How to automatically reload Django when files chan

Question

How to automatically monitor .py, .js and other source code files to restart a Django (or any other for that matter) application and refresh the browser when the source changes? This is possible in Rails using guard, in JS apps using grunt-contrib-watch and the accompanying livereload browser plugin. How can I do it for Python web apps such as Django?

I start my Django server with

foreman start

this is my Procfile:

web: newrelic-admin run-program gunicorn app.wsgi

as suggested by the Heroku/Newrelic docs or the usual

python manage.py runserver

The runserver method does restart the server on .py source changes, but not the browser and doesn't watch other files - I could run guard alongside it, but then I have two processes I have to take care of, whereas grunt or rake offer unified interfaces. I'm wondering what is the recommended way of doing this among Python developers?

I could not find any detailed, comprehensive documentation on this - only incomplete discussions here and there.

Answer 1

Using python manage.py runserver is what most use. You'll have to use another tool like: http://livejs.com/ to refresh the browser itself since Django really isn't aware of it.

Answer 2

Install this django app:

pip install django-livesync

On your django settings file add something like:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    '...',
    'livesync',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    '...',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'livesync.core.middleware.DjangoLiveSyncMiddleware',
)

Beware to register 'livesync' before 'django.contrib.staticfiles' if you are using it.

Now, just start your development server:

python manage.py runserver

Check this out for more details: https://github.com/fabiogibson/django-livesync

Answer 3

You don't need a browser extension to accomplish auto refreshes. Take a look at https://github.com/tjwalch/django-livereload-server.

I posted a more extensive answer about this at https://stackoverflow.com/a/36961244/2950621

It works by using a manage.py command (server) to monitor your .js and other static files. The server sends a signal to the browser via websockets. There is some client-side code injected on every page. The injected code responds to the signal and refresh the browser.

Answer 4

Frustrated with all the explicit refreshes, I created a browser extension, for both Firefox and Chrome, to automate this. The extension works with a Django app that you add to your app list in INSTALLED_APPS. You can find out more at the github repo.

Though the repo has entire source code, the extensions are also available in the respective web store. Just search for 'Django Auto Refresh'. With these, you just need to copy the app into our project's folder and include it via INSTALLED_APPS. I wanted to add a pip setup script, but haven't found the time to do it.

HTH. Apologies if this sounds like self promotion.