digital-portfolio/” has no intrinsic relationship to any app, regardless of the name.  
Django performs the search through the urlpatterns to find one that matches. If the match is for a view, it calls the view. If the match is for an included URL, it then repeats this search with what follows “digital-portfolio/” with the included urlpatterns.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 5:40am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/11 "2020-07-19T05:40:16Z")

</div>

Yes I have read the documentation on the Django site, but I can’t place the information. It is referring to so many modules and references which I doesn’t understand with the knowlegde I have at the moment.

How does the information comes to the views.py? Because the views.py is actual sending the information back to the request right?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 7:14am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/12 "2020-07-19T07:14:42Z")

</div>

Maybe, it’s sinks a little bit in my head now. I got the following folder structure:  
 ![FolderStructure](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/djangoproject/original/2X/3/34c9d9547fc90d04b2c6ce847cc74e93cb84232a.jpeg)

in mysite/urls (urls.py) I have the following code:

```auto
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import include, path

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),

    path('', include('digital_portfolio.urls')),
    path('digital-portfolio/', include('digital_portfolio.urls')),
]

```

In digital\_portfolio/urls I have the following code:

```auto
from django.urls import path

from . import views #the . (dot) means the current "directoy"! and the directory in this case is 
                     # digital_portfolio. So the command looks at the views.py in the digital_porfolio folder

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.index, name='index'),
    path('digital-portfolio/', views.digital_portfolio, name='digital_portfolio'),
    
]

```

But what is the difference between the path codes in the urlpatterns? In bot urls.py files the path in described? Should it not be easier to understand just having one urls.py file?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 10:56am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/13 "2020-07-19T10:56:45Z")

</div>

I’m going to continue to refer you to the Django tutorial. If you work your way _all the way_ through the tutorial, you’ll have the chance to see how all the pieces fit together. Your questions are answered there once you see how a completed application is put together.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/14 "2020-07-19T11:29:28Z")

</div>

I have stopped following the tutorial. I doesn’t understand it anymore from part 3. I going to try searching on the internet.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 11:39am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/15 "2020-07-19T11:39:31Z")

</div>

What is it about the tutorial that you’re not understanding? It is, in fact, part 3 which specifically addresses the questions you asked just prior to this.

(I’ll also add, that the best way to learn this is to work through all the examples and not just try to read it. This means actually typing the examples and running them. There’s a learning process that goes on when you type something instead of just reading it.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 11:42am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/16 "2020-07-19T11:42:48Z")

</div>

The coding is to hard. As well, I have named my folder already digital\_portfolio instead of “polls” which makes it very confusing. Also, I have made my homepage as [http://127.0.0.1:8000/](http://127.0.0.1:8000/) instead of [http://127.0.0.1:8000/polls](http://127.0.0.1:8000/polls) so mostly the codes in the tutorial aren’t corresponding to my needs…

Now the only thing I do is copy/paste from the tutorial and hoping it is working, and this doesn’t feels as learning but wasting my time.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 11:52am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/17 "2020-07-19T11:52:51Z")

</div>

You’re trying to jump ahead, and that’s creating the confusion. If you’re finding the Python difficult to understand, then it might be worth your effort to spend some time with a Python tutorial and work through that to become more comfortable with the language - after all, Django is just Python.

Don’t rush the process - there are a _lot_ of people who have worked on crafting this tutorial over a number of years. It’s teaching the concepts that you will need to learn to apply to your own projects.

You are correct, it’s not _exactly_ what you’re looking to do - but the concepts are all there. The parallels are there and so once you understand _how_ and _why_ the polls application is put together the way it is, you can do the same for your own project.

(That’s also why I, and others as well, recommend that you actually _type_ the examples - it adds a layer of learning that you don’t get by copy/pasting lines of code.)

So take your time, _work_ the examples, and - in the case of your original questions about URL mappings, see how the URLs in the polls app work to create a URL structure within your site. Once you understand that, then you’ll be able to apply that to your own project.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GitDjPy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/gitdjpy/32/1689_2.png) [@GitDjPy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/GitDjPy)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 12:10pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/indexpage-homepage-with-subpages/3499/18 "2020-07-19T12:10:26Z")

</div>

Ok.

I will start a new topic due to how to setup from scratch a new project…