Django Ads Website

A Django-based classified advertisements web application for managing categories, advertisements, advertiser information, images, and user accounts.

Overview

Django Ads Website is a web application built with Django for creating and managing classified advertisements.

The project provides a structured backend for:

• User registration and authentication
• Advertisement management
• Hierarchical categories
• Advertisement images
• Advertiser contact information
• Location information
• Advertisement activation/deactivation
• MySQL database integration

The project is designed as an educational and practical Django web application demonstrating how a classified ads platform can be structured using Django's models, forms, views, templates, authentication system, and ORM.

Features

User Management

• Custom Django user model
• User registration
• Login and logout
• Authentication-based navigation
• Additional user information such as age

Advertisement Management

Each advertisement can contain:

• Title
• Description
• Keywords
• Category
• URL
• Advertiser name or company
• Phone number
• Mobile number
• Instagram ID
• WhatsApp number
• State
• City
• Address
• Active/inactive status
• Creation and modification timestamps

Categories

The application supports hierarchical categories using a self-referencing category model.

Each category can have:

• Title
• Description
• Parent category
• Child categories
• Related advertisements

Advertisement Images

Advertisements can have multiple uploaded images.

The application also supports assigning a main image to an advertisement.

Location Information

Advertisements contain structured location information including:

• State
• City
• Address

This provides a foundation for building location-based advertisement browsing in future versions.

Project Structure

Django-Ads-website/
├── ads/
│   ├── migrations/
│   ├── templates/
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── tests.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── views.py
│
├── config/
│   ├── migrations/
│   ├── asgi.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
│
├── core/
│   ├── migrations/
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── forms.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── tests.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── views.py
│
├── templates/
│   ├── registration/
│   ├── _base.html
│   └── home.html
│
├── manage.py
└── requirements.txt

Technology Stack

• Python
• Django 5.0.3
• MySQL
• Django ORM
• Django Authentication
• Django Templates
• HTML
• CSS

Project dependencies are defined in requirements.txt.

Data Model

The main domain models are:

Category

Represents advertisement categories and supports parent/child relationships.

Ad

Represents an individual classified advertisement and contains the main advertisement information, advertiser details, contact information, and location.

AdImage

Stores images associated with advertisements.

CustomUser

Extends Django's default user model with additional user information.

Configuration

The project uses environment variables for sensitive configuration values such as:

• Django secret key
• Database name
• Database username
• Database password

This keeps sensitive configuration outside the source code.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/AliValizade/Django-Ads-website.git
cd Django-Ads-website

Create a virtual environment:

python -m venv venv

Activate the virtual environment.

Windows

venv\Scripts\activate

Linux / macOS

source venv/bin/activate

Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the project root and configure the required environment variables:

DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key

DATABASE_NAME=your-database-name
DATABASE_USER=your-database-user
DATABASE_PASSWORD=your-database-password

Configure your MySQL server according to your local environment.

Database Setup

Run migrations:

python manage.py migrate

Create an administrator account:

python manage.py createsuperuser

Run the Development Server

python manage.py runserver

Then open:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/

Django Admin

The Django admin interface can be used to manage:

• Users
• Categories
• Advertisements
• Advertisement images

Create a superuser first and then access:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/

Learning Objectives

This project demonstrates practical Django concepts including:

• Django project structure
• Django applications
• Models and relationships
• Self-referencing foreign keys
• Custom user models
• Model forms
• Class-based views
• Authentication
• Django admin
• File and image uploads
• URL routing
• Templates
• MySQL integration
• Environment-based configuration
• Django ORM

Future Improvements

Possible improvements for future versions include:

• Advanced advertisement search
• Filtering by category and location
• Pagination
• User dashboard
• Advertisement creation/editing from the frontend
• Favorites and saved advertisements
• Advertisement expiration
• Advanced image management
• Search by keywords
• REST API
• Better frontend/UI
• Responsive design
• Advertisement statistics
• Moderation workflow
• SEO improvements

Project Status

This repository represents an educational and practical Django web application and can serve as a foundation for developing a more complete classified advertisements platform.

Author

Ali Valizade

Python Developer | Django | AI, NLP & Automation | University Instructor

GitHub: AliValizade