Soft Django Theme - How to use it (Free Product)
Tags: django, opensource, dashboards
Published: 2022-09-28 10:07:59

---
title: Soft Django Theme - How to use it (Free Product)
published: true
description: This article explains how to create a new Django project and later, enhance the UI with a free theme: Soft UI Dashboard
tags: django, opensource, dashboards
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/mnynscx51q1hfvvh7c5q.jpg
canonical_url: https://blog.appseed.us/soft-django-theme-how-to-use-it/
---
Hello Coders! 

This article explains how to enhance the UI for a newly created [Django](https://appseed.us/apps/django/) project by using **Soft UI Dashboard**, an `open-source theme` released under the MIT license on GitHub. The theme can be installed using PIP and the activation requires a single line to be added to the configuration. Thanks for reading!

- 👉 [Django Admin Soft](https://pypi.org/project/django-admin-soft-dashboard/) - `PyPi` page
- 👉 [Django Admin Soft](https://github.com/app-generator/blog-django-install-theme) - the code sample for this article  

In the end, the default Django UI will have a modern, mobile-friendly UI styled with Bootstrap 5 and Dark-Mode. 

![Django Soft Theme - Login Page (open-source)](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/913dff8t5ffhegg7pk6u.png)

---

## ✨ Create the project

To understand and explain the whole process, a new Django project is started from scratch using the terminal.

> 👉 **Create the directory**

```bash
$ mkdir my-django-project
$ cd my-django-project
```

> 👉 **Install the dependencies** - only Django for now

```bash
$ virtualenv env
$ source env/bin/activate
$ pip install Django
```

> 👉 **Create the Django project**

```bash
$ django-admin startproject core . 
```

This command will create a new folder named `core` in the current project directory and the usual `manage.py`, main Django script.

> 👉 **Start the app**

```bash
$ python manage.py migrate
$ python manage.py runserver
```

At this point, we can visit the app in the browser and we should see the default splash screen that Django serves on 1st install. 

![Django - The Default Screen](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/97olzb2s4s6r06qe11qh.png)

---

> 👉 **Create a superuser**

The admin section, the one styled by our new theme, is accessible only to the superusers. Let's create one using this command:

```bash
$ python manage.py createsuperuser
```

At this point, we can access the `admin` section that uses a minimal style. 

![Django - The Default Admin UI.](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/el3c9dwg69vznmiiud7q.png)

---

## ✨ Install Soft UI Design

The product is published on [PyPi](https://pypi.org/project/django-admin-soft-dashboard/), the official platform for Python packages.

```bash
$ pip install django-admin-soft-dashboard 
```

After theme installation, we need to inform Django to use it and this requires a minor configuration update.

> 👉 **Configure Django** to use the new design

Add `admin_soft` application to the `INSTALLED_APPS` settings of your Django project `settings.py` file (note it should be before `django.contrib.admin`):

```python
    INSTALLED_APPS = (
        ...
        'admin_soft.apps.AdminSoftDashboardConfig',   # <-- NEW
        'django.contrib.admin',
    )
```

> 👉 **Start the app** and access the new admin design

```bash
$ python manage.py runserver
``` 

![Django Soft Admin - Edit Users Page](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ho5zbrn4km2elcx27ir4.png)

--- 

As mentioned in the first paragraph, the sample source used to create and install the theme can be found on GitHub. **Thanks for reading!**

> For more resources and support, please access:

- 👉 More [Django](https://appseed.us/apps/django/) products crafted by `AppSeed`
- 👉 Ask for [support](https://appseed.us/support/) or download [free starters](https://appseed.us/apps/open-source/)