What’s important will vary depending on the type of project you’re working on. An API project with a Vue front end for example will not need much expertise with templates.
In general though, I would say, above all, understand how databases work, what your requirements are, and how to structure your models well. If you can do this upfront, it will save you a lot of heartache later on. This isn’t really Django-specific, but I think it’s true anyway.
- How to use the template language and how to know and remember the keywords which can be used?
- How to choose the correct (class-based) views? Would I first design the functionality I want (in theory) and then dive into the docs to find out if there is already a class-based view for that approach - or how do you work?
- What’s a reasonable approach to design the admin and to pick the best options from the huge documentation?
You need to just pick a small project really and build it. Most of what you’re asking here will kind of fall into place when you try and do it for yourself (i.e. not just following a tutorial).
As for admin, I suggest you just take the out of the box functionality to start with, and leave the advanced stuff until later.
For CBVs, this is a great reference page:
- How can I use a certain features of django without knowing that they exist?
- How will I find these features while I need them (and before I’ve built a workaround)?
Just do it! Seriously, build something and you’ll encounter things you want to do as you want to do them. Other than that, maybe pick some questions off StackOverflow that you don’t know the answer to and try and answer them - I find trying to help others is a good way to increase the breadth of my own knowledge.
Docs are great, here is good, StackOverflow, Python slack has a django channel, there’s a discord. All are places you can ask questions if you want to do something specific and can’t find a tutuorial/SO question/docs reference. I’d usually start with the docs though, and they’re pretty good in general, though occasionally I’ve found the info I wanted was a little buried.