1. Download the starting .zip files from this lessons resources.

2. Unzip and open the project in PyCharm. PyCharm may prompt you to create a new virtual environment and install the dependencies listed in the requirements.txt. Agree and click OK.

This should do the trick. However, if you still see any red underlines in your main.py then tell PyCharm to check the virtual environment and dependencies again by going to File -> Reload All from Disk.

3. (Troubleshooting) If you don't get prompted set up a virtual environment, set one up manually by adding a new Python interpreter.

You can also find this under File -> Settings -> Project -> Python Interpreter. Click Add Interpreter -> Add Local Interpreter.

Leave the default settings and click OK

Do not tick "inherit global site-packages". When you click OK, you will create a new venv folder in your project. All of the project requirements and packages will be installed into this venv folder. This keeps the packages isolated from global settings and your operating system as well as all other projects. This is the ideal setup for all Python projects.

4. (Troubleshooting) If you still see red underlines in the main.py, you are missing the required packages (imports). To install all the required packages you can open the Terminal in PyCharm (bottom left).

On Windows type:

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

On MacOS type:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

5. Look around the project. The starting files include an SQLite database called posts.db. I created this in the same way we created databases before. The database includes some sample posts and we will be using it instead of the npoint JSON bucket.

Take a look a the database using DB Viewer and familiarise yourself with the fields in the database.