IntelliJ IDEA: Define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE

Question

IDE: IntelliJ IDEA
OS: Windows 7
When use Run option in IntelliJ with configured Django server:

Then this command is executed:

runnerw.exe D:\Kursy\VirtualEnv\env1\Scripts\python.exe D:/Kursy/Django/manage.py runserver 8000

And I getting error:

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Requested setting USE_I18N, but settings are not configured. You must either define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call settings.configure() before accessing settings.

I can run Django app with Windows CMD
First by starting my Virtual python environment:

D:\Kursy\VirtualEnv\env1\Scripts>activate.bat

Then by navigating to Django app directory:

(env1) D:\Kursy\VirtualEnv\env1\Scripts>cd D:\Kursy\Django
(env1) D:\Kursy\Django>python manage.py runserver
Validating models...

0 errors found
May 11, 2014 - 16:25:06
Django version 1.6.4, using settings 'first_django.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CTRL-BREAK.

Everything works fine. I don't want to set global enviroment variable in Windows so I understand that it should be set in Run Configuratuion for Run option in IntelliJ - am I right?

Answer 1

Yes you're right, but you're missing that DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE must have a value (which is the settings module file. the line should look like this:

DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=your_proj.settings;.....

Answer 2

@radev answer works for settings for specific Run Configuration.
There is alternative way to avoid DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE error in IntelliJ Run
Going to File>ProjectStructure... (or just Ctrl+Shift+Alt+s) and adding reference to project settings.py here:

sets value for DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE variable for project in IntelliJ so Run works with default settings.