# Apps in Django and starting with Views

Each application you write in Django consists of a Python package that follows a certain convention. Django comes with a utility that automatically generates the basic directory structure of an app, so you can focus on writing code rather than creating directories.
> Taken from https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/intro/tutorial01/

> An app is a Web application that does something – e.g., a Weblog system, a database of public records or a small poll app. A project is a collection of configuration and apps for a particular website. A project can contain multiple apps. An app can be in multiple projects.

## Creating a Blogs App

So, like mentioned above, Django comes with a utility that automatically generated the basic directory structure of an app. So, to do that, run the following in the terminal

```shell
python3 manage.py startapp blogs
```
Now, your folder structure should be like follows
```
.
├── blogs
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── migrations
│   │   └── __init__.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── tests.py
│   └── views.py
├── db.sqlite3
├── livecode247
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __pycache__
│   │   ├── __init__.cpython-38.pyc
│   │   ├── settings.cpython-38.pyc
│   │   ├── urls.cpython-38.pyc
│   │   └── wsgi.cpython-38.pyc
│   ├── asgi.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
└── manage.py
```

Now, to make Django know, that we have created an app and we want it to be recognised by the project, we go to `settings.py` and update the INSTALLED_APPS variable to look like this

```py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'blogs', ## New Line
]
```

## Writing your first view

Write the following in the `blogs/views.py`
```py
from django.http import HttpResponse

def index(request):
    return HttpResponse("Hello")
```

So, first of all we are important `HttpResponse` class from `django.http` module. This is basically to give a response when a person hits the url which we are going to map in the just a second.

Then we create a function called `index` which takes in a parameter called `request` by default. This is needed for a lot of stuff, like finding **URL Params, request body** etc.

Then inside the function we return a `HttpResponse` of `Hello`

## Mapping our url

To call the view, we need to map it to a URL - and for this we need a URLconf.

To create a URLconf in the polls directory, create a file called urls.py. Your app directory should now look like this

```
.
├── blogs
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __pycache__
│   │   ├── __init__.cpython-38.pyc
│   │   ├── admin.cpython-38.pyc
│   │   └── models.cpython-38.pyc
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── migrations
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── __pycache__
│   │       └── __init__.cpython-38.pyc
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── tests.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── views.py
├── db.sqlite3
├── livecode247
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __pycache__
│   │   ├── __init__.cpython-38.pyc
│   │   ├── settings.cpython-38.pyc
│   │   ├── urls.cpython-38.pyc
│   │   └── wsgi.cpython-38.pyc
│   ├── asgi.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
└── manage.py
```

In the `blogs/urls.py` add the following code

```py
from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path("/", views.index, name="index"),
]
```

1. In line 1, we are importing `path` function from `django.urls` module
2. In line 2, we are importing `views.py` from . (which means the current directory)
3. In line 4, we set a variable called `urlpatterns`. This is a default vriable which Django looks for to set urls
4. In line 5, we set a path, with url as "/" (that basically http://yourwebsite.com) which points to `index` function inside `views.py` which we set some time ago, and then we give it a name. Naming URL's is pretty useful in Django which we'll see when we start making templates


### Include URL
Notice that there is a `urls.py` file inside the `livecode247` directory as well. That is an autogenerated file made by Django. 
What we need to do is include our urls inside `blogs` app inside this so that Django knows that it needs to use those urls for a specific path. We can do that as follows

1. Add `include` as an import from `django.urls`. So your line 17 should look like this
```py
from django.urls import path, include
```

2. Add a path as follows
```py
path("blogs/", include('blogs.urls')),
```
So, what we are doing is, that when a person hits the `blogs` route like http://127.0.0.1:8000/blogs we make Django use the urls.py file inside blogs app.

So, now if we go to http://127.0.0.1:8000/blogs you should see this

![Screenshot 2020-12-29 at 1.05.22 AM.jpg](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1609184125448/vfrfrVlv4.jpeg)

That's it for this episode! In the next one we are going to talk about how to use models and setup our sqlite database! Till then, Stay Tuned!