Tisha Patience Malongo — Developer Portfolio

A modern, dark-themed developer portfolio built with Python, Django, Tailwind CSS, HTML, and CSS. Features a light/dark mode toggle, animated hero section, skill tags, project showcase with image uploads, and a working contact form — all managed via Django admin.

---

Features

• Light / dark mode toggle (preference saved in browser)
• Typing hero animation
• Scroll-reveal animations
• Skill tags by category (no progress bars — clean and honest)
• Dynamic project cards with image support (managed via Django admin)
• Contact form that saves messages to the database and sends email
• Django admin panel to manage all content
• Secrets managed with python-decouple (no passwords in code)

---

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	Python, Django
Frontend	HTML5, Tailwind CSS (CDN), Vanilla JS
Database	SQLite (dev)
Styling	Inter font, CSS custom properties
Package manager	uv
Deployment	PythonAnywhere

---

Quick Start

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Tisha-patience/portfolio.git
cd portfolio

2. Install uv (if you don't have it)

pip install uv

3. Create and activate the virtual environment

uv venv
source .venv/Scripts/activate # Windows (Git Bash)source .venv/bin/activate # macOS / Linux

4. Install dependencies

uv sync

5. Set up environment variables

Create a .env file in the project root:

SECRET_KEY=your-django-secret-key
DEBUG=True
EMAIL_HOST_USER=your@gmail.com
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=your-gmail-app-password

Never commit .env to GitHub — it is already in .gitignore.

6. Run migrations

uv run manage.py migrate

7. Create an admin user

uv run manage.py createsuperuser

8. Run the development server

uv run manage.py runserver

Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000 to see the portfolio. Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin to manage content.

---

Managing Content

Projects

Go to /admin → Projects → Add Project.

• Set Featured = True for the top 3 (shown as cards with images)
• Other projects appear as a compact list below
• Upload a project image directly from the admin panel

Skills

Go to /admin → Skills → Add Skill. Categories: languages, frameworks, tools, databases

Contact messages

Go to /admin → Contact Messages to read and manage messages sent through the contact form.

---

Email Setup

To receive real emails from the contact form, add your Gmail SMTP credentials to .env:

EMAIL_HOST_USER=your@gmail.com
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=your-16-character-app-password

Generate a Gmail App Password at: Google Account → Security → App Passwords.

---

Deploying to PythonAnywhere

Before deploying, export a requirements.txt from uv:

uv export --no-hashes > requirements.txt

Then follow the standard PythonAnywhere Django deployment guide.

---

Project Structure

portfolio/
├── config/
│ ├── settings.py # Project settings (reads from .env)
│ ├── urls.py
│ └── wsgi.py
├── core/
│ ├── models.py # Project, Skill, ContactMessage
│ ├── views.py # Single home view
│ ├── forms.py # ContactForm
│ ├── admin.py # Admin configuration
│ └── urls.py
├── templates/
│ └── core/
│ └── home.html # Main template
├── static/
│ ├── css/style.css # Custom styles + light mode
│ ├── js/main.js # Animations & interactions
│ └── images/ # Profile photo
├── media/ # Uploaded project images
├── .env # Secrets (never commit this)
├── .gitignore
├── pyproject.toml # uv dependencies
├── manage.py
└── seed_data.py # Optional sample data loader