📰 Django Blogging App

A full-featured Blogging Platform built with Django REST Framework, PostgreSQL, and Docker, featuring JWT authentication, filters, nested comments, Celery background tasks for email notifications, and an admin dashboard with advanced filtering.

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🚀 Features

🔐 Authentication

• JWT-based authentication (Access & Refresh tokens).
• Token blacklisting & rotation support.
• Secure login, registration, and logout endpoints.

📝 Blogging System

• CRUD operations for posts.
• Only authors can edit or delete their posts.
• Nested comment system (reply to comments).
• Like/unlike functionality (one like per user per post).
• Full-text and partial search using Postgres SearchVector.

🔍 Filtering and Search

• Custom PostFilter class using django-filter.

• Filter posts by:

  • Title
  • Author email
  • Content
  • Date range
  • Likes range
  • Comments range
  • Has comments (boolean)

• Combined full-text search using q parameter.

• Admin filters for title, author, date, likes, and comments.

📨 Email Notifications (Celery + Redis)

• Uses Celery task queue and Redis as broker.
• Sends asynchronous email notifications when a user comments on a post.
• Background processing ensures non-blocking user experience.

⚙️ Admin Panel

• Custom admin filters and search for posts.
• Comment and Like management.
• Inline display of related comments & likes.

🐳 Dockerized Setup

• Complete Docker environment for local development.

• Containers:

  • web → Django + Gunicorn
  • db → PostgreSQL
  • redis → Redis server for Celery
  • worker → Celery worker

• Easy setup using docker-compose.

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🧱 Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	Django, Django REST Framework
Database	PostgreSQL
Async Tasks	Celery, Redis
Auth	JWT (SimpleJWT)
Containerization	Docker, Docker Compose
Filtering/Search	django-filters, SearchVector (PostgreSQL)
Testing Tools	Postman, curl

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🧰 Installation & Setup

1️⃣ Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/saddarudin-nextgeni/django-blog-app.git
cd django-blog-app

2️⃣ Create .env file

Example environment variables:

SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key
DEBUG=True
DATABASE_NAME=blogdb
DATABASE_USER=bloguser
DATABASE_PASSWORD=blogpassword
DATABASE_HOST=db
DATABASE_PORT=5432
EMAIL_BACKEND=django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend
EMAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_PORT=587
EMAIL_HOST_USER=[email protected]
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=your_password
EMAIL_USE_TLS=True

3️⃣ Run with Docker Compose

docker-compose up --build

It will start:

• Django API
• PostgreSQL
• Redis
• Celery Worker

4️⃣ Run database migrations

docker-compose exec web python manage.py migrate

5️⃣ Create superuser

docker-compose exec web python manage.py createsuperuser

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🔥 API Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description	Auth Required
POST	/api/auth/register/	Register new user	❌
POST	/api/auth/login/	Obtain JWT token	❌
POST	/api/auth/token/refresh/	Refresh access token	❌
GET	/api/posts/	List all posts (with filters/search)	✅/❌
GET	/api/posts/mine/	List posts by logged-in user	✅
POST	/api/posts/create/	Create new post	✅
GET	/api/posts/<id>/	Get post detail (with nested comments)	✅/❌
PUT/PATCH	/api/posts/<id>/edit/	Update post (only author)	✅
DELETE	/api/posts/<id>/edit/	Delete post (only author)	✅
GET/POST	/api/posts/<id>/comments/	List/Create comment	✅
PUT/PATCH/DELETE	/api/comments/<id>/edit/	Edit/Delete comment (only author)	✅

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🧮 Filters Usage Examples

1️⃣ Basic filters

GET /api/posts/?title=django
GET /api/posts/[email protected]
GET /api/posts/?date_from=2025-10-01&date_to=2025-10-15

2️⃣ Range filters

GET /api/posts/?min_likes=5&max_likes=20
GET /api/posts/?min_comments=2

3️⃣ Boolean filters

GET /api/posts/?has_comments=true

4️⃣ Combined search

GET /api/posts/?q=how to django

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🔄 Background Email Notification Example

When a user comments on a post, a Celery task is triggered:

@shared_task
def send_comment_notification(post_id, comment_author):
    post = Post.objects.get(id=post_id)
    subject = f"New comment on your post '{post.title}'"
    message = f"{comment_author} commented on your post."
    send_mail(subject, message, EMAIL_HOST_USER, [post.author.email])

This task runs asynchronously using Redis as the message broker.

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🧠 Key Concepts Implemented

• Custom Permissions: IsAuthorOrReadOnly to restrict edit/delete.
• Django Filters for range/date/boolean filtering.
• SearchVector + SearchRank for full-text search.
• Celery tasks for non-blocking email notifications.
• Custom Admin filters and UI enhancements.
• Dockerized environment for easy deployment.

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🧑‍💻 Development Commands

# Run Celery Worker
docker-compose exec web celery -A core worker -l info

# Run Django Shell
docker-compose exec web python manage.py shell

# Collect static files (if needed)
docker-compose exec web python manage.py collectstatic

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🧩 Project Structure

blog_project/
│
├── blog/                      # Main app
│   ├── models.py              # Post, Comment, Like models
│   ├── serializers.py         # DRF serializers
│   ├── views.py               # API endpoints
│   ├── filters.py             # Custom filters
│   ├── tasks.py               # Celery tasks for email
│   ├── admin.py               # Admin filters
│   ├── urls.py                # API routes
│
├── users/                     # Custom user model & auth
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── serializers.py
│   ├── views.py
│
├── core/
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── celery.py
│   ├── urls.py
│
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── requirements.txt
└── README.md