Flask Essential Training

Course details

Flask's popularity continues to grow across the web development, software engineering, and data science communities, due to its simplicity and flexibility. In this course, software engineer Natasha Ferguson equips you with the skills to build lightweight web applications using Flask, and meet the current demand for quick, scalable web solutions. Explore Flask as you step through the development of a Health Tracker Dashboard. Learn about Flask’s core features, including routes, templating, form handling, database integration, and data visualization, and how to deploy an application. The value of building a Health Tracker Dashboard is in empowering you to actively engage with and understand your daily health routines. By inputting data on exercise, meals, and sleep, you can visualize your habits through charts and graphs, which makes it easier to identify patterns and areas for improvement.

Learning objectives
Learner skills acquired: Flask, Jinja templating, WTForms, SQLAlchemy, Matplotlib/Plotly, Heroku deployment.

Concepts

Introduction

Build a full stack app in Python with Flask
Prerequisites

Introduction to Flask

What is Flask
Comparing Flask and Django
Project step 1 - Intro to the Health Tracker Dashboard project

Setting Up Your Flask Environment

Setting up your Flask environment and first application
Accessing the code repository on GitHub
Project step 2 - Project directory and structure setup

Flask Routes and Views

Routing basics
View functions
URL parameters
Project step 3 - Defining routes and creating view functions

Jinja Templating in Flask

Introduction to Jinja templating
Template inheritance
Project step 4 - Creating templates and implementing inheritance

Forms and Form Handling

Form creation
Form validation
Form submission
Project step 5 - Designing the data entry form using Flask-WTF
Project step 6 - Adding validation to the data form

Database Operations with Flask-SQLAlchemy

Setting up SQLAlchemy
Model creation
Conceptual overview of create and read
Create and read operations
Conceptual overview of update and delete
Update and delete operations
Project step 7 - Integrating the SQLite database with Flask
Project step 8 - Implementing create and read operations

Data Visualization

Chart basics
Setting up and seeding the database
Creating a chart from database data
Project step 9 - Generating charts for visualizing data

Conclusion and Deployment

Deploying to Vercel
Project step 10 - Prepare for deployment
Project step 11 - Deploying the project

Conclusion

Extending your Flask knowledge