Using Django minus the web server

Question

I'm writing a syndication client, with the aim being to have a client for devices, and a web site that has the same functionality. I shall develop the website using Django - this is already decided; the client shall be written in python with both a CLI and a PyQt4 GUI. I have been writing the clinet first, and it's fairly database-heavy, as everything is cached to enable it to be read while offline.

It struck me today that it would make sense to use Django models for my application, to reduce the repetition of effort between the client and the website. My question is how easy it is to seperate this, and how much of Django I will need in my client to use Django's models. AFAIK I should not need to run the server, but what else is needed? I had an idea of generating the same html for my client as the website, but showing it withing Qt widgets rather than serving pages for a browser.

Has anyone tried this sort of thing before? I'm starting on this already, but it would be good to get a warning of potential dead-ends or things that will create a maintainance nightmare...

Answer 1

Read up on standalone Django scripts and you'll be on your path to victory. Basically all you're really doing is referencing the Django settings.py (which Django expects) and then using models without web views or urls.

If all you're really interested in is using Django's ORM to manage your models and database interaction, you might want to consider using SQLAlchemy instead.

Answer 2

You'll still have to run the Django app as a web server, but you can restrict it to serve to only localhost or something. And sure, you can use QtWebKit as the client.