CS 2340 · Objects & Design · Web Development with Django
A Django 5 full-stack storefront, built chapter by chapter and deployed live.
GT Movies Store — a full-stack web application I developed using Python, Django, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, & SQLite; it provides users with an ability to search for and browse movies, create accounts, login, view movie details, write reviews, manage those reviews, report inappropriate content (reviews), use shopping cart features, make purchases & view past orders.
Models define movies, reviews and orders; views hold request logic; templates extend a shared base layout.
Built-in auth handles registration, login, logout, password hashing and per-view access control.
The cart lives in the request session, so browsing stays fast and no order rows are written until purchase.
Registered models give staff a full CRUD console for users, movies, reviews and orders out of the box.
What it does
Every major area of the app at a glance — from discovery to deployment.
Rubric requirement
The 21 required stories, grouped by area. Each card names the screen, the implementation behind it, and its status.
“As a visitor, I want to see information about the app so I understand what it offers.”
Screen · Home / About page
The Home template extends base.html and presents the GT Movies Store purpose, a hero banner and an About page describing the catalog, reviews and ordering features.
Accounts“As a new user, I want to register for an account.”
Screen · Sign Up page
A Django CustomUserCreationForm renders styled fields with server-side validation; on success the user record is created and redirected to Login.
Accounts“As a returning user, I want to log in and log out securely.”
Screen · Login / Logout
Built on django.contrib.auth with LoginView, session cookies and a logout POST action. The navbar swaps between Login/Sign Up and the username dropdown.
Accounts“As a user, I want to view my account details.”
Screen · Account dropdown / Orders page
Authenticated templates use {% if user.is_authenticated %} to reveal the account menu linking to Cart and Order history.
Accounts“As a shopper, I want to browse the full movie catalog.”
Screen · Movies list page
The movies.list view queries Movie.objects.all() and renders a responsive Bootstrap card grid with poster images, names and prices.
Catalog & Search“As a shopper, I want to open a movie and see its details.”
Screen · Movie detail page
movies.show resolves the movie by primary key and shows poster, description, price, an add-to-cart quantity form and the review thread.
Catalog & Search“As a shopper, I want to search movies by title.”
Screen · Movies list search bar
A GET form posts a search term handled with Movie.objects.filter(name__icontains=search), returning a filtered grid and an empty-state message.
Catalog & Search“As a shopper, I want to add a movie to my cart.”
Screen · Movie detail → Add to cart
A POST writes {movie_id: quantity} into request.session['cart'], so the cart survives page navigation without a database write.
Cart & Orders“As a shopper, I want to add several different movies to my cart.”
Screen · Cart page
The session dictionary accumulates multiple keys; the cart view rebuilds movie objects from those IDs and computes a running total.
Cart & Orders“As a shopper, I want to view the items and total price in my cart.”
Screen · Cart page
A table lists each title, unit price, quantity and line total, with the grand total calculated in the view helper.
Cart & Orders“As a shopper, I want to remove an item or clear the whole cart.”
Screen · Cart page controls
Per-row Remove buttons pop the movie key from the session cart; Clear cart resets it to an empty dict and redirects back.
Cart & Orders“As a shopper, I want to purchase the items in my cart.”
Screen · Checkout confirmation
Purchase creates an Order plus Item rows inside a single request, empties the session cart and renders the order confirmation.
Cart & Orders“As a user, I want to see my order history and what I spent.”
Screen · Orders page
Order.objects.filter(user=request.user) lists each order with date, item breakdown and total, giving a simple expense record.
Cart & Orders“As a user, I want to write a review of a movie.”
Screen · Movie detail → Create review
A ReviewForm bound to the logged-in user and movie saves a Review with comment and date; anonymous users are prompted to log in.
Reviews & Moderation“As a user, I want to read all reviews for a movie.”
Screen · Movie detail review list
Reviews are pulled through the movie's related manager and rendered newest-first with author and timestamp.
Reviews & Moderation“As an author, I want to edit my own review.”
Screen · Edit review page
The edit view checks request.user == review.user before pre-filling the form, so users cannot alter reviews they did not write.
Reviews & Moderation“As an author, I want to delete my own review.”
Screen · Delete review action
A guarded POST deletes the review and redirects to the movie detail page with the thread refreshed.
Reviews & Moderation“As a user, I want to report an inappropriate review.”
Screen · Report review action
A report flag is recorded against the review so staff can review flagged content from the Django admin queue.
Reviews & Moderation“As an administrator, I want to manage users, movies, reviews and orders.”
Screen · Django admin dashboard
Every model is registered in admin.py, giving staff full create, read, update and delete control behind an is_staff login.
Admin Suite“As an administrator, I want to add or retire catalog items quickly.”
Screen · Admin → Movies
The Movie admin exposes name, price, description and image so the storefront can be curated without a code deploy.
Admin Suite“As any user, I want the site to work on phone, tablet and desktop.”
Screen · Every page
Bootstrap's responsive grid, a collapsing navbar and fluid card columns keep layouts readable from 360px upward.
Responsive DesignHow I worked
An iterative, feature-at-a-time workflow — with a clear rule for what to do whenever I got stuck.
I followed Correa & Lim's Django 5 for the Impatient chapter by chapter, building one modular app at a time — home, movies, cart, accounts — and committing after each working feature rather than in one large push.
Before writing a view I listed the user stories it had to satisfy, then checked each one off against the running site. That kept scope honest and made the final walkthrough straightforward.
When something broke I worked through the official Django documentation first, then Stack Overflow, GeeksforGeeks, W3Schools and the course discussion forum — all non-generative sources permitted by the assignment.
Deployment meant creating a virtual environment, pointing the WSGI file at the project, setting ALLOWED_HOSTS, running migrations and collecting static files with collectstatic before reloading the web app.
Each work session was screen-recorded through Microsoft Teams and stored on OneDrive, producing a timestamped record of the build for the process deliverable.
See it running