Django debug toolbar is a nifty little utility to allow you to examine what’s going on under the hood. It’s a fairly easy install and gives quite a lot of info.
InstallationI’m not going to waste your time (or mine) with details of how to install the debug toolbar. The instructions are here .
I will, however, point out that the “tips” page starts with “ The toolbar isn’t displayed! “, which helped me get running. My problem was a lack of <body> </body> tags on my template. (side note: I’m wondering if something like bootstrap would provide those surrounding tags automatically.)
Using The ToolbarThe use of the toolbar is pretty obvious. The information is pretty clearly laid out on each of the sections.
The section I found the most interesting was the SQL tab (shown below), which not only shows which queries were done for the given page, but also how long each took.
The page I instrumented has a task which updates several fields in the database the first time it is loaded on any given date. Using this tab it was clear how much of the page load time was taken up in this update process.
Not only would this be handy for performance troubleshooting, but it’s also instructional to see which python statements turn into queries and how.
ConclusionAs a fan of development tools, Django Debug Toolbar certainly makes me happy not only for its features, but also its simplicity in use and design. I would definitely recommend it